It seems someone noticed this article lacked a history. An oversight, I'm sure. Let's fill in the gaps before you get any more ideas.

And for the record, this isn't about computer viruses that happen to travel by email. If you're looking for a lesson on your machine's poor digital hygiene, see computer virus. This is about the ones that infect people.

A viral email, or a "pass-along email" if you prefer quaint terminology, is an email that achieves rapid, self-propagating distribution. It spreads not through a server vulnerability, but through a human one: the compulsion to share. It's a digital viral phenomenon, a low-tech ancestor to the Internet memes and viral videos that now clog your feeds. The mechanism is fundamentally a form of word-of-mouth communication, weaponized for speed and scale. While often co-opted for the transparently commercial ambitions of viral marketing, its purest form is just an idea—funny, outrageous, or dangerously stupid—that finds a willing host in the human psyche.

A History of Contagion

Before the internet provided a frictionless path for questionable content, the impulse to pass things along was alive and well, just slower and more tangible. The direct precursor was, of course, the chain letter. These paper-and-stamp artifacts promised everything from divine fortune to a swift, unfortunate demise if the recipient broke the chain. They exploited superstition and social obligation, the very same levers a viral email pulls, just with the added hassle of postage.

The 1970s and 80s saw the rise of "photocopy lore" or "Xeroxlore." In the sterile environment of the office, the photocopier became a tool of cultural rebellion. Cartoons, fake memos, politically incorrect jokes, and urban legends were copied and re-copied, their quality degrading with each generation, and left anonymously on desks or pinned to bulletin boards. This was the primordial soup of viral content: decentralized, user-generated, and existing just outside the lines of official communication.

With the advent of email in corporate and academic settings, this behavior found its perfect medium. The cost of distribution dropped to zero. The audience expanded from a single office to a global network. Early email systems became conduits for the same types of content: text-based jokes, ASCII art, and warnings. The infamous "Good Times" virus hoax of 1994 was a quintessential early example, a viral warning about a non-existent virus that spread far more effectively than any actual malware of the era. It demonstrated that fear was just as contagious as humor.

Overview

The mechanics of a viral email are brutally simple. An individual receives a message, typically one engineered to provoke a strong emotional response—humor, outrage, fear, or sentimentality. They then forward this message to their own network of contacts. Those recipients, in turn, do the same. The result is an exponential cascade of distribution that can, in theory, span the globe in a matter of hours.

This process mirrors the structure of an email chain letter, but with a crucial psychological distinction. Modern viral emails often dispense with the explicit command to "forward this to ten people or suffer the consequences." Instead, they rely on the content itself being compelling enough to trigger the sharing impulse. The coercion is implicit, embedded in the social contract. To not share a hilarious joke or a critical warning feels like a minor social failing.

A common commercial application is the viral advertising campaign, where promotional messages are disguised as grassroots content, hoping to be swept up in the same organic currents. More troubling, however, is the viral spread of misinformation. So-called life-saving advice, like the discredited Triangle of Life theory for earthquake safety, is passed on by well-meaning people whose desire to help eclipses their capacity for critical thought. Despite official refutations from government agencies and scientific bodies, these emails persist, a testament to the fact that a compelling narrative, however false, is often more resilient than the truth.

Behavior

A 2004 study that bothered to look into the "why" of this phenomenon identified the obvious triggers for why people hit the forward button. Unsurprisingly, humor was the dominant factor. Other significant motivators included the promise of salacious content—naked pictures, specifically—and warnings about crime. It seems the human brain is reliably stimulated by laughter, lust, and fear. Shocking.

This pattern is, of course, replicated in commercial attempts at viral content. Humor is a common Trojan horse for a brand message. More risqué or edgy content is frequently employed to cut through the digital noise, banking on the idea that a little controversy is a small price to pay for a million impressions.

The same study also examined the reasons people don't pass emails along. The most cited reason was a "sense that the content was old." This reveals the core of viral culture: a relentless obsession with novelty. The value of the information is secondary to its newness. Being the person who forwards a joke everyone has already seen is a social misstep, a sign that you are behind the curve. It's a digital ecosystem where relevance has a shorter half-life than radioactive isotopes.

Commercial Implications

In the world of viral marketing, the goal is to orchestrate what appears to be a spontaneous word-of-mouth phenomenon to spread awareness of a product or service. Unlike the brute-force approach of spam, which relies on overwhelming volume, viral emails leverage the power of social networking to achieve their aims. This is their primary advantage to marketers. While an email from a faceless corporation is often deleted on sight, the same message arriving from a known acquaintance is granted a measure of trust. It's a calculated exploitation of a pre-existing social bond.

As a case study in this strategy, consider the distribution of vouchers. A company emails a discount to a customer, who is then actively encouraged to forward it to friends and family. In 2006, Threshers, an off-licence retail chain in the UK, emailed high-value vouchers to its staff and suppliers. The email quickly escaped this initial group and was redistributed across the country, leading to such high redemption rates that many branches were nearly stripped of their stock. While the Thresher Group at the time feigned surprise and denied orchestrating a marketing campaign, their repetition of the exact same exercise the following year suggested otherwise.

The potential for massive engagement is undeniable. A campaign offering a Ferrari test drive, for instance, generated over 40,000 responses from an initial send of only 5,000 emails.

However, this approach is a high-stakes gamble. The creator of a viral campaign relinquishes control over the message the moment it's sent. Many viral emails that appear to be advertisements are, in fact, hoaxes or parodies created by third parties. Such content can inflict significant, and often irreversible, damage to a brand's reputation.

Collections

A peculiar corner of the internet is dedicated to the archiving of these digital artifacts. Various websites exist solely to collect and categorize viral emails, often with a specific focus on humorous content. These sites function as digital museums of a certain era of online culture. Examples include Viralbank, which collects both commercial and non-commercial specimens, Bore Me, which curates a section specifically for adult-themed viral content, and ViralEmails, a forum-based site where users submit their own findings and can subscribe to a newsletter for a daily dose of what others are forwarding.