Anti-forwardism

This blog is a bit too long. But I recommend instead of just browsing, please read it. Blogs are meant to be read :-)

Take a look at one of the forwards I received on Orkut:
IIT Bombay student Anupam Biswas 5th Year Mechanical Engg is suffering from Colukabki (caused due to excessive nabad and depression) a disease very rarely found (3 in a billion). His condition is very pathetic and the treatment is very expensive, obviously his parents are not able to afford his treatment. Orkut has agreed to pay 1 paisa after each time this message is forward. So pls pass on this message to help.

Now, I get really irritated when this sort of a message comes. I knew this was one of those but I wanted to check out how Orkut can pay 1 paisa after each time this message if forward. I typed Orkut has agreed to pay 1 paisa in the Google Search bar.
Most of the content of my blog is extracted from some similar blogs on the net Since after i searched for that string, i got blogsites which had info on this one paisa nonsense :

An IIT Delhi student Anupam Joshi 4th Year Engineering Physics is suffering from Colukabki (caused due to excessive smoking and depression) a disease very rarely found (3 in a billion). His condition is very pathetic and the treatment is very expensive, obviously his parents are not able to afford his treatment. Yahoo has agreed to pay 1 paisa after each time this message is forward. So pls pass on this message to help.

Mechanical Engineering. Engineering Physics (I wonder if there actually is an Engineering Physics course at IIT Mumbai.)
Both suffering from Colukabki.
What is Colukabki by the way?
I searched again and what did I find?
Colukabki is not a disease. In fact If you try searching for this word, you might end up reading this blog !
There's no word called Colukakbi in English.
Of course, there are the more irritating ones, some of which are "If you dont forward thisdon'tu dont have a heart" and the AIDS injection wala. Or the SMS 'Sorry I couldn't ignore this message."I love my Mother" please pass this to 10 friends if you really love your mother'
If the message said, 'If you love your mother, please fwd this to yourself 10 times' would you do it ? Just because fwding a message is a matter of seconds don'ts, dont promote such nonsense among your friends.

Here's One more I got:
"Today is world's Message day send dis message to all ur friends as i have fwded you."
This is what I replied :
"Today is 'world's ch**iya day. Send this to all ch***yas n have a nice day"
Later I realised sending this message made me a Ch***ya too !

Email spam, messenger spamand now Mobile spam ? Yes, it seems. A very reasonable name.
How about an Anti-forwards Campaign? Dont just ignore such forwards. Type a reply:
"Look, I have something called a brain which actually thinks. I can donate a piece of it if you want. Stop sending me such forwards." even if he is your close friend.
Or if the Message says, "Fwd this to 10 people", have patience and send the same message to the sender 10 times instead of deleting it or being a chauvenist and sending it to 10 of your friends.
This, of course, shouldnt apply to all those hilarious and rather useful forwards.

I shall put all "those" forwards I get here from now on. I'd like to name it Stupidoscope, to measure peoples' stupidity.

Stupidoscope :
Observation 1:

Yahoo President Neeraj Sheth....This is Yahoo President Neeraj Sheth Jay Russell, I am sorry to announce that Yahoo has reached its maximum number of accounts two million. If you would like to keep your account for free send this to everyone on your list.This way we can know which accounts are being used and which accounts we can delete.Send this within 8 days and your account will remain free.Once again I am sincerely sorry that I have to do this.Please start sending.Jay Russell,Yahoo Management Renee:WHOEVER DOESN`T SEND THIS MESSAGE YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE DEACTIVATED AND IT WILL COST $10.00 A MONTH TO USE IT! TO SEND TO EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST,RIGHT CLICK ON YOUR GROUP AND SAY SEND

Is Yahoo so poor that it starts deleting its accounts ? Do you really feel that yahoo has no other work and thats why it has started to count the number of times this message is been passed on ? Dont you think this act of yahoo will ever want to decrease the number of its users ?

Observation 2:
please forward this msg,very urgent. One of my friend's mother condition is very serious. She needs 4-bottles of B -ve . Contact: gayatri 9841983811. Pls don't avoid this even if u can't help atleast pass this msg to all

If you really care for such messages, before forwarding this message,call this person called gayatri first. I am sure No one will ever do this. I did it once. Called up a person called Seema. The fwd message said Seema works in Wipro and her husband was suffering from some rare disease and wIs asking for help.
So i asked, " Is this seema ?"
Answer : No.
"Do you work in Wipro ?"
Answer :No
"Is your Husband ill ?"
Answer : Who are you ? stop bothering me. And dont call me again.
Well she wazzunt Seema, nor she worked in Wipro and I dont know whether she even had a husband or not. But yes, it was a female voice.
Also one point to Note : 80% of people forwarding such messages have a free SMS scheme. :-)

Observation 3 :
Here I received few facts about the person behind orkut.
This is the mastermind behind Orkut social networking community.
Some facts about Orkut:
1) Orkut Buyukkokten(the creator of Orkut) gets $12 when every person registers to this website.
2) He also gets $10 when you add somebody as a friend.
3) He gets $8 when your friend's friend adds you as a friend & gets $6 if anybody adds you as a friend in the resulting chain.
4) He gets $5 when you scrap somebody & $4 when somebody scraps you.
5) He also gets $200 for each photograph you upload on Orkut.
6) He gets $2.5 when you add your friend in the crush-list or in the hot-list.
7) He gets $2 when you become somebody's fan.
8) He gets $1.5 when somebody else becomes your fan.
9) He even gets $1 every time you logout of Orkut.
10) He gets $0.5 every time you just change your profile-photograph.
11) He also gets $0.5 every time you read your friend's scrap-book & $0.5every time you view your friend's friend-list.
12) Many Global Financial Consultants think this person might become the richest-person in the world by the end of 2009.
13) Finally, this is the best fact. This person has 13 assistants to monitor his scrapbook & 8 assistants to monitor his friends-list. He gets around 20,000 friend-requests a day & about 85,000 scraps a day.

