Tue 27 Feb 2007
What happens when your parents get email and, finally, learn to use it? You get forwarded animated GIFs of the Lord’s Prayer. As I said to Deadblob, “too chintzy to be camp, too weird to be discussed.”
I am ready for some people to get the hell off the lawn which is my Internet.
February 27th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Send an animated GIF of Cthulu’s prayer!!
February 27th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
And, lo, the Pay It Forward Forward blog was created.
February 28th, 2007 at 1:21 am
2: Wow. Just… wow. That is terrifying and beautiful.
February 28th, 2007 at 1:22 am
1: Help me write it at SwingOut?
February 28th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Oh, parents and the internet. My dad writes email as though he were being charged by the word. “How are you? Haven’t talked to you in a while. Luvya.”
February 28th, 2007 at 9:12 am
My mother writes email like she talks. Logic jumps and the assumption that you know exactly who she’s talking about, even though the last time you saw them was 25 years ago.
I guess kind of like me, then. heh.
February 28th, 2007 at 9:26 am
My dad is very much in the same category as Kat’s mom. His last message jumped from his colonoscopy results to which model of tractor he would buy. My mom is very much still in “forwards” mode.
Charged by the word… hmmm…. now there is an ISP business model I can get behind.
February 28th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
My dad only ever sends emails bragging about his dumbass videography business, and occasionally emails about how AWESOME!!!!111 Photoshop is - explaining in tedious detail something simple that even I already knew how to do.
However, I will see your parents’ forwards and animated GIFs, and raise you my 15-year-old sister’s animated GIFs, chain mail, forwarding of scams, high-school-freshman drama, and my absolute favorite: “send this to fifteen of your friends and see a taco run across your screen!!! It rilly works!!!!!1111″ AND her annoying l33t speak. UGH.
Yes, I have blacklisted her email account - *several times* because she changes it almost monthly, to reflect her new favorite band of all time. Oy. Teenagers.
March 4th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
I’m gonna give you some kind of award for this post. Haven’t figgered out what yet, it’s not exactly don’t sugarcoat it material, but something. Later this week. I’ll post another comment when it’s up.
March 4th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
I just told people to go read this. Very good post: You just said it. That’s a sign of a good writer.
March 5th, 2007 at 8:55 am
I don’t get copies of the Lord’s Prayer, but I reckon my Dad couldn’t find them on the net anyway.
What I do get are calls from 3000 miles away asking to help him with the latest computer disaster. Sometimes this isn’t bad - I like pretending to be a help desk - but sometimes it’s a bit much.
I’m not ready to roll up my lawn yet, but an occasional replanting of the turf might be nice.
March 5th, 2007 at 9:46 am
You could send your mom to the Flying Spaghetti Monster site…
March 6th, 2007 at 1:21 am
help! my sister put me on an email list of my mother’s mother’s extended family. now i get 5 to 12 emails everyday about people whom i don’t know and their operations and the weather.
even worse, somehow i got onto a mailing list for the extended family for my father’s name.
now i’m being bored to death by unknown relatives on both sides of my lineage.
i don’t even like to hang with my immediate family, let alone people i don’t even know!
March 6th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Right now we’re at the stage of getting spammy forwards from my mother. I see int he CC: list that she has copied every cousin, aunt, uncle and etc. I have who has an email address. I feel your pain, skippy. I feel your pain.
I feel all y’all’s pain. Yesterday, apparently, was “buddy day,” according to one of my mother’s forwards.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:08 am
My dad forwards everything to me. Jokes. Racist jokes. Sexist jokes. Rightwing bs (he’s a leftie, but sometimes he slips). Stuff that is so offensive I have to write long letters back to him telling him how offensive this is. Not that it helps.
Great post — Blue Gal sent me.
March 7th, 2007 at 1:26 am
[...] Gal sent me and I followed: read Robust McManlyPants’s mini-rant on the horror of Parents Using the [...]
March 9th, 2007 at 2:30 am
I had to send my otherwise very literate and intelligent mother a copy of the Pluperfect virus.
http://www.anvari.org/fun/Language_and_English/The_Pluperfect_Virus.html
It was needed.