I constantly thank god for email filters

[earthbelow]

So I reached my breaking point today. I've finally grown tired of the stupid, mind-numbingly propagandized forwards my relatives have been sending me via email. I stopped reading them, even. This is what happens when you give devout southern Republicans access to the interwebs.

I swear to god, these things make fan_wank look like the bastion of intellect. And there's basically only five topics they cover:

1) How God, Country, and President Bush are the best things ever and those queer liberal Godhating babyeating freedomloving freaks and immigrants are destroying our pretty white nation. Dammit, America used to be so wonderful before all these other people started demanding rights and respect. Why can't we go back to segregation and beating up gay people and nuking any country we don't like.

Why are they trying to take away our right to oppress other people? Oh the HUMANITY!

2) I'm an overweight, unhappy, middle-class soccer mom. Here are some trite jokes to make me feel better about that. Hahaha, isn't being a woman so funny? Aren't men funny? Isn't the world much funnier when we stereotype everything?

3) Here are pictures which have circulated among every man, woman, and child on the planet twice. But I thought you'd think they were funny and original.

4) Here's a sappy story that would make the Chicken Soup for the Soul people vomit sucrose. It's usually in support of some pretend cause that isn't nearly as important as we make it out to be. Oh, and here are cutesy fonts in unreadable colors, just to add that sacchrine oomph to it.

5) Oh noes! The internet (and the rest of the world) is full of danger. Pass this on and warn people about these things which are completely unsubstantiated and probably not true.

Why, oh, why did I give them the email address I actually use? I should give them my spam email address instead.

Comments

[br0ken_dolly]

i lol'd at all 5. and i'd like to suggest a #6: [insert reason as entertainment or a horrible cause here] and forward to 500 friends and a) a cute bunny rabbit will pop up on your screen! or b) microsoft will find out and send you a check for $1 for each friend!

im tempted to create a spammyforward tag/filter in gmail and put everything into junk mail or just a junk folder so in case i DO someday want to read about republican fake sob story babyloving wank... i have the option. hmph. tho stuff seems to have calmed down since i stopped responding to it. took several years tho for them to get the damn hint.

[thousandpages.livejournal.com]

The thing is? My family really believes in the things these forwards are saying. I swear I should post the forward that broke the camel's back. Just so people can see just how *bad* it is. It's like this hidden little Cabal of Conservatives in my family.

Which is why I cannot talk politics with my family unless I'm angling for a fight. I love them, and sometimes they're really great. But sometimes I have to bite my tongue and live with a ball of lead in my stomach just listening to the things they talk about.

And I just can't take having them send me constant reminders of everything I think is destructive and prejudiced and hateful about their beliefs.

[br0ken_dolly]

no, i totally understand. it's just another pet peeve of mine.

believe you me, i totally understand.

[nightsinge.livejournal.com]

So feel you on all of it. All of it! I have sent my friends curt but polite letters requesting that they remove me from their mass-mail list, and only write to me when they want to contact me directly. I use grad school as an excuse, but of course you don't have to have one.

Wishing you a SPAMless future.

[thousandpages.livejournal.com]

Thanks. If I thought my family would be that reasonable about it, I would. Unfortunately, logic is not our strong suit.

Besides, as long as I can delete it readily and pick out any important emails that pertain to me personally, I'm happy. And they need not know that I'm completely ignoring their propaganda.

[denoue-moi.livejournal.com]

haha you should send them the 1-5 list. :P

Most of my family is net illiterate so I'm safe. But I used to have a sister in law that emailed me book recommendations. Jesusy relationship self help books. Then I sent her a book recommendation (Tristan Taormino's The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women) and she stopped bugging me.