Chain letter

There are two main types of chain letter: • Hoaxes: Hoaxes attempt to trick or defraud users. A hoax could be malicious, instructing users to delete a file necessary to the operating system by claiming it is a virus. It could also be a scam that convinces users to spread the letter to other people for a specific reason, or send money or personal information. Phishing attacks could fall into this category. Get-rich-quick pyramid schemes promising a substantial return for sending money to people on a list are a common form of hoax chain letter. • Luck- or superstition-based letters: These letters promise good luck for forwarding the message or threaten bad luck (or even death) if the chain is broken or the letter is not forwarded. These often prey on superstition. This category includes urban legends designed to be redistributed, usually warning users of a threat or claiming to be notifying them of important or urgent information. Another common form are emails that promise users monetary rewards for forwarding the message or suggest that they are signing something that will be submitted to a particular group. These usually have no negative effect aside from wasted time and potential anxiety for the recipient. In the United States, chain letters that request money or other items of value and promise a substantial return to the participants (such as the infamous Make Money Fast scheme) are illegal. Some colleges and military bases have passed regulations stating that in the private mail of college students and military personnel, respectively, chain letters are not authorized and will be thrown out. However, it is often difficult to distinguish chain letters from genuine correspondence. ==Channels==

Print taped to it as what it calls a "financial eye-catcher" The oldest known channel for chain letters is written, or printed, on letters on paper. These might be exchanged hand-to-hand or distributed through the mail. Early examples and precursors In Europe, letters known as "Himmelsbrief" (; ) existed, with examples dating back as early as the 6th century. One notorious early example of a money-based chain letter was the "Prosperity Club" or "Send-a-Dime" letter. This letter started in Denver, Colorado in 1935, based on an earlier luck letter. It instructed recipients to send a dime to the person at the top of a list of names, remove that name, add their own to the bottom, and mail the letter to five others, warning of misfortune for breaking the chain. They may also be politically motivated, such as "Save the Scouts, forward this to as many friends as possible" or a warning that a popular TV or radio show may be forced off the air. Some, such as the Hawaiian Good Luck Totem, which has spread in thousands of forms, threaten users with bad luck if not forwarded. One chain letter distributed on MSN Hotmail began, "Hey it's Tara and John the directors of MSN..." and subsequently claimed readers' accounts would be deleted if they did not pass on the message. Another common form of email chain letter is the virus hoax and a form of cyberbullying. Email chain letters in Japan With the rise of email and mobile phones, digital versions of Fukou no Tegami, known as "Fukou no Mail" (不幸のメール - Unlucky Mail), emerged. supposedly about a girl from Indiana who was pushed down a sewage drain in a fire drill, states that, "if you do not repost/send this to 10 people, Carmen will find you and kill you." Chain letters are often coupled with intimidating hoaxes or the promise of providing the sender with "secret" information once they have forwarded the message. SNS and forum chain messages in Japan From around 2011, email chain letters declined in Japan, while similar messages spread via SNS. On Twitter (now X), this often takes the form of pressured retweets (now reposts), while on LINE, messages urge forwarding to a specific number of contacts. Common LINE examples since 2016 include: "Copy this and send to 10 people or misfortune will befall you," or "You received this because you're important to me. Send this to 20 people you truly like. If you don't, friends or lovers will leave you." The latter type, leveraging friendship anxiety, reportedly caused real friction when recipients felt pressured to forward, annoying their contacts. Some include phone numbers to call "if you think it's fake," but these are often unrelated third-party numbers used for harassment, or sometimes linked to organized crime. Surveys indicate high exposure among Japanese teenagers, with many admitting to forwarding them. Online forums like Yahoo! Chiebukuro and Nifty Kids receive numerous相談 (sōdan - consultation) requests about these messages. On Japanese imageboards and forums like 2channel (now 5channel), copy-paste chain messages also appear. One notable type emerged around 2002, involving narratives where the poster claims to be possessed or hunted by a malevolent entity (e.g., "Are" - "That Thing") and urges readers to spread the story to dilute the entity's focus, ending with statements like "If you want to increase your own survival probability, I recommend exposing this text to as many eyes as possible." These are sometimes called "self-responsibility type" (自己責任系, jiko sekinin kei) stories. Since around 2007, an image known as the "Hand of God" (神の手, Kami no Te)—depicting a hand-shaped cloud with sunbeams—has circulated frequently on Twitter and LINE in Japan. Typically accompanied by text claiming that sending it to people you wish happiness upon will bring them good luck and grant wishes, the image has been flagged by security firms like G DATA Software as potentially linked to malware. (Meteorologists state such cloud formations are impossible; the image likely originated as a doctored version of a shock image from Goatse.cx.) The image gained renewed attention in 2021 when celebrities posted it on Instagram, prompting warnings. This "Hand of God" image represents a shift back towards positive "good luck" chains, albeit with potential security risks. On TikTok, sounds tagged "#いいことが起きる" (#GoodThingsWillHappen) gained popularity around 2022-2023, particularly among Japanese high school students, promising fulfilled wishes if used in posts. These represent a further evolution towards positive, low-stakes chain-like phenomena, contrasting with the anxiety-inducing nature of Fukou no Tegami. While digital copying allows perfect replication, potentially halting the mutation seen in handwritten letters like the "Stick Letter," new forms and variations continue to emerge across different platforms, suggesting the underlying mechanisms of chain letters constantly adapt to new media. ==Reasons for popularity==

