Spam is people!

By Joel Klettke

Spam has once again rocket launched its annoying foot into my collection of heartfelt emails to Melissa O’Neil. But something has changed. In and amongst my usual plethora of “RX MEDS GUARANTEED TO LENGTHEN YOUR PENIS THREE FEET IN TWO HOURS!” and links to dozens of beautiful Japanese women who want to “Have fun good joy happy bare!” with me, a new sort of e-terror has invaded under the guise of university correspondences.

It’s one thing that the U of C and its respective faculties wish to keep students informed, and I’m all for being kept in the know about all the functions I can avoid. It’s fantastic that I’m being asked if I can participate in some research, because hey, I’d love to donate my time to write a short paragraph outlining my intimate thoughts about the concept of “unhappiness.” Heck, it’s even a gay ‘ol time to hear from students desperately trying to switch labs and wondering if I’ll swap my perfectly orchestrated schedule and in turn help them achieve a C+ in calculus. These bring me much mirth during the early hours of the morning, and for that, I’m eternally grateful. The problem is that I receive literally dozens of these emails within a very short period of time, often crowding my alphabetically organized system of celebrity restraining order notices.

I can understand that the university and its faculties are not responsible for the vast number of emails I receive because of university related events, requests, etc., but what I don’t understand is why this system hasn’t been made more efficient. Surely the brains within this university can devise some sort of method for students to find research requests, class update information, and event notices all on one screen that isn’t their personal inboxes. Granted I could simply have spent the time I invested in writing this article in hitting the “delete” button next to the messages I desire to be rid of, or even writing nasty letters to those who made tutorial switching requests, scarring them emotionally and hopefully ridding them of the will to use the internet ever again. I’m just not comfortable with the fact anyone out there has access to my email and can throw meaningless crud at it. So I shall fight my lazy war with a tenacity only seen in the giant Asian river turtle.

Look past my sloth and see the genius behind it–if there was one universal message board where everything was organized beautifully and only crucial emails made it to my personal inbox, the world I live in would become a utopia. Unfortunately, Blackboard isn’t cutting it.