IN DECEMBER, President Bush signed a bill regulating spam, those unsolicited emails that clog up your inbox with advertisements for pornographic websites, shady investment opportunities, and products promising to augment certain body parts. I’ve been thinking lately that the ban didn’t go far enough. For instance, it didn’t prohibit–didn’t even mention!–one of the worst sorts of unsolicited email: the Evite.
“Evite” is short for “electronic invitation,” which is another way of saying “socialite spam.” Here’s how it works. A friend of yours who wants to organize a party visits Evite.com, where, in a few minutes, she can pick out an invitation design, enter the party’s date, time, and location, and plug in the emails of invited guests. Then, with a click of the mouse, her electronic invitation speeds out into cyberspace, to arrive shortly thereafter in your inbox. What’s more, your friend can do all this for free. Sounds simple.
Well, it isn’t. Evites can be complex–infuriating, even, if you’re of a non-techie frame of mind. Look at the website’s own promotional materials, which sound like the instructions for your new DVD player in the original Japanese. According to one press release, Evites are meant to help “individuals manage event communication and access all the resources necessary for successful activity planning.”
Got that? I didn’t. What I have got, however, are Evites. Tons of them. Evites for holiday brunches, New Year’s soirées, farewell dinners, and birthday parties. Evites for book launches and high school reunions, bar nights and presidential fundraisers. I’m sure you’ve gotten the same–but if you haven’t yet, just wait. If you have an email address, you’ll be getting your first Evite soon. Trust me. It’s inevitable.
It’s also inevitable, come to think of it, that you, too, will become disenchanted with electronic invitations–assuming, of course, that you’re able to open them in the first place. This is always a challenge. I’ve had Evites crash my email program, and sometimes my entire computer. A quick survey of my office shows I am not alone.
But let’s say that you’re able to open your Evite. Your next task is to RSVP. You do this by clicking on Yes, Maybe, or No. Also provided is a small window where you can type “comments” about the party–how excited you are to attend, say, or how you’d love to make it, but unfortunately you have a prior commitment to go cow tipping in Secaucus that day, and . . . you get the idea.
If you can’t come up with a good excuse, however, don’t worry. You can always use someone else’s. You see, the party’s entire guest list, along with the other guests’ comments, is printed next to the area where you RSVP. The person throwing the party has the option to hide the guest list, of course, but this happens rarely. (Especially in the capital, where the best-attended parties are those offering the chance, however slight, of hobnobbing with a VIP.)
It used to be that if you didn’t want to go to a party, you could ignore the invitation. That’s no longer the case. If you’re sent an Evite, you’re also sent a reminder–sometimes every day until you respond. And it doesn’t stop there. If you say that you’re going to attend, you still get reminders–only these count down the days until the party. There are times when my inbox is so stuffed with Evites, Evite RSVP reminders, and Evite “save the date” memos that I long for the days when all I had to worry about was spam hawking Viagra.
Now, I’m prepared to admit that Evites can be a quick, cheap, and easy way to bring a group of people together. But isn’t there something mechanical, even deadening, in sending the same cookie-cutter message to everyone on your guest list? And isn’t it mechanical, too, for the guest, who has but three RSVP options, and has to share his excitement, ambivalence, or regret about the party with everyone else invited? The Evite, it turns out, is yet another example of the Internet’s changing how people relate to one another–in this case, for the worse.
Of course, not everything has changed. Hosts still come up with lame excuses when they “forget” to invite you to their party. A few weeks ago, for example, word spread among my friends about a must-attend Christmas party in Virginia. Everyone had received an Evite about the event–everyone, that is, except me. I was on good terms with the host, you understand, and couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t been invited. So I asked him one day about the party.
“Oh!” he said, feigning surprise, “you didn’t get an invitation?”
No, I said.
“Well, then,” he said, fumbling for an excuse, ” . . . it must’ve got lost in the email.”
–Matthew Continetti
