12:52 PM
Roy Vicker
Facebook, as I type, is in the process of unveiling some sort of beyond-e-mail e-mail service.
Forget everyone's concerns about safety breaches (Koobface, anyone?) or about spending even more time on this famously time-sucking site.
E-mail has always served two purposes. It allows you to communicate, and it allows you to weed out evolutionary weaklings from the herd.
You know the old saying: Never trust a man with an @yahoo email address.
Learning that your prospective date still has an Earthlink e-mail is the equivalent of discovering his vestigial tail. E-mail says something about you. It says, "I can be reached here," but, like a physical address, it also carries a certain cachet. Gmail? You're probably reliable and tech-savvy. AOL? You are probably someone's grandmother. @mindspring? You probably live in a box under a bridge.
Now even AOL seems to have sensed the stigma its addresses carry, upgrading its e-mail with something called "Project Phoenix." Because nothing says, "I am a reliable e-mail server," like "I am named after a mythical, undead bird that was known to burst into flame without any apparent warning."
What does your e-mail say about you?
Unintentionally bad email addresses are the misguided tattoos of our era. "Oh, it would be funny if I enshrined Robert E. Lee in my e-mail address!" you think to yourself one night. You are 11. You spend the next seven years receiving angry letters from civil rights groups, and one e-mail from the Virginia Historical Society inviting you to a gala. And your friends weren't so lucky.
For those who grew up with AIM and AOL e-mail, innocently selected e-mail addresses were an exercise in rude awakenings. Remember DogLove, SandwichLover, or SwallowsAlways? We loved dogs, sandwiches, and swallows, those majestic birds! We wanted to celebrate them in our screen names! Suddenly, we were getting e-mails from strange men demanding our ASL's. Most people changed them. But there were some who didn't realize how bad they were.
There are some warning signs that you might have a bad e-mail address. First, is it oddly specific, but does it end in a number? You probably need to rethink your life. Anything along the lines of NobodyLovesTheCircusMore5 or ClevelandMortThePirateHunter7 is just a cry for help. The people who own these e-mail addresses clearly felt that they had their lives well in order until they noticed that NobodyLovesTheCircusMore was taken -- four times. At Hotmail.
Second, is it anything along the lines of your first name and a number that might be your zip code but, then again, also might not be? That's unnerving. Bob058892@mac.com makes you sound like a citizen of a frightening dystopia that has run out of last names.
Third, is it a personal statement, and are you a grown person? There was a brief window of time in the 90's before everyone realized you needed to claim your actual name when everyone picked names like JennyAppleseed and CowsComeHome@hotmail.com, but now having something like that implies you're a hippie whose website homepage plays flute music on loop.
And for everyone else, this is the breakdown:
@AOL.com You miss that screaming sound your computer used to make before getting online. Your screen name might be bizarrely personal, like AllenTada@aol.com. You used to pride yourself with being ahead of the curve in the 90's. You use verbs like "twittering" and spend a lot of time worrying about "sexting rampages." Your password probably memorializes your deceased dog. You have a tendency to forward people joke e-mails and you still send e-cards.
@YourWorkEmail You either work somewhere important or don't understand the concept behind e-mail. You have a tendency to forward people joke e-mails with picture attachments.
@YourCableProvider You wish you had an office e-mail address to use. You are going to miss Oprah a lot when it goes off the air.
@Yahoo You're not sure how you got this e-mail address. You might be a fine person, but it is difficult to tell at this point. (Who has a Yahoo e-mail address?)
@Gmail You actually know your way around a computer. You view anyone who doesn't have Gmail in the same way that the caveman who had figured out fire viewed all his non-fire-equipped contemporaries or the way most people nowadays view the Amish. You don't understand how to get in touch with anyone who doesn't have Gchat.
@Hotmail This e-mail address says, "I probably carry my phone in a holster." You keep insisting that this e-mail service has "a lot of good features," but you don't sound entirely convinced.
