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Myths
And Monsters Online
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...
is a great way to find out if a rumor is true, but beware,
what you find, may scare you... Worse, you could risk
serious injury from falling out of your chair while
laughing your fool head off... so please.. set some
nice soft pillows on the floor before you read about
the "Chicken Man From Alcatraz... The Electronic
Gremlin... and of course my all time favorite... Teddy
Bears From Outer Space using the Internet to try and
take over the world..." |
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If
you would like to help research rumors please contact
Sprottn@aol.com. |
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QUESTION
ABOUT MYTHS AND MONSTERS FROM SPROTTN |
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Dear Teddy,
With all that has happened on
September 11, I have
been getting e-mails galore! I have seen pictures
of a guy on top of the
World Trade Center
with a
plane flying towards him. That was so unbelievable
that I had to share a web
site about "other" disasters
he has been near! (This guy really gets around)
Some of the other mail I have been getting
in relation to 9/11 have included emails stating that
Nostradamus
predicted
all of this, but each one tells a different story (and
they seem to have been written - after the fact)!
I have been asked to
light a
candle for a satellite picture
if you can believe that one (does anyone actually expect
me to stand outside on a clear night holding a candle
up so a satellite can take my picture? How dumb
do they think I am? (DON'T ANSWER THAT TEDDY - It was
a rhetorical question) Some people have
even had the audacity to
falsely
claim they have lost a loved one
in these attacks! There are some sick people out
there that will tug on our heart strings trying anything
to take advantage of the gullible. I'm just as
patriotic as the next person, I believe that the good
shall triumph over the evil, etc, but I still feel bad
having to break the hearts of my friends that there
was no confrontation against anti-war protesters in
a restaurant in Idaho (if there had been I would have
gladly thrown the first punch.
My
question is... How can I convince my friends not to
hit that forward button without checking these stories
first?
I have tried to explain to them that
No Ryder,
Verizon, and U-Haultrucks have
been stolen recently, yet they keep on forwarding these
myths "just in case". I have been asked to
Boycott Dunkin Donuts and I have a mailbox full of letters
telling me how Arabs celebrated in front of a Budweiser
beer delivery driver, and others are so afraid of Anthrax
that they are telling people to use a steam iron on
their mail. What they do not mention is that it would
take about 20 minutes to kill any spores that could
be on their mail. All myths, all untrue. There is so
much fear in our country right now that we do not need
to spread these cruel hoaxes and cause more fear. If
we do, we might as well tell the terrorists that they
win, That they can threaten us and we will bow down
to them.
I
REFUSE to live in fear and I refuse to make my children
live in fear!
How about you?
Sprottn/JP
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Dear Sprottn,
I understand what you are saying completely. The
people of the world need to stand up to the terrorists,
and they are all searching for some way in which they
can help, and that is why they forward letters about
possible terrorist attacks and ways to show your
support for the good guys. And I have a suggestion
on how to stop the rumors that are filling your mailbox,
and to let people feel that they are doing something
to stand up to the terrorists.
Ask each
of your friends to consider that terrorists might try
to take advantage of the rumor mongers on the net.
That the terrorists themselves might send out false
emails warning of attacks, etc. The Internet is
an easy way for terrorists and other sick individuals
to create worldwide fear while keeping their identity
a secret and getting innocent people to do the work
for them.
So ask
your friends, do they want to be responsible people
fighting terrorism, or do they want to help the terrorists
by helping to create mass hysteria by forwarding false
rumors.
Right now,
somewhere in the world there is a terrorist reading
forwarded rumors and hoaxes and laughing out loud. May
I suggest instead of forwarding false rumors that only
assist the terrorists in achieving their goals, that
instead we forward TRUE inspirational stories, and anti-terrorist
humor, or true stories that have been hidden from the
public, such as the fact that the U.S. Military has
already captured Bin Laden, indeed gave him the sex
change that was suggested at first as a joke, took some
embarrassing pictures of him posing in "evening
wear", that he has been returned to Afghanistan
and is currently hiding by wearing a black cloak and
disguising himself as a woman.
STOP RUMORS
- Fight Terrorism by telling the truth. Let the
Taliban know what has truly become of their leader
Great
Bigg Teddy Bear Huggs,
BaddTeddy |
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Dear
Teddy,
HELP! I have friends and relatives who have fallen
prey to Myths & Monsters
of the Internet! They forward chain letters and hoax
mails to me "ALL THE
TIME" . Even though I have told them,
over and over again, that these myths & monsters
are not real, they keep sending them to me with a
note that says "I am sending this JUST IN CASE...."
Teddy, these people are fairly intelligent
yet for some reason, things they would never believe
in the "real world" they seem to take as
gospel when they see it in an e-mail.
