If a subject exists, I’ve been sent an email about it.
If a subject exists, I’ve been sent an email about it.
T he dam has burst, the gates are open, the atmosphere has been breached — and it is finally time for me to throw up my hands and complain at length about the amount of my life I spend unsubscribing from the cascade of unsolicited marketing emails that falls ineluctably into my inbox through no obvious fault of my own. It’s ceaseless. It’s incessant. It’s interminable. If I were to try to keep up with it in real time, I’d be unable to do anything else. One could not expect a plumber to install a sink while playing in the men’s final at Wimbledon, and one cannot expect me to use my email while being treated to memoranda about every last thing that is happening in the United States. I’ve had enough. Somehow, at some point, the email address I used for work was placed onto a list, and from there, like some promiscuous sci-fi virus, it has made its way into the databases of every two-bit promotional agency in the United States. I get marketing emails from the left and the right. I get marketing emails from the straights and the gays and the somewhere-in-betweens. I get emails about concerts in Seattle and protests in Mississippi and from the American Association of Garden Furniture Inspectors. If a subject exists, I’ve been sent an email about it. It’s enough to make me long for a meteor strike.
Other than the dear faces of my wife and two children, the image with which I am now most intimately familiar in this world is the box that reads, “Reason for Unsubscribing: I never signed up for your emails.” I click this ten, 20, 100 times per day. And, hell, why would I have signed up for your emails? Although I resent the intrusion, I can just about comprehend some plucky little marketing agent thinking, “Well, Charles does write about politics, so it stands to reason that he might be interested in this big political event that fits neatly within his wheelhouse.” But, even then, there surely has to be some limit to that logic? “We sent this to a lot of people” is probably necessary to fulfill a flacking contract, but it cannot be close to sufficient. The purpose of marketing is to sell, influence, or persuade. And most of the emails that I receive have no chance whatsoever of doing so. What, if I may inquire, do the people who press “Send” on these missives expect my reaction to be when I am informed about a local “Buy LGBT” campaign in Rendville, Ore. — 3,000 miles away from where I live? Is there anyone in America — nay, on Earth — who, upon learning that a third-string academic at a college they’ve never heard of is “available for comment about the latest developments in the Hunter Biden case,” has pumped his fist to the sky and said, “Finally, I see the keys to that Pulitzer”? Does the journalist exist who, having been told that Rollerskating4Climate has now branched out into three counties, rushes instantly to the foot of his child’s bed to let the kid know that Daddy will be away for a while on assignment? I cannot conceive of this.
If I got the sense that this rather enormous flaw were apparent to the emails’ authors, it might perhaps make the process seem less frustrating. I could deal, I think, with a pro forma lobbing of shells. You send an email; I unsubscribe from it; let’s call the whole thing off. And yet, rather than appearing world-weary and cynical, the architects of spam always seem so bloody chipper. Invariably, it is implied that my present lack of knowledge about the contents contained within is the only thing standing between me and my eternal joy. Each and every marketing email I get — even the ones about satanist abortionists in Brooklyn or about the impending End of the Republic — has an unspoken “of course” undergirding its tone. “Of course, Charles, you’ll be transported to ecstasy to learn that Dr. Edgar Prendergast will be making a statement tomorrow about the future of the Cincinnati Zoo.” I have seen cheerleaders who are more grumpy than these people. I’ve seen cocaine addicts who are less amped up. Just once, I would like to receive an unwanted email that starts, “Look, mate, I know you don’t care about this in the slightest, but the guy who has me locked in this basement is tracking my work, and . . .” Then — but only then — might I write it up.
Never, in the field of human language, have so many patent falsehoods been crammed into so small a space. As it turns out, “of course” has a host of similarly infuriating cousins. On the false-premise side, there are: “as we all know,” “that everyone is talking about,” “that you’ve all been waiting for,” and “pleased to announce.” And, on the other side of the family, we have the signs of false intimacy: “Just checking in,” “Just following up,” “Just circling back,” “Hope this finds you well,” and, the one that makes me want to throw my laptop into my swimming pool: the email whose first volley contains a “Re:” in the subject line. “Re:”? There is no “Re:” — you sent the email to me. You can’t be “checking in,” because we don’t know each other. As far as you know, I could be dead. You aren’t “following up,” because nothing can follow nothing. “Circling back” — to what?
This morning alone — during the time I spent writing this piece — I received an email from a woman named “Susan” that began, “Following up to see if I can answer any questions about the cutting-edge Sleep Therapy technology offered through the Snooze Mobile App” and an email from a woman named “Emily” that began, “I wanted to check in and see if you had a chance to look over the new report which used AI to reimagine American landmarks.” Try, if you will, to imagine this happening in real life. Imagine someone standing outside of the supermarket accosting people in this manner. “Hello there. Yes — it’s me again. I’m just checking to see if you’ve had time yet to review the pamphlet I gave you earlier about the new research on elbow pain? Okay, just let me know if you have any questions. I’ll be here tomorrow, of course.” Now picture 20 or 30 of those people operating simultaneously, and envisage them being replaced instantly by others the very second you’ve told them to go away. That’s my inbox in 2023.
Come, friendly comets, fall on me.