I knew it was coming. The first time I saw the email blast that had been sent out to the community without BCCing the email addresses, I knew trouble was just a click away.
One reply…another reply…all very innocent…all very agreeable. The email, which was sent to most of the people involved with the Satender Justice Coalition, went from a message of community solidarity to numerous emails about what to wear at the alleged attacker’s court appearances. Some wanted to wear lavender shirts, but what about those who have better fashion sense than to buy lavender? Black shirts? Primary colored shirts? Buttons? Ribbons? Oh, my God (or Goddess, or whatever) the humanity of it all!
Well, that was it, the angry replies started rolling in, the “Delete me from this email list’s started appearing. It was a nightmare.
The whole future of the Satender Justice Coalition was suddenly in question because of the infamous “reply all” button and the accidental non-use of the “BCC” button—and of course what topic could make the gay community’s solidarity become unhinged more than a debate over fashion?
Alas, in the end it was obvious that outspoken, hardcore activists who had gone face to face with some of the biggest bigots of our time—who were personally responsible for fighting for the rights of every one of us in this community under the cruelest of circumstances, couldn’t bear up under the pressure of receiving the infamous “reply all” email.
Yes, our community’s recent solidarity was crumbling at the core because for some reason—some mystical, insane reason—they just haven’t mastered the complex interdynamics of the technical difficulty of moving the mouse away from the “reply all” button to the “delete” button. Perhaps someday…some glorious day.
But, instead of letting this experience tear apart our email-weary activists, I think we could actually learn something from this. What if we could find a way to use this weapon of mass destruction to our community’s benefit?
We’d have to start small at first. Somewhere where they wouldn’t see it coming—maybe one of the smaller Conservative Churches. If we could pinch their membership email lists, we may just hold the key to the collapse of their anti-gay message.
We’d carefully construct an email, something seemingly innocuous but that would spark some debate. Like which pie is more patriotic, Apple or Pumpkin? Then we send it to all 500 or so email addresses without BBCing it.
Imagine the debate flying back and forth! The “Remove me from this lists” that would fly like shrapnel through cyberspace! The unchristian-like sentiments that would disrupt the harmony of their hate-mongering! We could use the “reply all” button to eradicate the anti-gay Right movement for all time!
Reply all my brothers and sisters! Reply all and we will rule the world!
