MySpace Bulletin Rant
So I was just on MySpace, reading through the thousands of bulletins that my friends post each day and noticed something I see a lot of, that bugs me down to my toes: The passing on of the bullshit. It’s been going on since the beginning of the Internet and used to take up space in my email Inbox. Now, it’s all over social networking sites. Sometimes I’ve sent out corrective bulletins and sometimes I’ve just messaged the offenders and laughed at them for being so gullible. But sometimes it can be a disservice to pass on B.S. That is what this rant is about…
Today’s B.S. was in the form of a long and detailed story about a tragedy of some kind that could have been avoided, had the victim known to dial “*77″ from her cell phone. (Originally circulated as “#77″.) Supposedly, dialing *77 into your phone and hitting the “send” key will immediately connect you to your local Highway Patrol, State Troopers, or what have you. The story ends with the obligatory “Send this to every woman you know! It may save a life!”Really? No. Not really.
The think that irks me the most about these repeatedly forwarded bulletins of bullshit is that not ONE person even bothers to see if it’s even true or not. (Which is particularly irritating, considering this story has been circulating since 2002!) Well, this gem of an “informational” bulletin was NOT true. And it could, sometimes, be very dangerous to pass on inaccurate information.
If, God forbid, one of my friends were in a perilous situation and remembered the MySpace bulletin she’d read that told her to dial *77 from her phone- she would be very disappointed to learn that doing that was pointless. And if she did that instead of just dialing 911, like any smart person would do if they are in immediate danger, she could very well be hurt or killed.
First of all, the correct way to key that in is with a pound (#) sign before the number 77, NOT an asterisk (*). Secondly, some states support that, some do NOT (they have different codes) and some don’t have that option available at all. Saying that an immediate link to help is in the form of a “universal” code is careless and potentially dangerous.
Here’s a tip, future bulletin (or email) forwarders: If you’re about to pass on information that you think is helpful, take 2 minutes out of your day to check it out first. You can do this by visiting Urban Legends Reference Pages (Snopes.com). Type a few keywords in their search engine and voilà! You can instantly see if what you are about to pass on is true, helpful information, or B.S. that should have stopped making it’s rounds years ago.
PLEASE. And thank you. I would hate for someone to get hurt because of someone else’s laziness.
