Glurges are chain letter forward stories, poems, sayings, designed to pack some sort of emotional wallop to get you passing them along to others. A few good examples of glurge: The "Just One" list glurge chain posted on a forum at help.com of all places and one of those life lesson type chains posted by Charlotte.

They may be recently concocted, taken from actual writings, or stories that have been passed down from generation to generation, or a mix of the two as an old story is reworked to fit with the times. They may be heartwarming, depressing, guilt-tripping, thought-provoking, offensive, or any combination of these. Some are rumors about famous people, or falsely attributed to famous and non-famous people alike. Others appear to have that great author known throughout all the ages as Anonymous, and the real author may or may never be discovered. When the real author is cited and it is not a false attribution, the poem, story, essay or quote is proven as something valid, and should never have been included in a chain forward in the first place, and especially not without its author's permission and without due credit.

The Vanished Friend chain letter ripped off Henson Towne's poem "Around the Corner" and tells you to forward it or else you'll end up like the fictional people in various bogus situations that were completely made up by the lame-o who created the forward. Posting and forwarding this chain can make your friends and good reputation vanish. Henson Towne's poem has never and will never curse you or your friends with death for failing to pass it along in any chain letter.

Regina Brett has written many columns, two of which have turned up as glurge chain letters. One includes a rumor about her age, which she writes about in another humorous column.

The Rose by S.I. Kishor 1943.

Angel Girl, The Fence, or Angel at the Fence, Miami Herald Hermon Rosenblat's false memoir. It was a story about two children who Met during World War Two, where the girl tossed apples over the fence to feed the little boy secretly to avoid either of them being persecuted. They were said to have been separated and reunited to marry a decade later. The story has been passed around in chain letters, and its author featured in the media.

It is also false. False Memoir Herman Rosenblat and The Girl with the Apple -Fiction! Angel at the Fence story False According to this article the story was originally posted in, and given an award by the New York Post, as well as praised and believed by Oprah Winfrey, who has not only started her own religion because she thinks God is actually jealous of her, but is also notorious for buying into a lot of untruths, both positive and negative.

Angels in Indiana or "The Big Wheel" is an unlikely "Touched by an Angel" or "Highway to Heaven" type story if you take it literally and believe there really were Angels in Indianna. Or it could be taken as a story about an incredible outpouring of generocity on the part of some unknown ordinary citizens toward one family.

The problem with this glurge, besides the fact that it is a story passed around in chain letters, is the way it is misused by inclusion in other forwards such as the I Picked You religious manipulation to get people praying an artificial prayer, and passing it along. The story is used as a means of getting people to pray more in the hopes that God will say "Yes" to them the same way he supposedly did in the story with these "angels." Used in this way, the tale becomes virtually worthless, and only the means to an end; which is always to get us sending more copies of it to as many as possible.

Guilt-tripping Glurge Poem

Little Flowers Glurge

I Choose is a highly self-righteous glurge chain that doesn't take into account what it really is to be human. Dear John, you are not for real.