12.16.2008:
Only YOU can prevent bullshit email forwards, "swiffer-will-kill-your-puppy" edition
11:22 AMFolks, let me share with you a little bit of information that, until this morning, I thought everyone knew:
It's 2008.
I know, right? There's a lot of stupid people out there, but even the most functionally retarded among them knows by December 16 that they've been living almost an entire year in 2008. That's 19 years after Tim Berners-Lee invented the world wide web, 39 years after the invention of the internet in general, and a whopping 172 years after Charles Babbage invented the first computer, the analytical engine. In 2008, there are more computers than there are people in this nation, and almost all of them are connected to the internet - as are cell phones, music players, wrist watches... There are even toasters and alarm clocks that are connected to the internet.
So why the FUCK don't people use these miracles of modern ingenuity to check Snopes.com whenever a hyperbolic, exclamation-mark filled email warns them about complete bullshit instead of just hitting the stupid "Forward" button?
The latest one to hit my inbox? The "Swiffer Wetjet Will Kill Your Puppy In The Liver!" email:
Subject: FW: SWIFFER WETJET WARNING
From: [Name Withheld]
-------Original Message-------
I checked with snoopes this one is true.
Take care of your pets
HV
[note from me - whoever "HV" was on the original chain, he or she is a FUCKING LIAR.]
-----Inline Message Follows-----
Subject: SWIFFER WETJET
Recently someone had to have their 5-year old German Shepherd dog put down due
To liver failure. The dog was completely healthy until
A few weeks ago, so they
Had a necropsy done to see what the cause was. The
Liver levels were
Unbelievable, as if the d og had ingested poison of
Some kind. The dog is kept
Inside, and when he's outside, someone's with him, so
The idea of him
Getting into something unknown was hard to believe..
My neighbor started going through all the items in the
House. When he got to
The Swiffer Wetjet, he noticed, in very tiny print, a
Warning which stated
'may be harmful to small children and animals.' He
Called the company to
Ask what the contents of the cleaning agent are and
Was astounded to find out
That antifreeze is one of the ingredients (actually,
He was told it's a
Compound which is one molecule away from antifreeze).
Therefore , just by the
Dog walking on the floor cleaned with the solution,
Then lickin g its=2 0own paws,
It ingested enough of the solution to destroy its
Liver..
Soon after his dog's death, his housekeepers' two cats
Also died of
Liver failure. They both used the Swiffer Wetjet for
Quick cleanups on their
Floors. Necropsies weren't done on the cats, so they
Couldn't file a
Lawsuit, but he asked that we spread the word to as
Many people as possible so
They don't lose
Their animals.
This is equally harmful to babies and small children
That play on the floor a
Lot and put their fingers in their mouths a lot.
PLEASE, EVEN IF YOU DO NOT HAVE BABIES, SMALL CHILDREN
OR OWN A PET;
PLEASE FORWARD THIS ON! YOU MAY NOT HAVE ANY CHILDREN
OR PETS BUT SOME OF YOU
HAVE FRIENDS OR FAMILY WITH PETS AND ALSO FAMILIES
WITH GRANDCHILDREN AND GREAT
GRANDCHILDREN
(Sorry for the word wrapping. It came to me that way, and I'm not about to go copy-edit this hunk of filth.)
Now, Snopes has done a fine job of dissecting this email's vailidity based on their proven methods (antecdotal evidence, no hard facts, no case records, statements from Proctor & Gamble and the ASPCA, etc). But there's one aspect they didn't go into (probably because they're nice) that I would like to explore a bit (probably because I'm not nice).
Basic high school chemistry teaches us that "one molecule away from [x]" is completely meaningless. It's purely semantic how closely related one molecule is to another, and it's only worrisome based on your brain's comprehension of English and what words mean. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ACTUAL SCIENCE.
Saying that Swiffer WetJet cleaning solution is "one molecule away from anti-freeze - so it'll kill your pet like anti-freeze" is like saying that table salt is one atom away from chlorine, so you can clean your pool with it. It's borderline retarded. Only in a nation full of dummies could a statement like that even remotely bother anyone.
Think I'm being too hard on the poor animal lovers who fell for this? Think that I am insisting that any level of understanding in a specialized field for the general populace is unfair? Well, you're a dummy too.
Look, I write stupid books about myself for a living. I don't know jack fucking shit about chemistry. But I do understand what atoms are, what molecules are and how, when a mommy atom and a daddy atom love each other very much, they bond and form a substance, and that some substances in the world share similar building agents as others. Which means that me - an untrained non-expert who sat through high school chemestry class, understands that just because substances share root atoms doesn't make them the same (or even nearly the same... The same atom which makes a Hydrogen bomb go "BOOM" is found in your drinking water).
A basic level of understanding of how things work is not too much to ask of people. If you know how to press the "forward" button in your email client, you should also know how to Google shit. You don't even have to know the name Snopes to find it with a basic search for "Swiffer WetJet pets".
