I’ve Made a Huge Mistake: I Forgot to Uncheck SUBSCRIBE

If you forget to uncheck ‘subscribe’ when you enroll on a site or purchase an item online, the good news is you’re going to get spam. I love spam! (No, not the wildly popular in Hawaii canned meat product, the emailed junk mail. I’ll blog on Hormel another time.) Yes, it’s true—spam is great. Stick with me here.

I have an email address that I’ve had for pretty much forever. It’s a generic free internet account that doesn’t have my name in the address but rather a catchy though somewhat misleading nickname. Most people who see it think it references tattoos. It doesn’t. Anyway, I use it for things like buying stuff off of Craig’s List and inquiring about products on commercial websites. For that reason, most of the inbox for that email is advertising and promotional garbage I delete without reading. The spam filter redirects hundreds of emails a day to the spam folder, which I empty daily, usually without looking. Typical emails in there have subjects lines like “Jessie Nicole wants to be friends on Facebook” and “Get $100,000 quick and easy!” Obviously, the links in these emails will either direct me to a porn site or a pyramid scheme, or a pornographic pyramid scheme. Hence the delete-without-reading I do on a daily basis.

The inbox, however, contains actual “opt in” emails. Currently, I receive at least ten emails a day that are newsletters I have, for some reason, intentionally signed up for. Occasionally, when I am internet browsing, I forget to unclick the “Yes, I would like to be notified” button when I purchase something or register with a site. Why do I do this? I NEVER read these emails. My inbox is always just a bunch of garbage. And, of course, once you opt in, you can never opt out. Essentially, the inbox as well as the spam folder is all just full of spam. That said, let me tell you why I love spam.

It’s paperless, weightless, easy to filter, and easy to dispose of.  Actual junk mail pissed me off. I have to deal with actual stupid hunks of trash in the mail box outside my house. MediaCom is the WORST offender. I hate them so much. I will NEVER use their service but they send me junk every week. Yesterday, I got a postcard sized credit card thing. It was made of weird composite plastic material so I couldn’t even drop it directly in the recycle bin like I do with the letters about term life insurance. (Does anyone under 80 years old buy term life insurance? I can’t imagine planning for my own death within the next ten years.)

So, whether recyclable materials or not, I have to deal with actual physical garbage. Spam is so much more polite. It tells me it’s garbage and filters itself into its own handy virtual garbage bin. (Yes, I realize this is a function of my email client. Don’t rain on my parade.) The point is, if I want to hook up with Jessie Nicole, I know where to find her, and if I don’t, I can click “delete all” to make her and all her friends vanish into oblivion.

In summation, never forget to uncheck the subscribe box, but if you don’t it’s okay because spam is the best kind of unsolicited advertising, and MediaCom is Satan’s lapdog.