"What can I do to show others that I, too, am deeply affected by this tragedy?" the anonymous e-mailer mused. After choosing the lights-on gesture -- as a way to metaphorically "turn on the light in your heart and soul" -- the letter's author decided to "use the Internet" to get the message out: "I'm sending this message to everyone on my e-mail list and am asking that you do the same." This attempt to "use the Internet" to spur real-world activism is hardly new. The chain-mail approach has been circling the Net as long as there has been a Net, but in the last few weeks such earnestly infectious e-mails have been cropping up with increasing frequently.

Take, for example, the Great American Gas-Out! This plea has been replicating like a virus in e-mail inboxes for well over a month. Forwarded by embittered drivers and environmentalists alike, the e-mail begs car owners to refrain from buying gas on April 30, in hopes that a day-long boycott will inspire oil companies to drop gas prices. As the anonymous e-mail explains: "It's time we did something about the price of gasoline in America! We are all sick and tired of high prices when there are literally millions of gallons in storage. If there was just one day when no one purchased any gasoline, maybe prices would drop drastically."

And how many people participated in the annual Call In Sick Day? Judging from the utter lack of news stories about employees failing to turn up on April 6, I'd guess not many followed the instructions that made the rounds via pervasive e-mail last month. It probably was about as successful as, say, the Save-the-National Endowment for the Arts or the End Homosexual Discrimination petitions that everyone who has ever had an e-mail account has probably seen (and not signed), at least a dozen times.

These memes may have the right sort of "go get 'em" spirit, but seem to lack either logic or real-world momentum. Though some online campaigns, like Censure and Move On) are well organized and taken seriously, most of the ceaselessly circulated chain letters are merely irritating reminders of the durability of half-thought-out e-mail activism.