Mr. Eric Woods [dot] com

Here’s the deal. Have you ever been minding your business and then out of  nowhere you get a text  message? You read the text message everything is cool and you set your phone back down. Then you get another text message right away. This time it’s something you really wouldn’t want to read and your wondering why the person who sent the message had even sent it to you in the first place. Next thing you know your phone is blowing up with all of these pointless, irrelevant text  messages that you could care less about. I’m sure everyone has experienced this at least once. Hell, I’m sure a lot of people are actually going through it now. What I’m talking about it “Textual Harassment”. I know it sounds funny and made up but its can be a HUGE pain in the ass. Sometimes it can even become serious and considered a type of stalking, but I’ll just be voicing my opinion about the lighter side.  

Now how does this “Textual Harassment” start? I always wonder that myself. Every single time I get a text I think to myself “Who started this worthless piece of crap?” and “Why did I get this?” I think for the most part people think that it is harmless and just want to share a part of their day or a funny joke or even some kind of news with someone. So naturally they forward the message to their friends. This is where it gets out of hand. As soon as said friends receive the message they feel the need to keep it going so they forward it to their friends, who forward to their friends and so on n so forth. So now you have about five people who really genuinely cared about the message…and anywhere from ten to thousands of people who received this message and can care less. 

I’m usually one of people that gets messages forwarded to them and I really don’t like it at all, lol. There has to be a way to stop this horrible network etiquette, lol. I mean seriously if the people who do this all the time think about it, its kind of annoying. Think about it this way. When you’re walking down the street in the city and you pass the people that  are standing on each and every block handing out flyers and pretty much trying to force one into your hands doesn’t that bother you? ESPECIALLY when its some irrelevant bit of information that does not help you in any way.

So what are the common types of annoying “Textual Harassment” that most will receive on the daily basis? They are usually along the lines of chain letters and silly jokes. Most of the time starting like so….This is a good luck email/text. FWD this message to at least 20 people or you’ll have bad  luck for the rest of the year.” or I thought this was funny you should check it out.” Something along those lines. When the creators of these messages send them out to the initial bunch of people I don’t think that they mean for the messages to get  spread WORLD wide lol. Then on the other hand I think that some people do it on purpose and try to create kind of like a “viral text message/email” 

Whatever the case may be, the fact of the matter is that these messages wouldn’t even make it past the initial group of people if it wasn’t for the enablers! Yup that’s right! lol. We all know a few, some of us might even be  that enabler. What am I talking about? You know damn well what and who I’m talking about. The person that gets a messages and cant help but to pass it on without a second thought. It’s harmless to them really because to them they are just sharing something that they enjoyed. I actually spoke to a couple of  people about this just to see what they thought about it and I this had to be my favorite response. 

“Lol! I can’t think of any “Textual Harassment” situations. I love text messaging! I’d probably be the one guilty of “Textual Harassment”, Lol!! I text lines from songs, movies, commercials, and other dumb stuff to people all day long. And I don’t even have unlimited texting.” 

Now that is too funny!! That person might not be an enabler but moreso one of the people who would text you to the point where you might say…DAMN are they working? They Don’t mean to be a bother and they are just really sharing things they believe to be funny, but sometimes it could get a little out of hand with the texting. Another response I received was:

“OMG, I can’t stand that crap. Why in the world does someone feel the need to fwd me every single last email and/or dumb chain letter they receive? I mean really. God is not going to send me to hell if I don’t forward an email. Jesus will not stop loving me if I don’t spread his word….through email. And I more than likely will not have 20 years of bad luck if I don’t fwd a stupid angel/blessing email. These damn messages are a pain in the ass and I wonder if the people who send/fwd this crap think before they hit send. All it would take is a quick 10 seconds to think..”hmm would this person even care about this BS I’m about to send them? Should I waste their valuable time with this?” If everyone did that before just sending messages to EVERYONE on their contact list then this wouldn’t be a problem. WOO SAH….ok I’m done venting lol”

LMFAO! that right there is a serious victim. That response pretty much sums up how I felt about the matter also. Just have some consideration when forwarding and sending messages.

Everything I just spoke about it just the tip of the iceberg with this topic though. There are way more things that fall under “Textual Harassment”. Like those constant “When can we hook up?” text messages. Also its not often considered by most to be under this category but people talking to you at anytime and getting EXTRA comfortable with you through text. You know, when people get brave through text and say things to you that they would never say face to face.  

If you do a quick google search you can find way more information about the subject than what I touched on because like I said before, this is just the tip of the iceberg. With that said next time you receive a message people just take a couple of seconds to think about who you send it to before you hit send….you might save yourself from being blocked or banned on someones contact list in the future, lol

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 8:34 am and is filed under Any Given Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.