By Jon Ryskamp
A grass roots resistance against high gasoline prices is spreading via a chain e-mail being forwarded to inboxes and posted on bulletin boards around the country.
“My first reaction was that I wish we could do something about the high gas prices and maybe this would work,” said Jeannie Papic, the coordinator of the BYU Student Honor Association, about her feelings when she received the e-mail.
The e-mail is based upon mathematician Phillip Hollsworth”s simple plan to boycott Exxon and Mobil, forcing them to lower prices, which in turn will force other companies to lower prices, and will bring gas down to $1.30 per gallon.
Or will it?
The 14-paragraph gas resistance e-mail currently in circulation is actually a revised version of a seven paragraph chain e-mail that started in 2001, calling for the same boycott. This original version of the e-mail was not only much shorter, but also failed to credit Phillip Hollsworth for the idea.
BreakTheChain.org, which specializes in tracking down the history and authenticity of chain letters such as this one, can”t find any mathematician named Phillip Hollsworth and thus assumes he is listed due to “false attribution syndrome.” False attribution syndrome is when somebody receives an e-mail from a friend and falsely credits them as the originator of the letter to everyone they forward the letter.
Not only does the e-mail have dubious roots, but also the boycott it requests is unlikely to occur experts say.
“I find it [the boycott] implausible in the short-term and impossible in the long-term,” said Lars Lefgren, associate professor of economics.
Lefgren said there are two problems with this scenario. First, it is difficult to get people to pay attention to the e-mail. Second, by only boycotting two gas companies there still remain dozens of others that are in competition with each other and it won”t change overall market conditions.
But these facts don”t stop the gas resistance e-mail from spreading. It is currently posted on a wide variety of Web sites ranging from the “Clark for President” site to the “Jenny”s Jesus Club” site. There also exist multiple variations of this e-mail, including one that quotes prices in British pounds and a French translation for non-English speakers.
BYU students continue to receive copies of the e-mail.
“I laughed a lot when I got the e-mail,” said Nolan Andelin, a senior majoring in economics, “It”s the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. I e-mailed back my friend and said, ”Don”t ever send me stupid stuff like this again.””
Lefgren said e-mails like this become urban legends and he recommends that people not forward them, but rather get a good laugh from them and delete them.
