An electronic legacy of crap

My mom isn't as computer-savvy as most, and also doesn't want to suddenly find herself losing hours of her life siting in front of the computer. So every few weeks she asks me to check her e-mail for her, to sort out the important stuff from the phishing scams and Nigerian e-mails and whatnot. And inevitably, there are a ton of e-mails, many of them from a handful of people she knows who have e-mail. And of those, most of what they have sent is crap.

Chain letters. Forwarded jokes that weren't funny a million years ago when they were started. Forwarded hoaxes and political claptrap and good-luck prayers and angels and Jesus Over the World Trade Center and candles and children's school assignments that never existed. (DON'T ASK, JUST PLAY!) And hidden in this river of crap, occasional important bits.

I have a relative who died years ago. He had a computer, with e-mail. And every day he would forward about a dozen jokes to my mom, jokes that she never had time to read - and I doubt he did, either. When he died I archived all of his e-mail as a way of preserving his memory. And when I reviewed it, I realized there was nothing of him there. Just a big pile of forwarded crap.

Of course, it's not just my mom's generation. I'm on MySpace, and for the longest time I had a policy of friends-only as Friends. I would only Friend you if I knew you somehow, through the Internet or face-to-face. A little while back I decided to loosen up, and started approving as friends people who didn't seem to be just scammers like the dozen or so porno models who ask to be my Friend each day. Some of them have been interesting. But some of them are just compulsive bulletin-senders, sending out survey after survey after pointless survey. I've come to ignore my bulletins, mostly, which may mean that I'm missing out on some legitimate stuff that my real friends are sending. Maybe I should just block bulletins from the obsessive/compulsives. Maybe I should unfriend them altogether.

If you were hit by a speeding forklift tomorrow, what kind of marks will you have left on the world? Some people have children, and that's their legacy. Some people create art or music or poetry, or have a story to tell and make sure it gets told. Some people do nothing more than touch others by listening. Others help and heal and teach. For all these things they will be remembered, too.

The person who died left several legacies. Children, music, teaching, service to his community. But as far as I know, nothing in writing. No letters or e-mails that will allow us to hear his voice again. Nothing but a big pile of forwarded jokes. An electronic legacy of crap.