The email that launched a thousand replies (literally)
September 20, 2006
Iain Cook
Did you get it? Were you a part of the ‘online phenomenon’ that swept across our virtual campus and built community, for better or worse, among a select few hundred of us Trinity Western University students scattered across the world during the warm summer months? If you didn’t get it, or if you got it but still don’t get it, here’s what happened.
It all started with two of the most truly bizarre emails I have ever received. One was a blank summer newsletter from the summer school department and the next was an email asking to recall the previous email. Who recalls emails? Especially emails with all the recipients entered into the ‘to’ field rather than the ‘bcc?’ I didn’t get it. Naturally, I hit the ‘reply all’ button and shared my sentiments with the rest of the soon-to-be-dazed victims of these eventful emails. That was when the pimple popped.
It started slowly, just a little ooze: one email agreeing with me; John Crozier threatening to sell our email addresses to spam companies; a chuckle here, a confused one-liner there. But then the spam train left the station and the conductor wouldn’t lay off the horn. A whole string of emails came in from people asking how they had been spammed, why they were part of a chain letter and how they could get off ‘the list.’ Ironically, these emails naturally perpetuated the cycle as every person continued to hit the ‘reply all’ button.
The emails became the conspiracy of the summer, a way to track which students checked their email. They became an advertising platform for a TWU guild on the Destomath server. People vented, sent shout outs, whined, made witty remarks about building community, and threw in their two cents. Together we became what one student called the “strangest, most random online phenomenon I’ve ever been a part of.”
While I must apologize to those whose inboxes were horribly overrun by our deluge of emails, there was one response that perfectly captured my sentiments about the whole thing: “Every night I sit down and read these emails before I go to bed and it puts me in the best mood.”
Whether you got it or not, wanted it or not, I hope you get it and don’t live to regret it. I hope you’re happy in the end.
Now you go...
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