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Think Before You Forward Those Cute Emails!

blogs.citylightsguide.com — "I can’t take any more cute emails. They are no longer cute. They are annoying. You know the ones. A friend sends one to a friend and so on down the line. Then, by the time you get it, there are hundreds of email addresses of friends of friends. You don’t know who they are. How can your friend have so many friends you don't know?"

Who dugg this? Made popular Oct 20, 2007

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  • Dumbledorito, on 10/22/2007, -0/+21We used to get constant religious hoaxes from an acquaintance of ours. Finally, she sent that idiotic "NASA finds 'missing day' from the book of Joshua" thing, and I'd had enough. I hit "reply to all," attached the link to the relevant Snopes.com page, and hit send.

    About a half hour later, my e-mail stopped working.

    Turns out, the twit had forwarded this to hundreds of people after it came to her from several previous mass e-mailings. There were over a thousand hidden e-mail addresses in my "reply to all." My ISP had flagged my e-mail account as a spammer for exceeding 1000 outgoing e-mails in a 24 hour period. A rather ironic "missing day," as it were.
  • misconfig, on 10/24/2007, -0/+17Amen!
  • wittyname, on 10/20/2007, -0/+13Yeah, Mom.
  • Dumbledorito, on 10/21/2007, -0/+12Who forwarded your comment?
  • christoast, on 09/04/2008, -0/+11Luckily I have very few friends.
  • inactive, on 10/21/2007, -1/+11I should forward this to all my friends who send me cute emails.
  • harrisonferrel, on 10/24/2007, -0/+8It's insulting when your friends send you junk mail by the computerload. Who has time for this stuff? Great article.
  • DannyAndNina, on 10/20/2007, -0/+6it's like how StumbleUpon always suggests sites with cute cat photos... when did it decide that those are the sites I really enjoy? I think they have a kitten-loving algorithm or something
  • SheilaNoya, on 10/20/2007, -0/+6Those long lists of their friend's email addresses can come in pretty handy when you want to embarass them though.


  • drizzlelicious, on 10/21/2007, -0/+6If you get hundreds a day, you need a new email address.
  • DrywallThief, on 10/20/2007, -1/+6You think that's bad? I honestly get about 2-3 emails a day from my religious-crazed-jesus-loving grandma. 2-3 may not sound like much but trust me, these Jehovah/Jerusalem/Jesus/Bible/EndTimesAreComing/etc oriented emails every day really add up. I eventually just made a filter in gmail just for her. ;)
  • MrBlue999, on 10/21/2007, -6/+11They can't help it.
  • inactive, on 10/20/2007, -1/+5My mom sends stuff like this to me all the time. I love you mom, but please ***** STOP!
  • trwww, on 10/20/2007, -0/+4This is how people get malware on thier computer. Not the only way, but one of the big ones.
  • MLisa, on 10/20/2007, -0/+4I can not understand why some people feel the need to 'forward everything'. It not only clogs the Internet, but clogs my mailbox with crap. Check with Snopes.com, check with your Brain before you send stuff.
  • DDDavinnn, on 10/20/2007, -1/+5I seriously doubt that the type of people who send these emails would be the same ones visiting digg... or at least I hope not.
  • inactive, on 10/20/2007, -0/+4Please email this article to 8 of your friends to Digg it and you will meet the girl of your dreams.
    If you fail to do so, your future wife will turn out to be a transsexual.
  • jftitan, on 10/20/2007, -0/+3Its also a very effective method of email harvesting. Although sometimes (in the past) I was able to catch the same OLD list of FWD emails addresses more than once. But none the less. I noticed prior to enacting new rules for my personal email address, I would have an average of 16% more spam email. It wasn't until I added new rules for blocking/'special reply' to fwd'ed emails. that I saw a dramatic drop in spam.
  • hellotyler, on 10/20/2007, -1/+4Kitten loving algorithm, hah!
  • inactive, on 10/20/2007, -0/+3Don't worry...diggers don't send those anymore. They just submit them to Digg, and they make the front page within minutes.
  • luservegas, on 10/20/2007, -0/+3How about people think before submitting stories to digg that are just links to stupid blogs.
  • inactive, on 10/20/2007, -2/+5I gave you a dig just for the "religious hoax" oxymoron. =)
  • Rikkochet, on 10/20/2007, -0/+3I always reply to them with "REMOVE" as the sole message body.
    They don't really seem to get it but the emails do stop showing up.
  • terrenceisdaman, on 10/21/2007, -0/+3http://www.thanksno.com/
  • tritiumpie, on 10/20/2007, -0/+2Forwarding these email chains is one of the primary ways that spammers get lists of known valid email addresses. I always tell my family to stop forwarding that crap and list the spammers as a reason. Consequently, I've only had to deal with a couple stupid "Forward to all your friends and family if you actually care about them!" type nonsense emails since then.
  • hoopadoo, on 10/20/2007, -0/+2I always get those "Warning" and "Fraud alert" e-mails that have been dispelled a million times over on snopes.com. No matter how many times I e-mail back with the snopes.com link, they still send me the junk. Believe it or not people aren't running around putting needles in payphone coin returns, people aren't blowing up for using their cell phone at the gas station, and the Make-A-Wish foundation will not get a single nickel for me forwarding your stupid e-mail to 5,000 friends.
  • urik88, on 10/20/2007, -0/+2True. True...
    My grandma always send me those powerpoint presentations and pics. After the first 3967.98 ones, it gets quite annoying.
  • drizzlelicious, on 10/20/2007, -1/+2Thankfully I haven't gotten any of these "cute emails" since I stopped using my MSN hotmail address for email.
  • Ajajadude, on 10/20/2007, -1/+2Were they friends or "friends"?
  • Enlightenment, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1
    Every time you forward a Cute email, god kills a puppy!

