#8. Chain Mail

So the other day, I check my email to find one with the happy title of "This is adorable!". I then proceed to open and read the email, which is filled with cute, Photoshopped (Yes, that is indeed a verb) pictures of various animals with buckets on their heads or their mouths wide open. Each one has a caption below it with some cute phrase like "Be thankful for what you have", or "You'll always have friends to pull you through". Then I get to the end, and what's this? I have to send this to 100 people in the next 5 minutes or I'll have bad luck for 7 years? So much for being adorable...

Needless to say, I have developed a low tolerance level for chain mails, and most of them get a nice spot reserved in my flaming trash barrel icon. But just in case you're a newbie with email, Internet, or computers in general, let me give you a quick run through of how to easily spot a chain letter.

It's All In the Name-
This is the first, and most important step in spotting a chain mail. First off, make sure to look at the title, and if you happen to see a little thing that says "FW:", delete it without hesitation, because it's a chain letter. If the title does not have the "Forward" tag in front of it, then you're job became slightly harder, but don't fear just yet. The next step is to look at the name itself. If the email has a title of like "OMG this is so cute!!!@!@!", "You HAVE to try this!!!", or "OMG i cnt believed this wrkd!", then you can be fairly confident that this is a chain letter. Another big giveaway that your email is a chain letter, is if the title is written in all capital letters like "OMG YOULL LOVE THIS!!@@#!@#!!".

This Email-
If you somehow got past the title and are still unsure if this is a chain letter, then we must move to the next clue, the body. Although many chain letters come with pictures (See below), this section is dedicated to focusing on the text and layout of the email. If the text in your email is in a large, colorful font, this it's definitely a chain letter (Seriously, who even colors their text?). Usually chain mail will have large, vibrant text that's in some strange font that's made to look cute and welcoming. This text is also almost always aligned in strange patterns. Typically these patterns make you simply scroll down the page for what seems like an eternity, coming across random words or characters like "Keep on going!", "Almost there!", or "<<<>>><>><><>". Another popular style is to put cute phrases or eye moistening events that I doubt ever actually happened.

The Pictures-
They say pictures tell a thousand words, but I've yet to see an impressive chain letter photo. This is by far the biggest giveaway when it comes to finding out if what you're looking at is a chain letter. Chain letters almost always consist of "cute" pictures of dogs, cats, or other animals doing "cute" things like falling off tables, smiling, laughing, wearing lampshades on their head, or kissing. But whoever makes these chain mails is obviously horrible at photoshopping pictures, since everyone knows that animals can't smile, or laugh, or kiss. And of course, since those cute photos would not be complete without a cute phrase below them, we see things like "You'll always have a friend in me" below the two cats that are "laughing" or "We all make mistakes sometimes" below the picture of dog that somehow threw a rock through a window.

The Warning-
Well, we've reached the last stage, this is your last chance to figure out if this is a chain letter or not and save your dignity. But don't worry, this part is easy to figure out. Most emails close with friendly messages like "Stay well", or "Your Love", or "Sincerely yours", but this couldn't be further from the truth when it comes to chain letters. Although chain letters often are made to make you laugh or reflect, the closing statements tend to be a bit cruel. Instead of simply saying "Yeah I know I annoyed you with the horrible photos, but thanks for reading anyway", we get the added bonus of a threat. These threats are always in the form of time verses emails sent, meaning that, the more "Y" people you pass this onto in "X" amount of the time, the better your life will be. Let me provide an example.

"Well now that you have heard the great message of friendship, make sure to pass this email on. DO NOT BREAK THE CHAIN!!! If you send this to 0-5 people in the next 10 seconds, you'll have bad luck for 8503 years. If you send it to 6-10 people in the next 5 seconds, you'll only have bad luck for 1 year. If you send it to 11-20 people in the next 3 seconds, your crush will fall in love with you in 6 months. If you send in to 21-60 people in the next 2 seconds, your crush will kiss you in a week. If you send it to 198679000 in the next second, your crush will fall madly in love with you tonight!"

But my favorite example is this:

"Send this to 50+ people in the next 5 minutes, then press ALT+F4 and the name of your crush will appear on the screen! I'm serious! This works! It's so creepy!"

Well I guess I believe them, they did say they're serious after all...

Well I hope that I helped you in some way as to deciding whether or not your email belongs in the spam folder or if its readable material. But just remember, next time something goes wrong in your life, just say what I do; "Oh man, must have forgot to send that chain letter to 167 people last night before I went to bed..."