I Signed Up For 1,124,765 Newsletters And My E-mail Is Utter Chaos
By: Ryan Fan
Tags: Satire, Humor, Gadgets, Technology, Productivity

SATIRE

I Signed Up For 1,124,765 Newsletters And My E-mail Is Utter Chaos

How am I going to see all those emails begging me to donate to politicians?

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

I love newsletters. I can’t get enough of them, and I obviously want to know what’s going on in my favorite people’s lives.

But I realized I might be a people pleaser. Across Substack, Mailchimp, and GetResponse, I’m currently signed up for 1,124,765 newsletters. Every day, all that comes into my e-mail are newsletters, newsletters, and more newsletters. I want to find out what’s going on in John’s life, but then I’ll search his name on my e-mail and I can’t find the right John! There’s John Johnston, John Smith, John Wang, and John Pruitt, and all of them have daily newsletters.

Gone are the days when people wrote weekly newsletters — I get newsletters from some people twice a day! Some people who have no lives even send me three newsletters a day. What do they think I do — just sit around and read newsletters all day? I’m a busy guy, and I have a lot of things going on.

What’s worse is that it’s my personal e-mail, so I had to make a new personal e-mail because the e-mail with 1,124,765 newsletters just became my newsletter e-mail.

I also thought people would be more grateful. Since I was following and subscribing to their newsletters, I thought they would pay it back and sign up for my newsletter. Alas, they did not — I learned the hard way that that transactional way of thinking doesn’t really work out in life. Damn.

And don’t even ask me about my spam folder. That’s a complete disaster.

Why did I think it was a good idea to sign up for so many newsletters in the first place? I don’t know — but instead of trying to fight it and unsubscribe, I’ve just given up. I’ll read the subject line of all the newsletters and make a split second inference of what it’s about after that. Some days, when I want to torture myself, I spend all day trying to “read” the newsletters and give everyone due diligence.

After all, I know how much work and writing someone put into their newsletters and I want to read, but it’s just too much. By the time I read one newsletter, there are 20 new ones in my inbox! And some people make their newsletters so long, around 10,000 words. How much time do they think people have to read their newsletters?

It’s gotten to the point where I can’t see all the actual important e-mails. I got into graduate school, and I couldn’t find my acceptance e-mail. I don’t see bills either! And don’t even get me started on my insurance payments. I haven’t paid a credit card bill in two years and my credit is below 600 now!

And on an ultra-serious note, how am I going to see all those emails begging me to donate to politicians? Those politicians really need more money so they can serve their constituents, right? You know, the soup kitchen e-mail me begging for money, so that probably means they’re probably doing fine. And what about my alma mater? I’m still $45,000 in debt from my undergrad, but how are they going to support their endowment without my money — their endowment is way too small! How are they going to pay $20 million for their new dining hall?

These newsletters are not only ruining my inbox, but they’re ruining my life. And I need help.