I like getting e-mails. I like getting Facebook wall posts and messages. I also like getting text messages. It’s that little moment of elation when you realize someone wants to communicate with you that I think most people share. And this is why I find spam mail so disheartening; it’s a let down when you see you have an e-mail and it turns out to be just an ad for male enhancement (likewise when you get one of those text messages from Verizon telling you to take a survey. All that time searching my pockets for my phone turns out to be a waste.).

Listservs: we’re all on one. Many of us are on several. I’m sure that the SOM listservs have invitations to corporate takeovers, or maybe job opportunities that involve selling only a small part of your soul. Engineering listservs probably have things about ‘Star Trek’ conventions (my one reason for wanting to belong to one), and most other listservs should have information appropriate to their constituency. So it should come as no surprise that there is currently drama happening on the theater listserv.

It started about a week ago when an e-mail was sent out with information relating to an acting opportunity (it’s referred to as a casting call in the business). Well, at some point or another, someone responded to this e-mail in a fairly flirtatious manner, only they didn’t send it to the sender, they sent it to the listserv. Big mistake. In the time it took this person to click the mouse button, several thousand (OK, maybe not that many) theater students were supplied with something much more valuable than acting opportunities: gossip.

Shortly thereafter, others began to reply (they too sent to the whole listserv), offering their input on the situation, seriously and jokingly. This bombardment of pointless e-mails, in turn, awoke many who had no idea they were still on the listserv (I’m certain some graduated 10 years ago), and they in turn sent out e-mails that said ‘please take me off this listserv,’ or something like that, but they too sent it to the listserv rather than the sender of the original e-mail and thus fed the beast that was already filling their inboxes with errant messages, which now included their own pleas meant to solve the very problem they were fueling.

This went on for several days ‘ actually it is still going on, though eventually a voice of reason sent out a message on the listserv: ‘Do not send messages to the listserv meant for one person, because that way everyone gets it and it clutters their inboxes,’ or something like that. This did not go over well.

The original flirter sent a message that called the voice of reason rude (I only know this because it was, of course, sent to the entire listserv). Perhaps the voice was rude, but for my part (and for the fact that it is an inflectionless, text-based e-mail) I disagreed, partly because I was now up to several hundred thousand e-mails in my inbox (thank heavens for Gmail’s seemingly unlimited space!).

Eventually, after a few hundred more ‘please take me off this listserv’ e-mails, a second voice of reason aimed to end the dispute: ‘Play nice children,’ it read, and as it’s been quiet for a few days, I’m fairly sure that people are playing nice, or at least playing viciously but not sending messages to the listserv.

Not only did this experience entertain me for a few days (I love e-mails!), but it does shed some light on problems that can arise from society’s multitasking ‘go, go, go’ attitude. If everyone had taken a moment to look over their e-mails (edit them even, but especially look at who they’re sending them to), this whole thing would have never happened. Megabytes would have been spared, bandwidth saved, precious seconds secured, and the false hope of, ‘ooh I’ve got an e-mail! ‘ Oh it’s spam’ and the subsequent e-mail-spawned emotional roller coaster would have never happened to me this past week. Quit playing games with my heart, listserv patrons.

‘ Dan Lyons is a senior English and theater major and Pipe Dream’s resident townie, recently returned from his exploits abroad.