I sent out an email to the 300 or so people whose email addresses appeared in the chain of the conversation. It was worded civilly and explained the points I made above, but nicely. It also requested that everyone in the chain pass the information backward to everyone they've sent the email to. I stopped short of asking whoever "HV" was to go choke on a cock and die for lying to everyone the way they did.
What I'd ask of you, kind reader, is that you begin doing the same. Begin emailing anyone and everyone who forwards you nonsense. Let them know that, with the wildfire of email misinformation spreading as it does, that you've decided to become the fire marshal. Give them sources to check, call them on their bullshit if they say they checked them, and politely embarrass them into knocking this shit off (feel free to use letmegooglethatforyou.com's embarrassing Google forwarder. I love it and use it often, mostly on Jeremy).
I don't mind the email. I like contact with people. I don't consider it "spam." I do, however, consider it insulting and lazy that people claiming to care enough to pass this shit along, but don't ACTUALLY care enough to research the material and find out if, at the VERY least, they've been exposing their pet to danger all this time so maybe if something does crop up, they can let the vet know.
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25 Comments:
Silly Joe, HV checked snoopes.com (a squatter site), not snopes.com. There's your problem right there.
I've got my family and friends pretty well trained to use snopes before forwarding any emails, but now and then they don't use good search terms on snopes so they come up empty and decide to forward without further research. At those times, I send them the snopes link, the terms I used to search for it with, and a suggestion that they Google in the future if they come up with no results at all at snopes.
This is the second warning about a Proctor and Gamble product causing pet deaths that I've seen (the first being Febreeze air freshener. It makes you wonder if their competitors start these emails as a means of tanking the sales of these products.
My recommendation to the spammer of this genius email. You meant one ATOM away from antifreeze. Typical antifreeze is made of a 2 carbon chain with two alcohols on either end (ethylene glycol). However, the addition of just one carbon to the carbon chain turns a toxic anti-freeze into a relatively low toxic and more environmentally friendly MOLECULE (proplyene glycol). So if it was proplyene glycol, chances are the animals did not die from that MOLECULE.
The fissile materials in the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were uranium and plutonium, respectively. Hopefully you don't have much of either in your drinking water. The hydrogen bomb didn't come along until 1951.
Good point :) Updated to not sound so stupid.
Chemistry and not chemestry you dumb ass
Way to go Anonymous. you show him! your are teh speeling chamption!
Actually you can clean pools with salt. It becomes electrically converted in chlorine.
I am HV and you killed my dog. Take back what you said about me.
You don't put chlorine gas in pools, by the way. Google it.
I think what really should've made the red flags pop up about this stupidity was the poor formatting, spelling, etc besides the false information. I can't stand it how the people who forward this crap don't take the time to think about how someone with supposedly "life saving" information can't even spell or format a sentence correctly.
Also, if you're going to send this stupidity along, please take the time to at least blind carbon copy send the email. Or better yet, don't send it in the first place.
I understand it's hard to do a simple Google search for most computer users, but before you forward anything, look for it on Snopes.com Wikipedia.com or Google it. I know Wikipedia isn't necessarily the most reliable source of information, but doing that quick little search will prevent you from looking like a moron to your family and friends.
This is why a license to use a computer or the Internet should be required.
End Soapbox.
I always reply to "all" when I receive misinformation in chain mails, and hope it embarrasses the hell out of the person who included me on their list of victims. Somehow, they never seem to learn.
However, I did annoy the hell out of my conservative friends when they'd send me lies about Obama in chain mails. They'd whine and bitch and moan that I shouldn't reply to all because the list consisted of close family and friends who "didn't understand" why I was sending out these replies correcting the blatant lies being forwarded. I told them "I'm not going to let blatant lies be forwarded without correction, so if you don't want me to reply to all, you can either stop sending lies entirely or send them only to me." They chose the latter but they'd forget and include me on a mass forward and whine all over again when I replied to all. It was good fun for a while there! Now of course, they don't speak to me, ha ha ha.
While the author of that email is quite obviously a crank, a chemical can be perfectly safe to handle, but breakdown into very dangerous chemicals in the digestive system.
Aspartame, for example, breaks down into a veritable cocktail of secondary and tertiary compounds including formaldehyde (though there is yet no conclusive evidence I am aware of that the concentrations are dangerous).
I don't think that I would call an error in semantics borderline retarded.
Also, I think that salt can be used to clean a pool. But, I do know a little bit about chemistry.
http://www.backyardcitypools.com/chemicals/feeders/Salt-Chlorine-Generator.htm
Great post -- I linked to it, hope you don't mind. http://luminosis.blogspot.com/2008/12/swiffer-will-kill-your-puppy-or-not.html
Bryan:
1) this isn't an error in semantics. This is a deliberate attempt to use "chemistry" to scare people into believing bullshit. Big difference. An error in semantics is what you used to explain how you can use salt to clean a pool. I believe you know I meant salt ALONE. Salt plus chlorine is no longer just salt.