How can I get my Aunt to understand that even though
some of the "e-mail petitions" she sends
me might sound like they are for a good cause....
that signatures can easily be faked and these so called
"petitions" will not be taken seriously
and that a real letter, a fax or a single e-mail to
their representative will do much more good?
What do I have to do to get my friends to understand
that no one is going to
reward them for letting strangers funnel money through
their American bank accounts? The only reward they
might get is to find their account emptied.
How can I get all them them to understand that if
an e-mail tells of a missing child that it really
should be verified with a missing children's organization
or the police before it is forwarded ?
How can I get my best friend to understand that she
will not get free clothes
from Old
Navy or free food from the Outback
Steakhouse or
Cracker Barrel, Nothing
from
Bath & Body Works,
no
free computers and
no free cars from
Honda?
I have tried to tell her for months that there are no "e-mail
tracking programs" that will pay her money if she forwards these silly
e-mail myths! I told my Uncle not to hold his breath waiting by the mailbox for his
free beer either.
I have told my cousin for the past year that the post
office will not be
charging a
five cent "tax"
on every e-mail sent. Yet, month after month I get
these e-mail monsters flooding my mailbox.
Teddy, I tell you, if I get one more e-mail from my
brother telling me that
if I forward to 11 of my friends I will see a neat
movie
on my computer I
am going to be an only child when I bury him!!!!
My mom keeps sending me chain
e-mail about a child that will receive donations
from the American Cancer Society if we forward the
e-mails and no matter how many times I tell her that
it isn't true, she sends them to me anyway "Just
in Case".
There are days that I just dread opening my e-mail
because I just know one or
more of them has sent me more junk mail even though
I have told them that it
is against AOL's
Terms of Service
and that all ISPs consider this "chain mail"
and they can get kicked off if anyone reports them.
YES Teddy, I have actually considered
TOSing my whole family!
They never used to be this way before we got computers.
It is almost like they became brain dead when they
turn the darned things on. Just a few years ago, if
I had told my sister not to let her kids play in the
Ball Pits at the
restaurants playgrounds because of snakes, she would
have laughed at me and told me not to be silly, but
now she will send me e-mails about them and she won't
let me take her to
KFC
anymore because she truly believes it isn't
"real" chicken (Chickens on life support?
Come on, GET REAL)!
I have told them.... "Think for just a minute
before forwarding to me or
anyone else... would you spend the money for stamps
to snail mail these myths to your friends and family?"
If not, most likely it is not anything you would want
to forward in e-mail. Yet the Monsters seem to take
over and they just keep hitting that forward button!
Teddy, can you give me a few hoax sites and virus
sites that I can send to
them all? If they ignore my pleas after that I am
going to change my e-mail
address and not give it to any of them!!! Can you
help me turn them back
into normal people?
Hugs
Sprottn
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Dear
Sprottn,
It sounds like your family is suffering from "MMD
- Myths and Monsters
Disorder", which while not life threatening can
be a real pain in the butt
(umm.. this is a figure of speech, not an actual physical
aspect of the
disease). Basically, your family members, who
may or may not have been
normal but now radio waves from their computer monitors
may have affected
their mental abilities. I.E. No matter their
previous state, continuous
usage of the Internet may have affected their minds.
As you stated in your letter, "prior" to
the Internet they never sent out myths, monsters such
as the woman who woke up in a hotel bathtub without
one
of her
kidneys, nor did
they tell their friends to watch out because the
Sandman was coming
and they would have laughed at the idea that
Disney would send
you $1000 just for mailing ten of your friends a letter.
Yet, these previously normal (?) people profess to
believe that "teddy bears that are trying to
change the world", AOL is reading their mail
(why would anyone want to read "your familys"
email - after all, their going to forward it to us
anyway), and that you can catch a virus from playing
with your mouse.
I think this problem (MMD) is becoming an epidemic.
Your family has become
unplugged (Mentally) and there is only one thing to
do. Find a new family
that does not have computer access.
Or maybe you should just send them to this site instead,
after all it is possible that my initial (over the
net) diagnosis may be wrong (not likely) and they
have fallen prey to the
Gullibility Virus.
But just to keep you from changing your e-mail address
I will throw in a few links to help you out.
Great Bigg Teddy Bear Huggs,
BaddTeddy
P.S.
The test for the gullibility virus is rather simple.
Tell them that you just read in an e-mail that gullible
is not a real word. If they believe you, or
if they actually look in the dictionary to see if
GULLIBLE is a real word, they they have the virus.
After all, GULLIBLE is a real word, and only some
one GULLIBLE would have looked it up just because
they read it in an email. |
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