What to do about spam via arrogant assholes

I generally like people. And lately, I’ve liked people a lot more than usual because I’ve been so goddammed happy and gay and all those things. But there are certain attributes, mostly arrogance and elitism that come across in the form of impersonal mass emails, that get the better of my calm exterior and, thus, I begin instigating shiz via snarky replies. I find that works much better than, “Please remove me from this list.” Because it’s a joke. But it’s serious.

Not that I feel as though it is my job to kick people down—I see it more as nudging them back to reality. Perhaps my irritation stems from the fact that I have been having these experiences a lot lately, I almost feel as though the normalcy of my world has been replaced with pretentious androids who lecture me on my pants and being in love with them and stuff.

But regardless of the reasons behind my irritation, I had one of these unpleasant experiences today that I outlined below because nothing less than blogging about it would give me much-needed release. And in an extreme demonstration of self-control I didn’t include names. Even though he probably deserves public shame.



The 411
I arrive at the main office after a long, hot walk from office deux, and check my email. Low and behold, I have this extremely long, boisterous email from a guy I hung out with once (months ago) in my Inbox. It went on for fucking ever, outlining articles he thinks the lucky recipients of said email should read about topics he thinks we should care about.

On some level this is all well and good – I often send articles to my friends with a thoughtful email about why I think they would care. But I also send them to individuals… not to long lists of people I hardly know. And those who receive my emails probably just roll their eyes and hit “next,” but I know and accept that… so that makes it different. And I also try to have motivation beyond self-flattery or the premise of a circle-jerk. I am trying to promote learning. Which actually is a small country in Asia.

So, after reading this long, ridiculous email, I am talking to a mutual friend and laughing about it, when an idea stuck me… I should introduce the author and a friend of mine (whom I already know dislike each other) via email because seriously, they are doppelgangers in the personality department, in hopes that they will see the ridiculousness of their actions. No wonder they have tension.

My response:

Dear X & Y,
I wanted to take the time out of my busy day to introduce you to each other, as you have much in common intellectually.

X, Y is a PR guru who also dabbles in literary magazines. He enjoys wearing man-scarves and berets, and often skips/hops/prances around in nature.

Y, X writes on environmental things for a Web site. I’m fairly sure he also enjoys wearing man-scarves, and could probably help you in future self-promotion endeavors.

I truly think this is a match made in heaven—and although neither of you delight in the flesh of same-sex union, I think in the very least, this could be the beginning of a beautiful commensal relationship.

Ok kittens, don’t get in too much trouble ;)

Xoxo,
kelly

One of the guys I introduced, NOT the author, knows I can be a haughty bitch, and just ignored me, which was probably the best response, but homeboy, the author of original email flipped out. Not only saying that he already knew other person, but that the other person had edited his award-winning article. HAHA. Yes. He went there.

At this point I couldn’t really tell if he was being cheeky with me, maturely laughing at himself for the obvious amount of ridiculous in mass emailing a bunch of people crap they don’t care about…

So I sent him this article from Jezebel about a pompous editor wondering if it was about him or the other guy—which was obviously a joke since it was so over the top and he was never an editor at our college paper…

And that is when things turned nasty. He flipped out, saying things such as “Who are you? When did I act like this? What would make you think I would write such shit? You must be off your marbles if you think I would do this to someone.” Blah blah blah.

Obviously… he was not joking. My bad. The article he wrote years ago that won an award means he is much too serious a journalist/person to see the humor in this exchange.

So I actually apologized… I KNOW. I was all, “sorry I made you a sad panda, I was joking.” In which he responded, “I’m not sad, just disturbed.” And then had the audacity to request that I go back through our exchanges and pay attention to the context of our responses. HE STARTED LECTURING ME.

Haha, what? Disturbed? Because I made fun of you? Sorry your panties got in a bunch because you’re not as smart as you think you are.

I can’t handle my generation/peers sometimes. We sort of need to be heavily medicated. At least I do if I have to deal with any more self-promotional emails.

I suppose I learned my lesson though… that is what the Spam filter on my gmail is for.



Also. I <3>