Life is beautiful virus
I saw the heading about so called “Life is beautiful virus” and it immediately catches my attention. Why would anyone want to create a computer virus and call it “Life is beautiful”? Intriguing I thought, so I investigated a little.
I thought I am going to find an interesting story about a person, a computer hacker, whom something terrible had happened, and so he decides to write a computer virus and call it cynically “Life is beautiful”.
However it turns out that “Life is beautiful virus” is just a hoax. It is an email message that uses persuasive and manipulative writing to fool the reader into thinking they are doing something useful by forwarding the message further. The original text of “Life is beautiful virus” email goes something like this.
This information arrived this morning, from Microsoft and Norton. Please send it to everybody you know who accesses the Internet. You may receive an apparently harmless email with a PowerPoint presentation called “Life is beautiful.pps.”
If you receive it DO NOT OPEN THE FILE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, and delete it immediately. If you open this file, a message will appear on your screen saying: “It is too late now, your life is no longer beautiful”, subsequently you will LOSE EVERYTHING IN YOUR PC and the person who sent it to you will gain access to your name, email and password. [...]
MAKE A COPY OF THIS EMAIL TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS
So, case closed right?
No. This message started out in 2002 and circulated the world several times, through literally millions of emails. So most users went terrified, then immediately forwarded the message to all people in their address book. Viral effect of this was huge and soon the email found it self in almost every mailbox in the planet.
Now, imagine if we could somehow harness that power of this. “Harness the power”. Create email messages that could go around the globe but carry a powerful and truly useful message for mankind. Like stop abusing the nature and animal world! Or stop global warming that is destroying our planet! Or stop wars and poverty!
My question is how come I never get those kind of messages in my inbox? That’s maybe a question for psychologists (marketing experts even) . Are we as a race sensitive only to immediate “dangers” and tend to neglect and turn our heads around to major and incoming disasters, hoping they will pass us by. What happens when they finally arrive at our doorsteps? What was it like to be a citizen of New York on 09/11 ? What will it feel like to be a human, soon ?
The only problem is getting the majority of people to be interested in spreading a truly useful message :P
This is a great alternative perspective on viruses and the viral effect. The only problem with the idea is that what motivated individuals to send this message was fear. There’s not much more of a powerful motive or emotion than that when it comes to marketing. What emotion do you propose we elicit in individuals to get them to send this useful message you speak of?
Well, fear obviously. Fear of loosing the environment. Fear of loosing clean water, forests and animals. And fear of course of loosing the planet itself.
Problem is this fear is weak, cause we are selfish and count it won’t happen to us. And once we are dead, it is basically someone else’s problem.
Ouch, that’s a pessimistic perspective.
IT IS TRUE THE LIFE IS BEUTIFUL VIRUS IS JUST A HOAX IT IS TRUE . AND THE BIGGEST THING IN THE WORLD IS FEAR