My inbox isn’t as bad as most media people’s probably are; most of it is relevant to my job and not annoying! Pleasant, even! And as far as the useless stuff in there most of it is my own fault, because I ambitiously signed up for a newsletter I never actually read or bought a single concealer one single time from drugstore.com and now they email me every other day. Some of it, however, is a real head-scratcher. How did I get subscribed to these lists? Is it better, purer in some way, to never know? Do I dare disturb the universe?
Materials Research Society
I am actually very fond of these press releases, I think because the subject is so wholly removed from anything I do or care about, ever. It’s sort of like how you can fall asleep to a podcast about bookbinding as long as you have no interest in bookbinding; it’s like white noise. I generally actually open these and read them for that reason; it’s like a palate cleanser between emails I have to actually do something with. I still have no idea what materials research is, and I hope I never find out and thusly sully the purity of my enjoyment of it with actual understanding.
Science On Our Side
Gmail shows that I started receiving these right around Thanksgiving of 2014. Why that date? Is it significant in some way? I will never know. I am not really sure what these are about; something about neuroscience but they also use a lot of words like “liberation” and “healing,” so your guess is as good as mine. All the subject lines end in exclamation points.
IDTechEx Research
These seem mostly focused on “wearable tech,” something which it isn’t unreasonable to send a press release about to an editor; magazines do write about Fitbits and their ilk fairly often. I, however, will almost definitely never do that unless they invent some wearable tech that plays the X Files theme every time you think you see something in your peripheral vision and then turn and there’s nothing there. If there is a PR list for that item, please add me to it. Until then, I do not usually open the IDTechEx emails.
Mormon Girlz/Mormon Boyz
This is a porn company that specializes in, as the name suggests, Mormon-themed content which is segregated by gender. Their emails contain very large and high-resolution stills from their productions, which are totally uncensored and are extremely NSFW. Even the avatar photo associated with their PR email has exposed nipples. The only missive I have ever received from them that did not include explicit sexual content was a recent press release, which was about how they were discriminated against by not being allowed to march in Salt Lake City’s pride parade. I guess they are gay/lesbian owned! That’s neat!
EAA Chapter 437
I actually do sort of know how I got on this one; some sleuthing in the address section leads me to believe that there is a Richard Kincaid out there who is supposed to be getting these emails and you know what, maybe he is, because there are several variations on my email address included on there and maybe one of them is actually his. I don’t know what EAA stands for or even where in the US they are located; I have gleaned that it is some kind of aviation society, and they have a newsletter and seemed to meet pretty regularly. Recently I got a more personal email sent to a smaller group of people asking if my wife “would like to help in the kitchen” for an upcoming event.
Chamber of Horrors NY
I get a lot of pressers about events, campaigns, appearances and more in New York, because every PR person assumes that everyone who works even close to media is based in NYC (I am not). The Chamber of Horrors stands out, however. I regularly receive updates about the Chamber of Horrors’ new attractions, engagement with the local small business community, and holiday shows (did you think they were only open around Halloween? If so, you were incorrect). They are fairly effective press materials; if I ever find myself in Hauppauge, NY, I may check it out.
Smithsonian Channel Media Alerts
It’s not unusual for TV channels to send scattershot press releases to media people across the board — I get a lot from Showtime, perhaps unsurprisingly — but I think I only know about the Smithsonian Channel from its media alerts, which is unique. Another thing that is unique is their programming; I still don’t quite have a handle on the overarching themes of their content. Sometimes the emails come not from the official Smithsonian Channel Media Alert email address but from someone named Josh Gross, which is delightful because it appears in my inbox as “Gross, Josh.”
Iowa Daily Democrat
I’m on a lot of vaguely Dem/liberal/progressive mailing lists, very few of which I remember ever signing up for, but this is the only one that comes specifically from a state where I have never lived, and am not sure I’ve even visited. There isn’t even a tangential connection. I only know two people who have lived in Iowa. They’re not even from there originally. The emails’ fine print says “You are receiving this email because you signed up for our daily newsletter, you have had direct contact with someone related to The Iowa Daily Democrat, or you were part of Jack Hatch for Governor’s contact list.” None of these things are true of me, as far as I know.
Expert Tips
As of February, this PR firm occasionally emails me offering varying “experts” who can provide prefab articles on hot topics like matcha tea or online tax services. It’s nice, really! I don’t anticipate ever needing this service, but it’s comforting to know they’re out there: there are experts, and they have tips. I can even look past the fact that my name is misspelled in every email even though my full first name is spelled out in my email address.
Gross, Josh.
Thank you for that.
rachel i have officially lost it from this on this thursday morn
Classic Rachael.
