Spam, Spam, Eggs and Spam..

"I don't like spam!"

I don't of course, and neither do you, but this isn't a general spam rant. This is a specific one. But more about electronic communication.

There is no doubt in my mind, and I experience this every day at work, and elsewhere, that face to face communication has become an almost archaic way of communicating, and many have lost the ability to address others with respect and kindness. I blame electronic communication for this. The informal cyber world has no facial expressions, body language, or the ability to speak back, thus it is easy to send useless communication, or be rude to anyone, because they are not a real person. When you deal with machines, not people, social graces go out the window. Someone may post an incredibly inappropriate comment on a blog or forum that they would never have the moxie to say to someone's face. Or, in my case, someone may just send out an incredibly useless email to masses of individuals, feigning friendliness and interest, cluttering inboxes everywhere, when this person knows NO ONE they are sending the email to and is seeking nothing but personal gain from other's naivety.

On this very day, the first day of Spring.. happy Spring everyone by the way. Wouldn't it be cool if the egg thing were real? If really, only one time in the entire year you could stand an egg on it's side? I missed my chance to kid myself since the correct time to try would have been when the sun crossed the equator at 1:48am EDT this morning (Universal Standard Time - 5 hours + 1 hour for daylight savings). But I digress.

I received my first irritating email from someone who obviously sent the message to everyone on Blogger, and God knows where else. This email insinuates that a person read my blog and liked it. In reality it is nothing more than a self-promoting request, disguised as a false compliment, to have me post his blog on mine.

Here is the message:

"Hi Ginny A. Roth,
I just came across your blog "Manual Focus" blog and liked it very much.
I thought i should let you know about my new blog "Slideshows for your website and Blogs"
link: yeah right i'm posting this link...
My blog basically consists of slideshows which fall in 12 different categories.
If you like any of the slideshows, you are welcome to embed it in your own blog.
-anuj
Do not be born good or handsome, but be born lucky."

So.. the Anuj fellow, obviously never read my blog or he/she (whoever) would have commented IN the blog and told me why he liked it. He also would have realized his slideshows do not fit the content of my blog which is not about showcasing other people's stuff unless it has such artistic or personal significance to me that I would go out of my way to share it with everyone. And here's some advice, as much as I love being addressed by my whole name, it wreaks of lack of effort to even remotely sound legitimate. You may as well sign your name "Publisher's Clearinghouse" if you are going to put so little effort into your scheme. (And what the hell does that saying mean after the signature?)

For all of you Anujs out there, stop sending this crap and cluttering up inboxes. When you send email with lies for your own shameless self-promotion you are communicating with human beings, not machines. Some of us aren't lucky enough to have your missive go into the junk mail box so we have to waste our time reading and deleting. I have to wonder, do you lie to people's faces the way to do in your mass email or do you avoid actual human contact knowing you will be labeled a fraud?