Opinion

About Chain Messages – Don’t Be Stupid

 

If you don’t know what chain messages are, I had a quick look on Wikipedia so nobody is confused. A chain message or chain letter is a message that tries to convince you to forward or pass on the message to as many people as possible (or a lot of times a specific number of people).

Common methods used to get people to send these annoying messages include emotionally manipulative stories like, “Lucy just bumped her knee. Send this message to 10 people to help her get over it.” I want to ask you, the person reading this, to please just stop and think for a second. How is this message going around and around possibly going to help said ‘Lucy’? Do you even have proof that this Lucy person exists? And don’t even get me started on those animal abuse pictures. Please just think for yourself. Nobody is getting cured of cancer and no animal can be healed if you send a message around. If you really have the need to help people, do something that actually helps. There are so many organisations you can give money to these days. You can even volunteer. Don’t spam everyone with sad stories. It won’t help.

Another way people convince you to pass on a chain letter is to promise you money if you do so. Can you please just think for yourself – why would someone pay you an amount of money that’s going to make you rich if you pass on a message? Quick answer: They won’t. You are not getting money if you share a picture on Facebook that promises that Bill Gates is going to pay you if you share. Nobody is getting a free Ipad. Please just stop before you share and pass along these messages and THINK.

The superstitious chain messages that promise bad luck, physical violence, rape and even death that is going to happen to you in weird ways are probably the kind of chain message that annoy me the most. I am here to tell you the truth. No one is going to kill you, you are not getting bad luck, Teddy the dead 3 year old is not going to haunt you, and nothing is going to happen if you ignore the chain message. AND those that say if you ignore this then God is going to punish you – please just think. Don’t send this around I you receive it and scold the person who sent it to you and explain to them that it’s not true.

There are many other examples. You are not getting kissed on the nearest possible Tuesday (okay you might get kissed, but it has nothing to do with you sending around a chain message), and you aren’t going to get murdered in your sleep because of chain messages. AND WHEN WHATSAPP GOT BLUE CHECK MARKS THE WORLD COULDN’T HANDLE IT. I got so many chain messages on the WhatsApp Application concerning the blue check marks and somehow money is involved. Please just think people. If WhatsApp wanted to tell you something, they would tell you. They wouldn’t rely on a chain message if they needed to tell you something. I would like to ask those who actually come up with the chain messages to please just don’t.

Stop sending chain messages around from this point forward and for the rest of your life, because nothing is going to happen.

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