This is pretty great. Maybe I’ll try to see some of my newsletter spam in a new light.
Wow. Mormon Boyz? I have no words.
I accidentally have an e-mail address that could be construed as “dr. [somebody]” so I used to get a lot of e-mails asking for extensions on student papers and/or following up on somewhat questionable nutritional advice I apparently gave my patients. I am also a member of a Lancaster, PA coin collecting club (all of those e-mails update me on the health of its members and asks me to pray for them), a Mexican Casino (I’m behind on my monthly subscription and they don’t want to send me to collections) and an elite Australian golf club.
Ha! Golf club! I’m sure that pun has never been made before.
It’s been a long morning, I already banged my head on the doorframe of my car.
I literally tripped on air this morning.
Does that count as being high on life?
I always assume I’m aware of every possible type of porn and fetish, and I’m always proved wrong. Then OF COURSE I had to google Mormon girlz/Mormon boyz. That led me to a porn tumblr that is dedicated to Mormon magic underwear. So, thanks for making me learn something new today, I guess?
I thought I was aware of every type of fetish until I came across MPreg.
For years, I have been on the private list of organisers fur something called “Danny Wilhelm’s Orchestra” – I’ve nefur pointed this out because it’s a weirdly entertaining anomaly. It’s a bit like how I nefur want to meet my furiend’s brother because the two things I know about him are that he plays ultimate furisbee fur the UK and we once found a spurrkly thong at the back of a wardrobe in his old room and only knowing these two things about someone is too beautiful to mar!
Also loving the Purrufurock (sometimes my felinguistics just goes too fur, oops did it again) refurence. At least I assume you aren’t just that indecisive that you randomly furmed that sentence on your own… I really need to start my literary fashion blog, Furock and Other Observations but I keep assuming no-one cares what I have to say and my Masters gets in the way…
I hope everyone from the Smithsonian channel enjoys their seven week vacation.
I had to look up the Mormon porn and all of it looks oriented towards men. I can’t say if it’s offensive or not as I am not Mormon, but some of it’s boarders the creep aspect of porn.
Mormon boyz is marketing towards men who aren’t straight, but with a Mormon theme. Stuff like watch the Prophet enter a virgin teen boy. On the other hand Mormon girlz plays on Mormon culture, i.e. dude with 3 wives, mother in love with sister wife’s daughter, the usual porn, but all with a Mormon themes. I feel like some of it maybe a parody of the HBO TV show Big Love, but at the quick glance I too, I didn’t see any of the hair they had on the show. Maybe they are owned by queer men, maybe not.
Not sure if anyone noticed yo but the MormonBoyz site has the words same-sex attraction in quotes. To me says it’s a bloody gay for pay site, as we all damn well know taking it fucking pays more that giving it. So, maybe for these Mormon boys it’s the only way out? Then again priest with teen porn(what i say was small hairless teen looking guys) is fucking creepy as fuck. Like who came up with that idea? If I had to guess some dude.
I can help you on EAA! This is the Experimental Aircraft Association, based in Oshkosh, WI (where I grew up and still have family). You should go north and check out the museum some time. The air show is in late July, with tens of thousands of planes, from daredevil stunt planes to actual Stealth bombers to planes that people build in their garages. It’s really pretty cool.
WELL this is so neat to know! i truly expected to live out my whole life without answers on this and now i feel very satisfied. i’m not all that far from oshkosh! i could go! i wonder if they need people to bring snacks
You should just show up at one of these events sometime and see what happens. Looks like you still have time to make it to the meeting this Saturday at 10:30!
I get some very strange emails to my work email too. My favorites are these ones from a research center in Serbia. I get one every two weeks inviting me, in broken English, to a Skype seminar where I can improve my skills in many softwares! I also got one today that was a press release for an academic book on the topic of “watersheds and Marxist ecofeminism”…it included the word “heterotopia” which I’m not even sure is a real word???
How does one pronounce Utahns? Two syllables? Three? Does the “a” get reduced to a schwa?
I keep getting emails from US Cellular about upgrading my account. I live in Canada.
Reading this, I recognized myself more and more, both on the recipient and sender side (no Mormon porn, of course, although now I’m even curious). I spend most of my working hours in my email, and I even had to delete my email once because of the huge amount of spam. I think I doomed someone to the same thing earlier, when I was a spamer.. and I’m even ashamed. The good thing is that now I use different tools to check the email addresses I have, to do accurate targeting for mailings, like this https://getprospect.com/email-finder. Honestly, sometimes for particularly annoying senders who write me off-topic, I send a link to this tool. This is both a hint and hopefully a benefit (though I doubt it).