I think you have failed wholly at understanding a single thing I said.
Of course you don't put chlorine gas in pools. It's unnecessary - they're already full of 55M Hydroxic Acid!
For future reference, the apostrophes in the phrase "late 1990's and early 2000's" (Introduction iii, Mentally Incontinent) are misplaced. An apostrophe in this case denotes possession, not plurality.
Much as I agree with a lot of what you wrote in this blog post, you can't very well go on and moan at all the idiots in the world when you yourself make elementary grammatical mistakes in a printed book.
We all spread stupidity and ignorance around, it is an epidemic. I think you are just being smug (as am I) by being able to identify a small amount of the stupidity we all probably surf past every day.
"...so they Had a necropsy done to see what the cause was. The Liver levels were Unbelievable, as if the d og had ingested poison of Some kind. "
no one else thinks using the incredibly generic "liver levels" term is a little off? So the dog had high levels of liver in his liver, or what?
JtP:
You're changing your story, here. The error you previously referred to as borderline retarded was a lack of understanding on the part of the people believing the lie, which is what was being claimed by Bryan to be an error in semantics. The thing ("this", as you called it) you now refer to as not an error in semantics is on the part of the people spreading the lie, and really something completely different altogether.
And while I don't, in fact, think it's really an error of semantics to misunderstand a concept in chemistry, I do agree that it's a bit heavy to call this borderline retarted (as much as I am fond of the expression). I don't think that the fact that chemical composition has nothing to do with the properties of a substance is one that is so obvious or one that will necessarily occur to everyone, even with a high school education in chemistry.
Furthermore, I'm not quite sure it's true! I think that compounds of very similar composition will often have similar properties (like boiling points, solubility, acidity). And although this may be less the case with "higher-level" properties like toxicity to humans, the fact that it is the case with certain properties makes this point much less obvious.
Wonderful article, though!
(sorry for double post, if there is one)
Joj,
Not sure how I'm changing my story. Also, I'd like to point out (again) that the point of this article was not to introduce everyone on the internet to my limited understanding of chemistry, but to point out stupid email forwards where people refuse to do any research (or, worse, claim they did when they didn't).
But yeah, I still think anyone actually using the term "one molecule away from" is a dummy. It's just stupid. It's like saying "The Beatles are only an octave away from Mariah Carey."
But thanks for reading, and thanks for your thoughts :)
Is is a bit misleading to claim that a hydrogen bomb goes BOOM because of hydrogen. The hydrogen in most water probably isn't deuterium. Also, while the hydrogen is critical to making a powerful explosion, most thermonuclear bombs actually go BOOM because of an initial, non-hydrogen nuclear bomb.
You might be able to salvage the statement by talking about electrons, protons and neutrons...but then again these subatomic particles comprise almost everything we know.
That chain letter is as annoying and stupid as the one that claims margarine is toxic because it's one molecule away from plastic. I've pointed out the same thing, that salt is made of sodium and chlorine molecules, both of which are harmful on their own, but needed as the salt compound.
If only there was a way to figure out what sort of chemical reaction goes on in people's brains that causes their IQ to plummit at the sight of a chain letter, making them feel compelled to forward the bollox everywhere, or flame the writer of this rant over punctuation or spelling because they clearly don't seem to get the point, chain letters are crap. The Astrology chain is going around now too, the one that claims to be from Criss Angel, and people are still posting that hogwash Anne Wichert world record chain letter on their blogs. It's bad enough when people send junk emails, but crapping up their blogs with chain letters, not to dissect them, but because people actually believe or think they are cute, takes the misuse of the internet to a new low.
My mother-in-law used to forward me those things, with the argument that it *might* be true, and if there were even a chance, then wasn't it worth it?
I pointed out to her the example of the fake amber-alerts, and all the extra call traffic and false leads (that *have* to be followed up) they generate. That is a real cost - both monetary, and the time of volunteers/police - that is a direct result of this garbage being forwarded.
So - now she thinks twice. She'll check snopes, but I sometimes think that even if she finds they're a hoax she has this mindset of "but it *could* be true.... maybe snopes is wrong..." and sends them to others....
Forget directing the idiots that send me this kind of stuff to snopes, I am sending them to THIS url.
Ya said it better than I could ever hope to!
TOTALLY agree with this post right on! I have a repeat offender that I used to have to send Snopes articles to...she finally got the message and started doing it herself, sort of. One day, I got an email, that said "I was going to forward this, but I checked Snopes like you said and I found out it was false! See I'm learning!" Now why would she send the email to me if she knew it was false?
I wonder why Snopes doesn't get more attention from mainstream media though. They probably do more investigative journalism than MSN.
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