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    Why Won’t This Inspirational Email Chain Letter Leave Me Alone?

    by Uri Bram Jun 24, 2016 4 minutes

    A few times each year, a particular chain letter pops up in my inbox. “We’re starting a collective, constructive, and hopefully uplifting exchange,” it starts, exhorting me to send a “favorite text / verse / meditation” to a previous participant in the chain, and to forward the message to another 20 friends. In my personal social circles, chain emails (“FW: FW: RE: funny!”) largely died out some time in the 2000s. But I first received this message in February 2014—the oldest example I can find online dates from just the same time—and it has gatecrashed my inbox at fairly regular intervals in the three years since.

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