Every Time You Press Delete A Brother Gets The Stick
This is a real product. I’m not making it up.
Here’s what I love about 3D Mailbox: “If you delete good mail, it goes to the trash alley.” Next to this proclamation we see a screenshot of Trash Alley (above) showing that our discarded email has turned black1 and is now standing in a dark, grafiti-strewn alley while a lone palm tree behind a chain link fence marks the boundary between Trash Alley and where the beautiful emailerati enjoy the sun and fun. A length of torn down chain link lays in the foreground, marking the place of the previous evening’s riots where some uppity emails got theyselves some stick time.
As if to highlight the plight of our urban deleted, even spam gets to hang out on the beach while you decide their fate. If the system can’t figure out if an email is spam or not, it gets to go ice-skating.2 Granted, they have to wear bikinis (presumably this makes it easier for the virtual INS to search them for illegal phentermine offers), but it’s probably better than living with the knowledge that at any time, the popo might show up in the ‘hood to lay down some e-pression.
(via The Forge)
ยง
1 It could just be that trash alley is a very dark, cold, shadowy, place. You know, for your black emails.
2 Yeah. Ice skating. Dear god I love this product!
That is the most preposterous piece of disinformation I have seen in a while.
When you delete an email in 3D Mailbox, the avatar that represents that email walks to the trash alley, to the rear of the hotel. The avatar does not “morph race”. They preserve the skin tone they had prior to deletion.
The graffiti on the walls of the trash alley, and the chain link fence, are taken from actual trash alleys that exist behind hotels. They are also known as “service alleys”. This is how they look.
I suppose you wanted to inflame people and get a little recognition for yourself by bringing to light this purported racism, but you got your facts so wrong that you have ended up being plain irresponsible.
You’re right, it’s completely preposterous. In fact, it’s so preposterous that someone who wrote something so preposterous couldn’t actually be…serious…could they?
*sigh* For the record, no I don’t think it’s racist, and no I didn’t for a second believe the email people morphed into black people (as I indicated tangentially in the footnote). The post is a flight of fancy, an interpretation taken to extremely ridiculous conclusions for humorous effect. Have a look around, I do it all the time.
I *was* serious when I said I loved the product though. I think it’s clever and witty. It’s not an email client I would use, simply because I look at email as a chore and the less I interact with it the better, but I do love the concept.
You’re reading much more into this post than I intended. I sometimes have agendas, but this was not one of those times. Joy unto you, peace and serenity, you are not of the body.
(Am I the only person that gets me?)
I laughed at your story. And laughed even more when I saw that someone took you seriously. And even more when I saw it was someone claiming to represent 3d mail.
Good stuff =)
Amber you have obviously missed your life’s calling – Internet Troll.
The first poster has found his life’s calling – Interweb Deefendar!
Morale of story. Your post=humor. First poster needs more fiber in his diet or at least a decent 3rd rate Sacrcasmotron Detection Device.
-g
no Amber we get it were not al soap box jumping race card playing loons with a lowbrow sense of humour and an ego the size of Everest.
some of us realise that there is no freaking way you would be that racist (i mean have you even read any of Ambers prior work here people!?!) seriously many of your readers need to grow a goddam sense of humour.
maby its just me, im a freelance writer by trade (most of the time anyway) and have to put up with idiots and wannabe’s jumping on the race, sexual orentation or gender card all the time and frankly im sick of it.
Most people need to get past the “I am a _____ Person” and get to the real fact of the matter that they are just a person. I dont care what colour you are i dont care what gender you are and frankly i dont need to know what your sexual orentation is unless your hitting on me. As writers we need to create a perspective from whitch to give a viewpoint and there are times when based from that viewpoint certain “potentialy volitile views” can and most of the time will be voiced.
Now as for the “racist” comments voiced here i have to say would ANYTHING have been said at all about this article had it been a white person that was thrown in the trash?…just a though.
people are people and as i so recently made a post in a popular gaming websites forum “skins just the thin layer of meat that nature wraped you in to keep the gooey bits inside and the dirt outside, dont ever forget that” i mean are you gonna turn down a free dinner because of the plate it served on?
Frankly this whole race BS just grinds on my very last nerve get the hell past it, for a time it was just an excuse for people to be shitty to each other, in fact almost every social and politicial variable in life is an excuse for people to be shiitty to each other..i mean dont even get me freaking started on religion!…
ok i rambled on enough…peace out
ahah no you rnot the only one that gets you Amber
Unfortunately, it seems the average intellectual level of readers would greatly benefit from a complete rework.. Sometimes I feel like some people need a lobotomy.
I’ll get a saw.
if you bring the saw i’ll bring the red hot pins to drive into there frontal lobes, we can cauterise the fluid layer and only do minimal dammage to there minimal brains…however i personaly think a drill would be better …much cleaner, but sadly not as much fun… and its probibly better NOT to think on how i know how to perform a makeshift frontal lobotomy *cough* god bless the internet lol
Luca, Aries, you’re both going about it all wrong. To lobotomize someone, you only need an “ice pick” (thin metal spike of surgical steal) and a small hammer. You put the pick through the eye socket (via the tear duct) and twirl it around in the prefrontal cortex. You don’t need saws or hammers anymore. Unless your idea was to cause lots of pain too, which would be pointless since the subjects of such proceedures ussually exhibit little to no reactions to outside stimulea after such a procedure. You’re better off using shock therapy and a course of negative reinforcement therapy. At least that way, they could later be used as menial labor and therefore still be productive.
And Amber, I got what you were going for. Thanks for trying.
First, it was great that 3D Mailbox came by to defend their product. I would have done the same, maybe a little more humorously — knowing it was a joke but just making sure.
Second, how much time do people actually spend on their email? Work uses Outlook Exchange, and at home I use Thunderbird to grab the latest from GMail and am done with it in about a minute.
I just don’t know anyone who spends more time with their email than they have to.
All that said, my favorite email interface was the one from the anime “Lain” (the name of the anime and its connection to Internet culture don’t make much sense unless you understand ‘lain’ is pronounced similar to ‘line’ in Japanese).
Some days I miss being a freelance editor…
I am like you Amber in that dealing with the whole email thing for me is a chore. Although I like the idea of the graphical representation it is something I would not entertain for myself.
as I have been absent from your site for a few days can I just add my /gratz on the comic over at GU. Hopefully it will bring in more fans and flamers!
Hmm. FWIW, I totally interpreted the post as implying the e-mails changed race. Perhaps I would’ve caught the joke if I read more closely or knew Amber’s writing better, but… many people don’t, of course.