Stop Forwarding Nonsense

This blog will not be as humour filled as previous ones but it’s an issue that I need to vent about. Anyone with an email address, a Facebook or access to a rumour mill has probably seen or heard of lists that reveal lesbians, gays, bisexuals, STD carriers and now “scabbicals. These lists are taken as almost gospel and forever anyone on the list is exposed and branded for life or at least until the next such list comes out to distract the silly minds that abound.

I doubt most if any of you would remember or even know this story but it is one of the reasons why I get annoyed and frustrated when people forward stuff without care. Somewhere around 2003/2004 I came home from UWI to hear that someone had called my home and my mother answered to be greeted by the words “is this where that bulling boy Bovell lives?” Imagine the annoyance and disturbance caused to both family and person by such a claim. This was a result of an email coming out that exposed a member of UWI’s volleyball team as an undercover faggot. The email then listed all of us who played and/or limed with the team mate at that time as faggots too and a variation of this email appeared with numbers attached. Was the gentleman in question gay? I do not know. I can however state for a fact that I never was and currently aren’t and have very little likelihood of being on a future date gay.

Luckily for me my name was a minor addition to the intent of the email to attack one person. I however know people who personally were attacked with pictures edited to suit the purpose of the attackers’ intent. My hotmail box received those emails multiple times a day with the request that we forward them. There are females out there who may in a state of love or young euphoric giddy headedness sent pictures to a male or allowed those pictures to be taken. The pictures somehow got out and we hurriedly forwarded them to everyone with the title showing the person’s name, address and even place of employment. These ladies did something millions and millions of females do daily for their lovers. Only difference is for some they let it be recorded and it got made public. Many of you reading this probably have sent or taken such pictures and the only difference is yours have not made it to the public eye.

Over the last few days I have received 2 forwards with list of “pretty boys” who are supposedly pretending to be straight and some even list promiscuous lives with females but are closet homosexuals. I will admit that scanning through the list my mind processed some of the well known names and I immediately thought to myself that I always suspected him as being such but I will not forward it as requested. What a man chooses to do with his life is his own decision and it is not up to me to decide if his carefully guarded secret should be made known.

The old adage we shouldn’t throw stones when we live in glasshouses rings true to me always because all of us have some aspect of our personality and character that even if it is suspected we wouldn’t want being forward to the world. How would you like for that immature moment from your childhood to come back and affect your work or personal lives? Yet we get these forwards and send them on with no regards for the fact that these people have lives and that we may negatively be affecting them when we send these forwards.

I’d prefer no one send me these emails or broadcast but realistically I know at some point I will get them. I can only hope that someday people will do what I do when I get them and that is to hit the delete button after I’ve insured that my name nor that of a love one appears on it.