Ok, we all know SPAM comes from someone you don’t know, wanting to sell you something.

What is Friendly SPAM? Well, it’s like in a war zone, you have fire (SPAM) from the enemy and then friendly fire (Friendly SPAM) from the people on your own side, your friends or family. So, Friendly SPAM is really unwanted email too… stupid email most of the time, time sucking ALL of the time.

Friendly SPAM comes from someone you know, that is trying to tell you about the end of the world, or a virus that is going to erase your hard drive and scramble your rotary telephone, or that if you send this particular email out to x number of people something great will happen to you (such as Microsoft will give $1000.00 to you because they are tracking the email, or that you will get a new laptop from xyz computers because they are trying a new marketing campaign.) Friendly SPAM is also those cute stories, heroic stories, touching stories, or a picture of a kitten… sent to you from your loving friend to raise your spirits.. and don’t forget, pass it along, make everyone happy! And Friendly SPAM isn’t just sent to you, lovingly crafted, it is sent to you – being a member of a list of people – whom your friend wants to lovingly rub digital Friendly SPAM on.

Thank you for caring enough to share, but show me you care more, and stop sending me this crap. I don’t go to your house and let my dog poop on your doorstep… that would be rude. So is Friendly SPAM email, it’s rude, it’s not something you wrote with me in mind, it’s something you are throwing over my fence… with no consideration of if I would really enjoy it.

Plus, in your sending the email to me and a HOST of your other friends many of whom I don’t know, you have now taken my email and broadcasted it out to whomever wants to harvest it. And it’s not just your friends who get MY email address, it’s literally thousands of people who get the copy of the email you sent – forwarded to them, and forwarding it off to other friends, and so on, and so on… you’ve seen those emails; the ones where it’s about 5 to 10 pages of fowarding information and hundreds of email addresses before you get to the important message… You’ve now broadcast to the entire universe; all your friends, your own, and MOST importantly my email.

Why I’m venting my spleen over this is because lots of people do this, and THEY THINK it’s ok.. it’s not. I’ve actually in the past sent emails to ‘friends’ telling them not to send me any more email because I can’t waste my time getting jokes in email everyday, multiple times per day. They didn’t get the clue after I sent the email, so I put them in as a junk mail rule and they go into junkmail to be jettisoned once a week. Too bad if they actually sent me an email with substance, or a question.. I don’t read email from them anymore..