In addition to making us ponder, moving us to tears, alarm, or outrage, Chain letters are as good at looking like fun and tickling the funnybone to get us passing them along.
If you get one of those so-called "Did you know?" 'fact/trivia' chain letters, so have a lot of other people. Several of these chain letters are archived on the Lists of 'facts' page at Breakthechain and much of their supposed trivia is false.
That annoying set of Random Friendship "Getting to Know You questions Quiz/Survey Meme that keeps mutating and just won't go away!
The Brass Monkey joke chain Real info on any kind of monkey found on a war ship, including a debunk of the joke. the Congress are All Criminals leg-pull chain Also posted on this forum and mentioned as coming from "a conservative chain email" yet again. The Congress Are Dumb Travelers jape that didn't used to be about congress, but mutated in that direction.
the barrel of bricks urban legend discussed on this blog
The Buffalo New York How to Tell if You're a Suburbanite Chain Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader Farm Animal Sale Brain Teaser
The OBITUARY for Common Sense by Lori Borgman and Allen Jesson who seems to encourage viral marketing, and the use of the "tell a friend" strategy.
But neither Lori Borgman's nor Allen Jesson's original article includes the coercive "Pass it on if you have common sense or do nothing if you don't." bit at the end of this chain letter version of the story which stripped them both of authorship and was debunked by a chain-breaker. A virus warning hoax chain sprung up against Mr. Jesson's Common Sense piece. Just another example of one viral trying to kill another in the ongoing epic worldwide battle of the chain letters.
scrabble game chain letter Fun Date Fact Chain Letter The Pin-drop chain letter quotes Colin Powell out of context, places him in the wrong location, leaves out an important detail about someone else in order to pass itself off as sounding more recent, oh, and the bulk of it is really nothing but anti-French hogwash.