Ubsubscribe me From Your Unsubscribe Email!

The following is the transcript of my troop deployment (i.e. ending rant) from episode 64 of my news podcast The Mind Killer. If you like it, please consider subscribing to the podcast

I’m using this space today to ask you to contact your elected representatives, blast your social media account, and tell your friends to support legislation banning one of the most, if not the most, antisocial practices in America, dare I say the world. I speak, of course, of the unsubscribe email.

I do my best to try to keep my email inbox spam free, but any time I type my email address in anywhere, I get signed up for new marketing emails. Fine. I can live with that. I just unsubscribe as soon as I get the first one. It’s a little inconvenient, but no big deal. And hey, once a year or so I even get an email I want. 

But you know what comes next. After I’ve clicked “unsubscribe,” I have to clickthrough their unsubscribe menu as if anyone in the history of Earth has wanted to unsubscribe from “product updates” but still wants “helpful tips” or “featured content.” So glad for that! I wouldn’t have wanted to accidentally stop getting feature announcements when I was trying to stop getting company newsletters.

But then, the final insult - within 15 seconds of unsubscribing, I get a new email in my inbox saying “you’ve unsubscribed!” It’s like a middle finger pointed straight at you, saying “oh, you wanted to stop getting emails? Fine, but here’s just one more on the way out because fuck you.” As Eric Cartman says, “It’s wrong. It’s wrong!”

America, we shouldn’t tolerate this burning of the commons. Contact your congresscritter today and tell them you support the bipartisan Mind Killer anti-Spam act, which imposes a $1 million fine per offense on any company who sends an unsubscribe email. This has to stop. It can’t wait. Let’s liberate ourselves from this menace today.