Messenger gets deleted, re-installed

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve deleted, then re-installed, Facebook Messenger — also known simply as Messenger — or, at least, been tempted to do so.

At first, I’d ditch the app because one person too many used it to send me work-related inquiries or requests at 11 p.m or some other inopportune time. Now, I’m hatin’ because Messenger is the new vehicle for those old email forwards from a couple decades ago.

Yes, it’s now on Messenger that I’m warned about inhaling free perfume samples. Or told that I’m “a blessed, caring, loving, sweet, beautiful woman” and instructed to “send this [message] to ten ladies you love.” Or sent images of colorful, rapidly glittering wreaths and trees at Christmas. Or sent “Attachment Unavailable.”

Back in the day, I wrote several columns about email-forwards, which usually fell into these categories:

■ Chain, chain chaaaain: Messages that urge the recipients to share the message with a designated number of other people … and (this is important, now) return it to the sender, too.

■ You’re gonna burn in youknow-where: A “chain chain chaaaain” subcategory in which the recipient of a religious-themed message is assured that they are bad representatives of the faith if they didn’t forward the message.

■ Didja hear the one about … Some spooky urban legend deemed untrue by the fact-checking website Snopes.com.

■ Crooks gettin’ creative: Warnings about crooks and killers afoot with various elaborate ways to victimize people … from luring them with crying-baby recordings to drugging them to steal their kidneys.

■ Money comin’ at ya: Bill Gates will give you money if you just click this link.

■ Money ’bout to leave ya: They’re gonna tax the internet!

■ Stuff that was genuinely, humorously, entertaining … such as “10 Ways to Tell Your Amish Teenager Is in Trouble” (which I first mentioned in my September 1999 inaugural email-forwards column) and the Ten Commandments written Ebonics-style (which I made mention of in a June 2003 Let’s Talk).

Months ago, I realized that the forwards simply switched modes of transportation.

The overwhelming majority of Messenger forwards are videos: political fare; televangelist sermon snippets; singers and musicians performing; people saying something supposedly important; news items. They really think somebody has time to look at these? Don’t they know I need that time to scroll

my newsfeed?

The religious-guilt-trip chain letters are still popular, telling me that I’ll receive good news in four minutes if I send this message to 20 people. Also still prolific: warnings, especially those that begin with “Please send this to all your contacts …” or “Please tell all the contacts in your Messenger list … ” and tell recipients not to accept messages, requests or any other type of social-media come-hither from some supposedly notorious hacker who, given half the chance, would also drug us and steal our kidneys. And do awful things to us as a gang-initiation activity. Or make us give him the Neiman Marcus cookie recipe.

The most annoying Messenger forward by far has to be that come-and-go rash of hoax messages saying that the sender “actually” got another friend request from me the previous day and that I may want to check my account.

At least, unlike email forwards, there’s no “FW:Fwd:FWD” at the top of the Messenger messages. And there aren’t a zillion dang forwarding arrows surrounding the text, like a tornado-ed neighborhood of A-frame houses.

But I often scratch my head and wonder when I’ll reach the next Messenger-app-deleting breaking point … and after that, how long it would be before I went creeping back to re-install the thing. Every time I get rid of Messenger, I think about all the people and entities I need to hit up on there and request information, story interviews and the like.

Plus, there’s that big upside of Messenger: Monday I turn 58, and as unsolicited posts aren’t allowed on my Facebook page, Messenger is where all the birthday wishes will pour in.

By the way, has anybody done updates to that “crazy things to do while in Walmart” email-forward?

Don’t kill the Messenger. Email:

hwilliams@adgnewsroom.com