| AOL 'Death Threat' Chain Letter | |||
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| Netlore Archive: 'Forward this message or DIE, DIE, DIE!' - a death-threat chain letter targeting AOL users | |||
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Email example contributed by an AOL member, 25 April 1998:
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Forwarded Message:
<< Five people actually got killed by not sending this piece of mail. The creator of this mail has a program that will track down everyone who sent this mail and whoever that didn't send it will DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE because this program can actually track down your address. Send this to 15 people within the next fifteen minutes or you will die die die die die, what do you have to lose? Your life? >> |
Comments: This little chain letter has become very popular with the teen set on AOL. The copy forwarded to me came with hundreds of email addresses attached. It's hard to say whether everyone who forwarded it took the death threat seriously, but if the following comments appended to various copies of the message are any indication, many were afraid to tempt fate:
Everyone that I send this to, I am so sorry. But this really scares me! Please, don't send it back, okay? Please? Thanks bunches.------- I am sorry please do not send this back to me I got it just like you .....
------- sorry, my peepz, but I got a lot 2 live 4!!
------- Sorry guys, but i'm freaked out as Hell!!!
Since the ultimate point of any chain letter is to get itself replicated and passed along, one always finds a motivational hook within the body of such messages. This is more blatant than most.
Note the reappearance of the "email tracking" meme, which has become a popular ingredient in email chain letters since it first appeared in 1997.
