I have been inundated with unsolicited emails! I finally had to turn off my notifications as the growing number of emails pinged my inbox. As I write this, my personal inbox currently sits at 92,948 unread emails! How does that happen, you may ask? One unread email at a time! It feels virtually overwhelming! With every ping and digital alert, it’s a reminder of the growing number of unattended emails waiting for me. I do my best to ignore the blue icon on my phone’s home screen with the perfectly centered envelope and the bright red circle indicating the ever-growing number of emails in my inbox. I try not to think about it.
On a lighter note, sometimes when I would hear the classic email ping, I would think of the romantic comedy You’ve Got Mail, which debuted in 1998. Maybe you too have seen that movie and, as you read today’s title, you heard the classic email phrase associated with your email inbox: “You’ve got mail!” Actors Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan star in this clever movie where two people are caught in an online email romance, though oblivious to the fact that they are business rivals! I don’t remember much from the movie I watched years ago other than the resounding email alerts, “You’ve got mail!” It’s catchy.
Do you remember the AOL.com “You’ve got mail” phrase and the man’s voice that would alert you to every new inbound email that came to your inbox? In a YouTube video, I discovered that Elwood Edwards is the voice behind the unforgettable phrase, “You’ve got mail!” His wife was a customer service representative for a company that would soon become America Online. One day, she volunteered her husband, who was a professional broadcasting announcer, to be the voice alerting recipients to new email in their inbox! It’s been said that at one point, his voice was heard more than 35 million times per day! That’s an outrageous number of attention-grabbing alerts. He chuckles now, saying, “Even today, you go on AOL.com, I greet you. I greet myself!”
