Why does no one reply when I send quirky links?

I enjoy sending emails to family and friends with interesting, funny and quirky things that I find on the internet. The thing is, nobody ever sends me anything back. Am I annoying them? Should I curtail my favourite pastime? I.E, Lake Macquarie, NSW

A: Sorry to break it to you. This may hurt. But here goes. Nobody – nobody – wants to be emailed anything – anything – that someone else found on the internet, unless that thing one, specifically mentions us by name, ideally with a glowing comment about our intelligence/talent/hotness; two, specifically mentions someone we dislike, ideally with a bitchy comment about that person’s incompetence/failures/odour; or three, is a photo of a cat that looks a bit like Steve Buscemi.

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Because we’re all internet-emailed out. We’ve been sent every “Skydives Gone Wrong” video, every “Myotonic Fainting Goat” compilation, every clip of a three-toed sloth crossing a road in Costa Rica set to a dubstep remix of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme. Nothing impresses us. We could be sent footage of someone flying through the air by flapping their arms and we’d just yawn and go, “Oh yeah. Probably CGI. Or not. Whatever, it’s no Buscemi cat”.

The only time we’re impressed is when we’re the ones who found the interesting, funny and quirky internet-thing and then we’re forwarding it to everyone we know and writing, “Look, I don’t normally share this kind of stuff, but this is SOOOOOO FUNNY!!!” followed by a row of laughing-crying-emojis tipping over sideways.

But if it’s your passion, your pleasure, your pastime, then sure, keep emailing away, as long as you’re aware that you may not be getting any responses from family and friends because they’re either ignoring your emails, binning your emails, or blocking your emails like they’d do with spammers, scammers, ex-lovers and dental check-up reminders.

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