God forbid you should ever donate to a cause because once you do, your in-basket will be filled with dire warnings such as DONATE NOW TO STOP WORLD FROM BLOWING UP.
Does this almost-SPAM really work?
I associate it with the kinds of pitches I see aired with late-night TV shows where actors who look as reputable as Hannibal Lector try to push “miracle” products that I can get delivered immediately at 99% off if I call now. “Operators are standing by.”
So now, it’s politics. The bogus theme I hate most is, “Hey, Malcolm, we need 100,000 signatures by midnight to stop [whoever] from doing [whatever].” Are you serious? What’s with the deadline? This crap has been going on for years and suddenly I have to sign some silly petition with no legal standing by midnight?
And, “Malcolm, are you with us? A mysterious donor will triple match all contributions made in the next 15 minutes.”
I wonder how long it will be before this shrill rhetoric turns into outright threats. “DONATE OR DIE. Killers are standing by to rub out everyone who fails to support our nonviolent loving kindness campaign by high noon.”
When I see a lot of this schlock from the same place, I unsubscribe, assuming I can figure out how and can get through the barrage of questions I have to answer: “Don’t you love us anymore?” “Did we do something wrong?” “Do you think we’re just a bunch of assholes?”
Then, after I unsubscribe to something I never signed up for in the first place, guess how much good it does? Nada. Zip. The dire messages and pleas for money keep coming.
I figure e-mail SPAM and blog comment SPAM must work because they aren’t going away. I’m starting to think that I should use this technique to sell my books: “Hello, buy a copy of Conjure Woman’s Cat by midnight or I’ll put a hex on your ass.”
Okay, it was just a thought.
But seriously, you political bastards asking for money and signatures before midnight need to shut the hell up. Let’s see, if given the choice between donating to your petition drive or buying a bottle of Scotch, what should I do? I’m buying the Scotch because it tastes good while the petition drive probably isn’t going to do squat.
I saw an article today that said most cell phone calls will soon be from spammers. I can believe that. Most of the e-mail in my in-basket is SPAM. Thank goodness WordPress weeds out most of the SPAM comments on my blog. Everybody’s talking and nobody’s listening.
The reason is simple: those doing the talking are selling snake oil.
Malcolm's Round Table 
I think threatening a hex might work. I once followed someone on Twitter and received an automated message saying, “But my book or I’ll drink bleach!” Seriously. I un-followed PDQ.
The bleach thing is kind of sick. I’d unfollow as well. Okay, now I have to make up a hex.
Definitely a hex!
So far, the voting is for hex. 🙂
I have gotten completely impervious to spam and the incessant phone calls, although those tend to make me test my vocabulary of profanity more often than not. However, I think there’s some real possibility for your using such a hex to sell your books if along with it you furnish the address of a late night book store in the demographic area.
On our cell phones, we don’t answer if we don’t know the number. The landline does straight into voice mail. Hmm, another vote for a hex.
And … breathe …
They haven’t cottoned onto that method of cold calling here in the UK yet. But where the US leads we always follow 😦
Cross your fingers and hope they don’t!