Thursday, April 22, 2010

The Bold Claims of Viral Mail

Who starts this stuff anyway?

I got two new viral emails this morning. You know the type, they are full of either tips and tricks using common household products or nonsense factoids that are supposed to amaze and astound. Mostly I just get mildly annoyed. It’s like sitting next to Cliff Clavin. Ten years ago, the norm was that I would get a whole bunch of these from people who had just gotten their first email account. Then those people would get a bunch in their Inbox, they would realize how annoying these can be and they would stop forwarding to me It was part of the Circle of Life.

Now with email being as ubiquitous as junk mail being delivered by your postal carrier and with the general hatred of junk mail that we all seem to share, it boggles my mind that people still forward some of these old chestnuts around and around and around.

Do people really read these things or do they just look at the top line and say, “I’ll forward this on to everyone I know because I think it will help alleviate some of the stress in their shallow lives”? OR maybe they look at the top line and they say, “I’ll forward this on to everyone I want to annoy today”? Hey, I got two this morning!

I actually opened and read mine this morning just so I could debunk and make fun of the content and I read some really amazing stuff. How about this one: Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair. Can this be true? How can this be measured? How can I be measured? How do we measure intelligence? How do we define intelligence? Is having intelligence different than being intelligent? How is a baseline established to determine if someone is high or low on their zinc/copper levels? If you are below the baseline are you automatically dumb? Or just dumber? What If I’m high on zinc and low on copper? What if I go bald?

Ok, time for some research here. I spent a couple of hours digging around on the Internet and I think I’m now an expert. Here are my ultra scientific conclusions: Apparently you need both copper and zinc (in the proper proportion) for good health. Too high copper, you have health issues, too high zinc, you have health issues, not enough zinc, you have health issues, not enough copper, you have health issues. You can measure short-term high exposure in the blood, urine and feces and long-term high exposure in the hair and that's bad.

If you have high levels of zinc and copper in your hair, you are probably a hyper-active, paranoid schizophrenic with severe PMS, acne, headaches and white spots under your fingernails. You could soon suffer from panic disorders and hallucinations while struggling with nephrosis. You may be at higher risk for leukemia, anemia, hyperthyroidism, myocardial infarction and hemochromatosis! You also could be highly intelligent but it's not related.

Not enough zinc and copper in your hair and you open the crazy emails that your evil friends send you and you actually investigate the claims (which seem ridiculas on the surface) wasting away hours of valuable time which could be spent on Twitter or Facebook. Clearly, a sign of being less intelligent.

~ Shelly Yergensen

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