Oh, no, not again!
It's the dreaded recipe exchange chain letter! Complete with all the silly instructions, promises, and manipulation.
The recipe exchange chain letter keeps going around, annoying people who are sick of their friends buying into them, yet would likely get really mad if the recipient told them how getting chain letters even for recipes, made them feel. So recipients aren't likely to tell you just how irritated and disappointed they are whenever you send them chain letters, even the ones that are disguised as recipe fun.
So let's mangle this meme.
👨🍳Meme: I’m participating in a collective, constructive, and hopefully TASTY experiment.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Warning bells right there! This is a dead giveaway it isn't a personally written note from a friend. Nice to know I'm only thought about when you want to participate in an email "collective experiment" which actually translates as 'chain letter scheme' and the word "tasty" gives away just what kind of chain it is too.
This really isn't so constructive when it makes you feel like putting yourself out of commission because you've gotten the darn thing so many times from different sources, over several years or within a short span of time. This annoyance and playful manipulation is what recipe exchange chains have in common with the viral jokes and videos/power points etc. and survey memes.
👨🍳Meme: As such, you have been invited to be part of a recipe exchange concept.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Consider the concept of your invitation being rejected.
👨🍳Meme: I hope you will participate.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Consider your hope dashed.
Since this was written by some anonymous dude/chick and not anyone I know, that anonymous person hopes everyone the chain is passed down to, participates. I am not breaking a friend's heart or dashing their personal hopes by not participating. Just to clear that up and take a little of the power out of this subtle attempt at coercion.
👨🍳Meme: I’ve chosen those friends I think would make this fun.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: You chose badly. You should've stopped this chain letter. Getting personally written notes from friends is a heck of a lot more fun, and the anonymous dude/chick who started this meme didn't choose me among their list of friends because they don't know me, or probably most people this chain has spread to.
👨🍳Meme: Please send a recipe to the person whose name is in position 1 (even if you don't know him/her) and it should be something quick, easy and without rare ingredients.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Right, I'm not spamming somebody I know with this meme, so I'm certainly not going to spam some stranger with it either.
Neither am I putting my name and email address etc. on it in the hopes to be forwarded in the hopes that I'll get tons of recipes.
In actuality, this is an email/info collecting scheme, disguising itself as fun, like so many other memes do.
👨🍳Meme: Actually, the best one is the one you know in your head and can type right now. Don't agonize over it, it is one you make when you are short of time.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I've got one like that but won't put it in a chain letter.
👨🍳Meme: After you've sent the recipe to the person in position 1 below and only to that person, copy this letter into a new email, move my name to position 1 and put your name in position 2. Only my and your name should show when you send your email.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Those instructions are more complicated than my recipe, and no, I'm not doing it. I don't even know what your name is so couldn't even if I wanted to.
👨🍳Meme: Send to 20 or so friends, BCC (blind copy).
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: no. I don't take orders from you. Besides, you're still just trying to make this look less like what it actually is with this CC: business. BCCing it won't make it any less a chain letter scheme.
👨🍳Meme: If you can’t do this within five days, let me know so it will be fair to those participating.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I'll let you know something else instead. What would be fair is to not foist this chain on anybody at all.
👨🍳Meme: You should receive 36 recipes.
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: No thanks. I'll get recipes the non-chain letter way.
👨🍳Meme: It's fun to see where they come from!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: I'll just bet that would be a riot for you. But I don't care where they come from.
👨🍳Meme: Seldom does anyone drop out because we all need new ideas. The turnaround is fast as there are only two names on the list and you only have to do it once!
🧝♀️Ocean Elf: Guess what? I don't have to do it at all. And according to this chain letter, if you followed it every time it barges into your email, you'd have to do it every time. That means, you get it from different sources, it is telling you to do it once every time another person sends it to you.
Just think about this for a moment as well.
Say Person A sent copies to everyone up to Person T, and everyone did exactly what it said. With all the Bccing, let's say Person A was friends with M, N, Q and R. Now, Person A emails this thing to the lot of them, but by the time M, N, Q and R get other copies from H, I, and J, everybody's forgotten that A, B and C already got it. So if I and Q are good friends and Q knows A, this thing could go around in an endless loop to various people from A to T because nobody knows or remembers who got it already.
Not to mention if everybody did this, email inboxes and social networks would be deluged with recipe memes, and more important email or notes would eventually get crowded and blocked out because of it.
No, if I want recipes, I'll just look on the web or personally request them from people. I will share recipes too, without subjecting anyone to the demands of this chain letter.
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