• mad_lentil@lemmy.ca
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    20 hours ago

    Those meme email chains were annoying at the time, but kinda endearing to look back on in retrospect.

    I still cringe at the memory of the one time I forwarded one – it was something about Bill Gates, but I can’t remember the details. Anyway, my uncle replied back to me with something wholesome like

    Nice to hear from you [mad_lentil], although I doubt this offer is genuine, you never know! Maybe we’ll all be rich this time next year. Say hi to your mom and dad for me, thanks.

    It had never occurred to me that someone would lie on the internet rofffflllll. I was SO humiliated.

    • V4sh3r@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      In college one of my friends wanted to show how easy it was to get an email chain going. He was on the student council so he wrote up something about if it was forwarded enough we would get another day off for spring break, added some email headers to look like he got it through 5 other people, then sent it to everyone on the student council. This was at a school with over 10k students.

      By the end of the next day everyone I knew had gotten the email at least healf dozen times. The day after that the school paper had a story letting people know that it wasn’t true.

      Yep, nobody lies on the internet.

      • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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        7 hours ago

        Honestly though, that sorta thing should happen more often. It sounds like a great way to demonstrate how fast misinformation spreads, without actually hurting anyone.

        Maybe some of those hit by that reality would think twice next time something sounds too good to be true.