If you observe point 4 : He gets $5 when you scrap somebody & $4 when somebody scraps you.
Dont you feel it is contraciting its own statement ?
Suppose Nishad scraps Rohan.
From Nishad's Point of view Orkut gets 5$ when I scrap Rohan, but when Rohan scraps me, Orkut gets 4$
Seeing from Rohan's Point of view, When he scraps Nishad, Orkut gets 5 $ and when Nishad scraps Rohan, Orkut gets 4$.
Now should Nishad start arguing with Rohan that his scraps are precious than Rohan's since they result in higher profit to orkut ?
Or if the above statement is true, the act of writting a scrap should result in profit of 9$ and there is no need to state that writing a scrap results in 5 $ and receiving a scrap gains 4$. The same logic applies to most of the points stated.
The point 12 says that Many global financing firms have analysed this. Cant they spot such a huge flaw ?
And about the 13th point : No comments :-)

Observation 4 : (Update : 5th Jan 2007)
Look how Stupid people are : even after being a Software Engineer, age more than 22, and still they beleive in such stuff :

Hi ...Orkut is deleting Profiles again message: Dear user because ofsudden rush of people signing upto orkut is come to an attentionnthat weare vastly running out of resources so with in a week any one whodoes not receive this scrap will be deleted of our server . We knowthat you are still using this account We want to find out which users are actually using their orkut accounts so if you are using your, then please send this scrap to every orkut user that you can if u donot pass this scrap to anyone then we will delete your accountJustfollow these simple steps. 1. Click on the "Messages Tab" in youraccount. 2. Click on the "compose mail" option which is the last oneofthe four icons you see together. 3. Select "all friends" 4. Cut andPaste this mail

Some Analysis : Just like Observation 1, Why will Orkut want to delete profiles, It will be more popular if the number of profiles present increase. And even If Orkut has started deleting profiles, Why will it do that in the form of such an informal junk scrap ? If they are the administrators of our profiles, they should clearly know who uses orkut and who does not. They have all the logs stored. Each and every click is logged. I've seen mails from some websites which clearly address their inactive users on their personal email id to use the account or else they will deactivate the account. ( NOT DELETE ).
Can't believe there are such stupids among my friends !!!

Update : 07-06-2007
Observation 5 :
Hi I am 21,student and I earn 50000pm working part time on internet. 3 months back I got a message like this. I logged in to [some website name] checked all offers. I am earning over 50000pm for third month in row. If I can do it you too can do it. Iwish you get the right offer and I hope you will succed. Login [some website name]

I am sure every orkut user must have got this message, and not only once, at least 5 times.
I haven't checked the genuineity of this message, but still I have some points which prove that this is all fake.
1. Now the subject line is very eyecatching, No company ever gives a subject line like that !
2. I earn 50,000 pm. A student earning 50,000 pm. I guess 50,000 is the salary of the Prime Minister of India. Even in a good company like Google, U must be exceptionally well to get a package of 50,000 pm.
3. If a student earns that much, Why will he tell others about it ? If he keeps the secret with himself, He will be the only person getting richer.
4. What about Income tax ? :-P
5. If you visit the profile of the message senders, You will see very cute photos, nicely prepared profile content, and hell lot of scraps saying, "Hi cutee, shall v b frnds ? "

This much is enough to prove my point !

Update: 9-06-2009

1)Mobile

Don't put your mobile closer to your ears until the

recipient answers, Because directly after dialing, the mobile phone would use it's maximum signaling power,

which is: 2watts = 33dbi. Please Be Careful. Please use left ear while using cell (mobile), because if you use the right one it may affect brain directly. This is a true fact from Apollo medical team.

2) APPY FIZZ

Do not drink APPY FIZZ . It contains cancer causing

agent.

3) Mentos

Don't eat Mentos before or after drinking Coke or

Pepsi coz the person will die immediately as the mixture

becomes cyanide. Please fwd to whom u care

4) Kurkure

Don't eat kurkure because it contains high amount of

plastic if U don't Believe burn kurkure n u can see

plastic melting. Please forward to all!!!!!!!!! !! News

report from Times of India

5) Avoid these tablets as they are very dangerous

* D cold

* Vicks action- 500

* Actified

* Coldarin

* Co some

* Nice

* Nimulid

* Cetrizet-D

They contain Phenyl- Propanol -Amide PPA.Which Causes strokes, and these tablets are banned in U.S.

6) Cotton Ear Buds

Cotton Ear Buds... (Must read it) Please do not show sympathy to people selling buds on roadside or at Signals..... Just wanted to warn you people not to buy those packs of ear buds you get at the roadside. It's made from cotton that has already been used in hospitals. They take all the dirty, blood and pus filled cotton, wash it, bleach it and use it to make ear buds. So, unless you want

to become the first person in the world to get Herpes Zoster Oticus (a viral infection of the inner, middle, and external ear) of the ear and that too from a cotton bud, DON'T BUY THEM! Please forward to all this may be helpful for someone..... ....... Please forward to all your near and dear

ones....!

This one came to me at least 4 times before I tried to find out the truth.

Thanks to Kenny Jacob and his article which uncover all the truth I was in search of

http://www.kenneyjacob.com/2009/02/07/mythbusting-fwd-mails/

Some more stupidoscopes coming soon...... as I am waiting for my fatous friends to send me some similar junk.