EMAIL IS JUST EMAIL OK

Firstly, I would like to preface this piece of writing with some context:

• I am 29 years old.
• I work in the music industry, and successfully use Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Soundcloud, Mailchimp, Wordpress and Pozible to run my career.
• I own a Macbook Pro and an iPhone 5.
• I am generally an organised, motivated and cool person.

Now, it’s hard for me to say this—it feels like I’m bringing a six-pack of UDLs to a wine appreciation night.

I still use Hotmail.

That’s right.

Not only that, I have TWO Hotmail accounts, one with a nickname my friend gave me in 2003.

And, my dearest Gmail-Nazi, I don’t care.

For me, it comes down to this. If someone sends me an email, I get it. If I send them an email, they get it. I use Mac mail, whose search history function is so munted it doesn’t matter where your account is from anyway. SO IT DOESN’T MATTER.

Why would I waste hours of time “setting up a Gmail account”, “importing contacts”, “changing my email account for all logins”, and “telling everybody about it”. In reality, the outcome is the same: I send an email, the person gets it. If they send an email, I get it.

Except, of course, I would be WAY COOLER because I would use Gmail. Never mind the fact that it’s the content of my emails and the accompanying pictures of dogs in hats that should establish my coolness.

Judging someone for their email host of choice is just plain snobby, in my opinion, and says more about YOU than me, really. Because you must love Google so much that they RUN YOUR LIFE and one day they will hand all your things over to the government and YOU WILL BE SORRY.

Meanwhile, I will be repeatedly unable to get my SMTP and POP servers to work. But at least I will be FREE.

@CHANLETB, MELBOURNE

The radical hippopotamus “Pepe”, a particularly violent member of Pablo Escobar’s Colombian drug cartel, was arrested after his Gmail correspondence was intercepted. Image credits: [Hippopotamus, Egypt] by T P Bennett, 1915. Lantern slide. State Library of Victoria, H83.103/122, available at http://handle.slv.vic.gov.au/10381/43413.

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