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Archive for October 8th, 2009

eric on Oct 8th 2009 Random Life Stuff

Sending huge video files via email…. WHY?!

I’m sure I can’t be the only one this happens to, but my parents (mostly my mom) sends me (and everyone else she knows) huge video files of cute/funny things as attachments in emails.

Does anybody else’s mom do this? She seems to be getting them from cousins and friends, so I’m pretty sure she isn’t just doing this on her own.

I’ll open an email and there will be a looooong list of previous forwards with little notes saying things like “Gosh that’s a funny/cute cat/dog/squirrel/baby!” After scrolling down, down, down I’ll notice that there’s no link to YouTube. What there is, however, is a huge video file attached to the forwarded email.

The video is one of the many “viral”¹ videos that we’ve all seen a million times.

I’m pretty sure that people who are doing this are mostly in their 50s. Also, I’m assuming they don’t have Facebook, etc pages. They probably don’t really go online that much at all. Pasting a link to the video on YouTube into an email is much easier than forwarding a huge attachment. Yet, for some reason these folks choose the more difficult option.

Why is this? The videos are all up on YouTube. Plus YouTube links to other cute/funny videos that you’re almost certain to like.

I remember when my dad discovered YouTube. He didn’t leave the house for a week. Maybe my mom hasn’t discovered it. Or maybe all of her friends are to blame. Maybe they’re the ones dragging my mom down. Mom, your friends are a bad influence on you! You best teach them right.

Don’t get me wrong, this technology is relatively new. My parents are late-comers to the whole net thing. Their lives were very well established long before the net came into popular use. If the internet were to disappear tomorrow, their lives wouldn’t really be all that different. So that they and their ilk aren’t net-savvy isn’t a huge surprise.

But still… why share videos via email attachments?

Ok, Mom, let me get you started. Here’s a really funny video:

Just copy and paste this into an email and send it to Art, Cathy, Donna, Len and Lois, people at work and Amy. Maybe you’ll set them all straight on the way that we used to share videos about four years ago, before Facebook/Myspace, etc.