The enduring appeal and periodic surges in chain letter popularity have been linked to various factors: • Societal anxiety: Periods of social unrest or uncertainty are often cited. In Japan, the 1970s Fukou no Tegami boom coincided with events like the Yodo-go hijacking, Yukio Mishima's suicide, the Sanrizuka Struggle, and the Asama-Sansō incident. Similarly, the 1920s Lucky Letter craze occurred amidst post-WWI turmoil, the 1918 Rice Riots, the Oomoto incident, and leading up to the Great Kanto Earthquake. • Psychological factors: Exploiting common fears (misfortune, death, social exclusion) and desires (luck, wealth, connection). The act of forwarding can provide a temporary sense of control or relief from anxiety, even if illogical. Some analyses suggest Japanese cultural tendencies towards accepting fate might make such letters more potent than in some Western cultures. For children, who lack adult coping mechanisms, forwarding can be a way to displace anxiety. • Cultural context: In Japan, a strong post-war culture of letter writing, including widespread pen pal activities among students facilitated by organizations like the "Postal Friends Association" (郵便友の会, Yūbin Tomo no Kai), may have provided fertile ground. The rise of New Age beliefs, occultism, and new religious movements in the 1990s may have coincided with later resurgences. • Ease of transmission: The shift from laborious handwritten copies to photocopies, faxes, and especially near-costless, instant digital forwarding (email, S.M.S.) dramatically lowered the barrier to participation, enabling faster and wider spread. ==Relationship to urban legends==

Chain letters often function as vectors for urban legends. The structure "learn this story/break this rule, suffer misfortune unless you pass it on to X people within Y time" is common to both. In Japan, specific urban legends are thought to be influenced by or derived from Fukou no Tegami: • Kashima-san (カシマさん): A legend popular around 1972 involving a vengeful female ghost (often legless). Hearing the story invites her appearance, but telling it to a certain number of people within a set time (e.g., 3 days) transfers the curse. Early media reports explicitly compared Kashima-san to "Lucky Letters" (likely meaning the Fukou no Tegami type prevalent then), calling it a "word-of-mouth version". Some researchers propose Kashima-san originated as a narrative justification for the misfortune threatened by Fukou no Tegami, which then detached from the physical letter format as it spread orally. • Sacchan (サッちゃん): A late 1990s chain mail legend claiming the popular children's song "Sacchan" has a hidden fourth verse revealing the titular girl died in a train accident in Hokkaido. Learning this verse supposedly brings a curse, avoidable only by telling five people within three hours. (The song's actual lyricist denied this backstory). The structural similarity—a contagious curse requiring propagation for the host's salvation—strongly suggests these legends adapted the chain letter mechanism. ==In popular culture==

Chain letters, particularly the Fukou no Tegami type, have appeared in various fictional works, often reflecting societal awareness and anxieties surrounding them. • In Fujiko F. Fujio's manga Doraemon, the 1977 story "Fukou no Tegami Dōkōkai" (不幸の手紙同好会 - Unlucky Letter Fan Club) features Nobita receiving a Fukou no Tegami. Distraught about passing on misfortune, he is helped by Doraemon, who uses a gadget (the "Postal Reverse Detector") to identify the sender (Suneo) and turn the tables. Educational analyses of this story discuss the ethics of chain letters and compare Nobita's distress with Doraemon's dismissal as representing valid responses. • In Fujiko Fujio A's manga Matarō ga Kuru!!, the story "Fukou no Tegami nado Kowakunai!!" (不幸の手紙などこわくない!! - Unlucky Letters Aren't Scary!) sees the bullied protagonist Mataro use supernatural powers to take revenge on the sender. Both Doraemon and Mataro portray bullied children overcoming the letter via extraordinary means, possibly reflecting the authors' own experiences with bullying. • In Jiro Tsunoda's manga Kyōfu Shinbun (恐怖新聞 - Terror Newspaper), the episode "Fukou no Tegami" depicts a boy who sends unlucky letters being punished by a ghost. Notably, while using a supernatural element for retribution, the story strongly dismisses the power of the letters themselves as "lies" and "nonsense", urging readers not to believe in them. Both Fujiko works and Tsunoda's story ultimately condemn the letters and punish those who propagate them, perhaps reflecting the creators' desire to dispel children's fears. • In Fujio Akatsuka's manga Tensai Bakabon, the 1974 story "Fukō no Pīnattsu no Tegami desu no da" (不幸のピーナッツの手紙ですのだ - It's the Unlucky Peanut Letter!) features letters accompanied by peanuts that supposedly cause death if eaten within 48 hours. (The story included a disclaimer that it was fiction and unrelated to any real peanuts, possibly anticipating complaints. Coincidentally, "peanuts" became slang for bribes during the Lockheed bribery scandals two years later). • In Momoko Sakura's manga Chibi Maruko-chan, the story "Maruko Fukō no Tegami o Morau" (まる子 不幸の手紙をもらう - Maruko Gets an Unlucky Letter) shows the protagonist terrified after receiving one, until her father dismisses it and tears it up. Given the setting and author's age, this likely reflects experiences from the 1970s boom. Some commentators view the father's direct action as the best real-world response. • The plot device in Koji Suzuki's novel Ring (and its adaptations), where watching a cursed videotape leads to death unless the viewer makes a copy and shows it to someone else, shares the core structure of chain letters: propagation is necessary to escape personal harm. This similarity has been widely noted by critics, and the novel itself makes the comparison. The film's popularity reportedly influenced the framing of "unlucky emails" in the late 1990s, with recipients describing them as "like Ring" and specific "Sadako mail" variants emerging. ==See also==