The Compulsive Forwarding Syndrom

I thought most people my age, being a bit more technical savvy and know not to abuse email. With the exception of one friend who constantly send emails that are ACTUALLY funny, I have emails that are really, majorly, so irrelevant that I either feel like I've just read spam (and they are), or that I want my electrons back. Grr.

I was stupid enough to give people my GMail address, and some time I just get Unsolicited Joke Emails. Most, if not all of them, aren't even remotely funny. I'm still glad that I didn't give out my normal email open to that sort of spam (Except for the guy I mentioned above who actually send funny things). But GAAA! I want to use my GMail address as well you know?

Sometimes I honestly wonder if people are actually SO overloaded with emails now that they just hit the forward button even if it's not even funny/relevant. I get stupid warning that a quick search on the web will tell you it's false. Jokes that are so old that I've heard them when I was in intermediate (or middle school for you foreign folks). I read it and go "AAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!! WHY much they waste my time?"

Eventually, I just stop reading anything in that folder that I indentify as "stupid jokes" (which is anything that's not Border vouchers I've signed up for, or stupid warnings). Stupid warnings, on the other hand, are different. I'll ALWAYS try to educate people. Partly because I'm bossy, partly because I like to feel slightly superior, but mostly in faint hope that it'll just make people feel bad enough to not to forward it next time... and then I get an email about cooking eggs with mobile phones.

Am I living in a special world that I don't understand? Do people just stop thinking all of a sudden and decided if it's a email forwarded to them, they must forward it?

Do they think it's a chained letter, that if they don't forward they'll die a horrible death?

Come to think of it, horrible death is sounding more like a way to stop this problem of mine...