How best to battle the email morons this season?

[bunkerbuster1]

You know the morons--the ones who receive some forwarded-by-uncle-JimBob message about "Barak Hussein Osama the Souper Seekret Moozlem!"

We've ridiculed them, we've argued the facts, and so forth. But isn't it time we presented a unified front, some kind of centralized talking point end-the-discussion put-down that makes these imbeciles suitably ashamed of themselves for rumormongering and spreading lies?

I'm at a bit of a loss. Perhaps we could start by identifying the type who reads and forwards this stupidity: what's the best name for them?

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. snopes.com

[ColbertWatcher]

2. I agree. n/t

[bunkerbuster1]

3. Well yeah, I should've mentioned it. Obviously they're a pretty credible source

even to the email morons. But beyond that?

What do we CALL them? Don't we even have a name for the feebs who believe this crap without researching it and using Teh Gooogle?

[The Backlash Cometh]

7. I don't know what anybody else calls them, but I call them ex-friends.

Not by my choice, just that, nobody likes to be proven wrong, especially to the twenty other people in their own batchfile.

[Alter Ego]

4. I dub them "Emailtards".

[bunkerbuster1]

6. Catchy. totally unfair to the mentally handicapped, though...

[Alter Ego]

8. How about "Smearbots"?

EDIT: Wow, that was retarded--I responded to my own post by accident.

[bunkerbuster1]

14. Smearbots is good.

Me likey.

[annabanana]

19. or just "E-tards"

rolls right off the tongue...

[ColbertWatcher]

5. Technically...

...Stephen said Obama is a Secret Time-traveling Nazi Muslim.

And possible ugly Quaker rumours in his past, too...

[Ian David]

9. What I like to do is take advantage of the fact that they always forget to use Bcc instead of Cc.

I copy/paste all the email addresses "down the chain" and email the rebuttal and/or debunking to everyone, all the way down the list.

And then I spend the next few months sending pro-liberal information to all of them, except the ones who complain too loudly, who eventually get taken off my list once four-letter are used.

[NMDemDist2]

10. our DU Propaganda Debunking Group needs to be put in everyone's "Favorites"

and we need to use it regularly

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=284

[rucky]

15. Cool! I didn't know we had one.

[bunkerbuster1]

16. I had missed that one. Thanks.

Good stuff in there.

[raccoon]

22. thanks! nt

[ColbertWatcher]

11. You're always welcome to...

...point them over to the Truthuiness Encyclopedia and ask them if that's where the info for the email started.

We have a whole section of rumours about Obama here that you can point them to.

Then, you can ask them if they fell for a satirical webtube.

The best thing: if you get an email about a new rumor, simply add the new rumour to the page and pretend it was there the whole time!

[tanyev]

12. No more quietly deleting.

Time to confront each and every one of them, as politely as possible. We do not have to take this anymore.

[bunkerbuster1]

13. Agreed, that's been my approach from the start.

Thing is, as a result I almost never see the actual emails myself any more, because I have a firm no-bullshit policy with email acquaintances. You send me something stupid and unsubstantiated and I humiliate you, possibly in front of your friends.

So it's been literally years since I've received anything like that myself.

What I DO see is this crap being copy/pasted into online forums, and references to these emails by people who should know better.

[tanyev]

24. Yeah, I got booted off of two people's email lists, and I haven't gotten any RW crap in a long time.

I almost miss it. :evilgrin:

[Gman]

17. Reply All is your friend

and tell everyone how messed up the email is.

[zanne]

18. Exactly. nt

[annabanana]

21. At least it keeps people from forwarding crap that they haven't

even looked hard at. Very often they're embarassed to have sent it.. It's like they never even read it before..

[bunkerbuster1]

25. See, not to put too fine a point on it, but I think the low-hanging fruit's been picked.

Meaning, there is a substantial population out there that has been humiliated and changed their ways.

What's left is a hard-core echo chamber of really stupid people bouncing really stupid emails off to one another.

I don't know if they can be reached and (virtually) beaten senseless, but they can be identified and humiliated.

[malaise]

20. Reply to all of them with the following

I hope you are delighted to spread that rubbish on behalf of 19% of the population - a group better known as the lunatic fringe.

[raccoon]

23. Right on! nt

[izquierdista]

26. Evolution of the Enquirer

Back in the last century, these were the people who made their major policy decisions based upon what they read in the National Enquirer.

--"I don't know if I can vote to re-elect Carter. I read where Amy is engaged to alien who eats live hedgehogs. Anybody who lets his daughter do that doesn't deserve my vote."

Now in the day of the instant communication, Bubba doesn't even need a clean t-shirt and a set of dentures to address the gullible public, he has the Internet. These missives float out on the aether, going into a black hole when they reach someone with critical thinking skills, but being reflected and amplified when they hit someone with rice pudding between the ears*. Replying to all is a good strategy to counter the proliferation of dumbth, because although people might be anti-intellectual, they don't want to take on the individual mantle of stupidity all by themselves.

So go ahead, call them out, point out their falsehoods, rebut their lies. But do it with an anger that calls into question their intellectual capabilities.


* 'Being There' (1979) "Louise: It's for sure a white man's world in America. Look here: I raised that boy since he was the size of a piss-ant. And I'll say right now, he never learned to read and write. No, sir. Had no brains at all. Was stuffed with rice pudding between th' ears. Shortchanged by the Lord, and dumb as a jackass. Look at him now! Yes, sir, all you've gotta be is white in America, to get whatever you want. Gobbledy-gook!"

[Bigmack]

27. They just keep coming...

(I posted this on another thread)

like the zombies in 28 days.

I've sent email responses noting that oil was $27 a barrel, and the Euro was about par with the dollar when Dimson took over, and others like it, to RW FWDs that cross my monitor. Usually sent by friends who had gotten them from RW friends and family.

Nothing ever happens.

I have Repy All-ed and even carefully copied email addresses onto the To line, and blasted them with Snopes and short, punchy rebuttals.

Crickets...

The only response I got was one reply from a blast I sent with a Snopes debunking of an Obama email. I added the piece about McSame calling his wife the C word and being physically violent. Guy's only response was "Sooooo...?"

The RW doesn't want dialog... at any level.

The only LW emails I've seen have been sourced and footnoted arguments that are pretty much unassailable. Anybody left of center just nods their heads when they get them, and the Rightwingnuts just ignore them.

Progressives generally use Reason, and that commodity is in very short supply in Murika these days, and many people don't even recognize it.