@Facebook You figured you might as well get one of these, because you were going to be on Facebook, anyway.
Forget everyone's concerns about safety breaches (Koobface, anyone?) or about spending even more time on this famously time-sucking site.
E-mail has always served two purposes. It allows you to communicate, and it allows you to weed out evolutionary weaklings from the herd.
You know the old saying: Never trust a man with an @yahoo email address.
Learning that your prospective date still has an Earthlink e-mail is the equivalent of discovering his vestigial tail. E-mail says something about you. It says, "I can be reached here," but, like a physical address, it also carries a certain cachet. Gmail? You're probably reliable and tech-savvy. AOL? You are probably someone's grandmother. @mindspring? You probably live in a box under a bridge.
Now even AOL seems to have sensed the stigma its addresses carry, upgrading its e-mail with something called "Project Phoenix." Because nothing says, "I am a reliable e-mail server," like "I am named after a mythical, undead bird that was known to burst into flame without any apparent warning."
What does your e-mail say about you?
Unintentionally bad email addresses are the misguided tattoos of our era. "Oh, it would be funny if I enshrined Robert E. Lee in my e-mail address!" you think to yourself one night. You are 11. You spend the next seven years receiving angry letters from civil rights groups, and one e-mail from the Virginia Historical Society inviting you to a gala. And your friends weren't so lucky.
For those who grew up with AIM and AOL e-mail, innocently selected e-mail addresses were an exercise in rude awakenings. Remember DogLove, SandwichLover, or SwallowsAlways? We loved dogs, sandwiches, and swallows, those majestic birds! We wanted to celebrate them in our screen names! Suddenly, we were getting e-mails from strange men demanding our ASL's. Most people changed them. But there were some who didn't realize how bad they were.
There are some warning signs that you might have a bad e-mail address. First, is it oddly specific, but does it end in a number? You probably need to rethink your life. Anything along the lines of NobodyLovesTheCircusMore5 or ClevelandMortThePirateHunter7 is just a cry for help. The people who own these e-mail addresses clearly felt that they had their lives well in order until they noticed that NobodyLovesTheCircusMore was taken -- four times. At Hotmail.
Second, is it anything along the lines of your first name and a number that might be your zip code but, then again, also might not be? That's unnerving. Bob058892@mac.com makes you sound like a citizen of a frightening dystopia that has run out of last names.
Third, is it a personal statement, and are you a grown person? There was a brief window of time in the 90's before everyone realized you needed to claim your actual name when everyone picked names like JennyAppleseed and CowsComeHome@hotmail.com, but now having something like that implies you're a hippie whose website homepage plays flute music on loop.
And for everyone else, this is the breakdown:
@AOL.com You miss that screaming sound your computer used to make before getting online. Your screen name might be bizarrely personal, like AllenTada@aol.com. You used to pride yourself with being ahead of the curve in the 90's. You use verbs like "twittering" and spend a lot of time worrying about "sexting rampages." Your password probably memorializes your deceased dog. You have a tendency to forward people joke e-mails and you still send e-cards.
@YourWorkEmail You either work somewhere important or don't understand the concept behind e-mail. You have a tendency to forward people joke e-mails with picture attachments.
@YourCableProvider You wish you had an office e-mail address to use. You are going to miss Oprah a lot when it goes off the air.
@Yahoo You're not sure how you got this e-mail address. You might be a fine person, but it is difficult to tell at this point. (Who has a Yahoo e-mail address?)
@Gmail You actually know your way around a computer. You view anyone who doesn't have Gmail in the same way that the caveman who had figured out fire viewed all his non-fire-equipped contemporaries or the way most people nowadays view the Amish. You don't understand how to get in touch with anyone who doesn't have Gchat.
@Hotmail This e-mail address says, "I probably carry my phone in a holster." You keep insisting that this e-mail service has "a lot of good features," but you don't sound entirely convinced.
@Facebook You figured you might as well get one of these, because you were going to be on Facebook, anyway.
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