When I was a kid, participating in chain mail was a lot of work. You’d have to copy out the same letter 10 or so times, find 10 people’s addresses to send it to, package it all in envelopes and add stamps. This would all be marched to the mailbox with a sense of pride and participation in some sort of global phenomenon.
Today, the shine has largely worn off thanks to the advent of email and the cursed “forward” button, so that’s why I was impressed to have just received — not half an hour ago — the infamous “Microsoft lawsuit/Bill Gates fortune/email beta testing” chain email. I haven’t received this one in years! It’s an oldie, but goodie: If you forward this to everyone — yes, everyone — in your mailbox, Microsoft will pay you $250 for each email sent because they a) need to test their system or b) are in some sort of dubious lawsuit or c) Bill Gates is feeling generous. At $250 an email this really adds up, the original sender (a “lawyer named Pearlas Sandborn”) sagely advises.
I love it that someone still earnestly forwarded this on, knowing full well that it’s a hoax but secretly hoping that, this time, maybe it will work.
KB
