Are You Spreading a Meme Virus?

Not all Mind Viruses are necessarily bad. A cute cat picture or a funny joke (if it truly is funny) never hurt. But even these eat away at our time and distract us from the real world around us.

How many 40 question memes can one person fill out? How many Bill Gates or free coupons from Starbucks messages?

Consider this checklist before sending a virus email that will waste the receiver's time or cause undue guilt or anxiety.

1. Does the message tell you to act by resending it?
2. Does the message use an authoritative or newspaper-type tone?
3. Does the message tell you to be afraid of something?
4. Does the message offer you sex or money or good luck?
5. Does the message invoke your feelings of pity or generosity?

And before you re-send that photo of the "Mermaid found in the Philippines" or repeat that urban legend about "frogs raining down on local village" consider checking these sources:

Urban Legends

Snopes

(Remember - this is just a meme)

I know this guy who was home recovering from having been served a rat in his Kentucky Fried Chicken. One day he woke up in his bathtub and it was full of ice. When he got out of the tub he realized that HIS KIDNEY HAD BEEN STOLEN and he saw a note on his mirror that said "Call 911!" but he was afraid to use his phone because he had received an e-mail that claimed if you miss dial 911 you will be connected to a Bermuda number that charges $1000 a second.

He knew it wasn't a hoax because he himself was a computer programmer who was working on software to save us from Armageddon when the year 2011 rolls around. His program will prevent a global disaster in which all the computers get together and distribute a $600 Nieman-Marcus cookie recipe contest under the leadership of Bill Gates (It's true--I read it all last week in a mass email from BILL GATES HIMSELF, who was also promising me a free Disneyworld Vacation and $5,000 if I would forward the email to everyone I know).

The poor man took a chance and tried to call 911 from a pay phone to report his missing kidney, but reaching into the coin-return slot he got jabbed with an HIV-infected needle around which was wrapped a note that said "Welcome to the world of AIDS."

Luckily he was only a few blocks from the hospital--the one where that dying little boy wished for everyone in the world to send him an email and the American Cancer Society has agreed to pay him a nickel for every email he receives. I sent him two emails and one of them was a bunch of X's and O's in the shape of an angel (if you forward it to twenty people you will have good luck but ten people only will give you OK luck and if you send it to less than ten people you will have bad luck FOR SEVEN YEARS!)

So anyway the poor guy tried to drive himself to the hospital, but on the way he noticed another car driving along without its lights on. To be helpful, he flashed his lights and was promptly shot as part of a gang initiation.

Just thought you should know.

(author unknown)