Overnight snow storm composite — my a.m. recording of the massive January 23–27 storm with some notes and late 70s radio blizzard coverage.
Speaking of storms of yore, do y’all remember the email storm? They’re the Mona Lisa of human/ tech pratfalls. An email storm, or replyallcalypse, is when a surge of emails is exchanged as users continually “reply all” to the original message.
Modern inboxes have safeguards to prevent email storms — which is a shame, as I'm positive humans are still willing to ensnare themselves.
I witnessed an impressive email storm in the mid-aughts while working for Newscorp. So, twenty years ago — second Bush administration — think Wii Bowling and High School Musical. I was at a Fox owned-and-operated station in Philadelphia… it was Newscorp (boo, amirite), but also one of the favorite places I’ve worked (colleagues were cool, and it was a paid TV gig in an actually awesome city, Jim's was within lunchtime walking distance). But seriously — commercial television news: don’t watch it. You don’t need it.
Look — picture the aughts, the golden age of the mobile phone. A cellphone store felt like sticking your face into the 2005 movie Robots. Different sizes, colors, shapes, personalities. They flipped, had tactile keyboards, and looked fab in a holster. My cellphone was a Nokia N-Gage QD (so sick).
I worked the morning show (4 a.m. start), graphics. So, on the Fox Email Storm morning, I wandered by Independence Hall and fragments of Benjamin Franklin’s former home. I buzzed into the lobby and was immediately intercepted by a PA.
“Do not respond to the email.”
And I was like, “What?”
“There are emails. Delete them and don’t respond.”
“Which email? What?”
“You’ll know,” she said, already rushing to the next person. “Do not respond to the email.”
The IT guy caught me getting off the elevator on the second floor. “Do not reply to the email or you will be ******* fired.” And he smiled to soften the threat, but I was sure he wasn’t kidding.
Ooph — intrusive memory. That was the same elevator where I once felt alone enough to stop fighting a fart… and then a ringed hand reached in to stop the door from shutting. In walked the traffic reporter, dressed like an adult. And I was wearing a comic book t-shirt in a cloud of my own gas. Bluh. Never assume your elevator journey will be solitary just because you got on alone.
Where was I — email storm, Fox News. So some Detroit station intern sent a very late-night email to all. Everybody got it. Brit Hume, Sheppard Smith, Hannity, Colmes, the pride of Bethlehem High School, Megyn Kelly, corporate leadership, Geraldo, me and everybody else.
Not only did some intern obtain an email address that pinged company-wide, the dude emailed that address. Praising the president and scooping on some vanilla jingoism. I was like, this is the dangerous email? You’re from Detroit, man — at least invoke Oliver Hazard Perry.
Whatever — my inbox was flooded with assenting voices — cheering it on, remixing the messaging from Detroit. I searched through the wreckage for any specialty graphic orders and then dumped the day's emails. Went to grab some coffee.
I returned to another pile with more popping in. Notification chimes, “12 new emails,” it was astounding.
The messages were transitioning now to “Unsubscribe.” I heard running in the hallways. A new larger wave of emails asked to be removed from the list. People were shouting in all caps. I started to imagine these voices were yelling at me — “TAKE ME THE **** OFF THIS LIST!” Senders that brandished titles like “Head of This” and “Department Lead” in their email signatures.
A new wave of earlier assenters began desperately rescinding their messages by sending even more messages. One user feebly wrote [[UNSEND]].
It went on a bit longer before finally petering out — great day at work. I think I even splurged on an extra slice at Gianfranco.
Österreich