  • meachen, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1does that include emails saying "get a bigger ***** in 2 days"
  • AnalogCamera, on 10/21/2007, -3/+4I totally agree. I get hundreds a day! I even blocked about 20 of my friends cause of that!
  • wipis, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1Indeed. I think my mother sends me the most forwarding them from her cousin. I know she likes to keep in touch and such but at best I sleep right down the hall and at worse I'm an hour and a half away and will probably be home next weekend.
  • DCGaymer, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1A simple reply to ALL with a rant about how stupid the email is usually does the trick.
  • TantrooM, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1Opening such chain mail without the latest anti-virus software is like having unprotected sex with a prostitute. If you don't catch something nasty, you're lucky.
  • jftitan, on 10/20/2007, -1/+2I made a filter for all FWD: FW: etc, and had all emails REPLY to ALL, and setup a noreply@ address for the reply-to field to direct all their replies to by bitbucket. on top of that, the initial reply email would include my little automated disclaimer message telling the original sender to STFU, "Welcome to My World", and "Here is your Virus" including a attached truncated txt file.

    Typically I never receive replies or additional forwarded messages from the same person again. Sorry Mom, Grandma, Sister, Neighbors nearby, and pretty much everyone... Your FW: emails are idiotic, and a waste of my time. However those that forward emails to my work email addy, have a different set of rules.
  • CaviMike, on 10/22/2007, -0/+1This is why no one gets my blackberry email.
  • terrenceisdaman, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1Hi there, beloved friend of this email recipient: Please visit http://thanksno.com/ Because this person likes getting personal messages from you, but doesn’t want any more email like this, please. Love, ThanksNo.com
  • inactive, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1For me I like them as I am never annoyed by the kind gesture of a friend. I wish it would happen more often.
  • macaddct1984, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1Yeah, those people really need to learn how to use BCC.
  • tacojohn48, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1I will trade the cute emails for my Grandmother's religious emails. You know the ones, send this to everyone in your address book or you don't love Jesus as much as I do.
  • dev3, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1The "friends" stop showing up too..
  • lomaxk, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1Who sends cute emails is stupid !
  • guyincognito, on 10/21/2007, -0/+1WTF, I have not gotten one of these in years
  • cyberpunk, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1stop clogging the internet tubes with chain letters! save the bandwidth for bittorrent!
  • ThreeDee912, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1http://www.breakthechain.org/
  • loganhid, on 10/21/2007, -0/+1i am so forwarding the monkey picture.....
  • wounsel, on 10/21/2007, -0/+1JUST HIT "REPLY ALL" AND TYPE SOMETHING LIKE "HAHA!" that'll make em think about doing it again
  • ThreeDee912, on 10/20/2007, -0/+1Spammers actually use those chain letters to harvest more addresses.
  • inactive, on 10/20/2007, -1/+1No...they just submit them here. Again...PLEASE don't live under he delusionalthat thee average digger is smarter, or even more computer/internet savvy that the average person. It just shows you don't know Digg.
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