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Saturday, March 19, 2005

Wild and Crazy Email Requests

A member of StarArchive performed an experiment. He posted a fake email address for Steve Martin on a few autograph collecting newsboards to see how fast an address could be flooded with autograph requests. Within 3 days, he reported over 200 emails requesting autographs.

  • 21 were for charities (9 different people representing American Cancer society)
  • 98 people claimed they were under age 18
  • 15 people wrote multiple times using different emails but the same shipping address (one guy wrote 6 times)
  • 21 people used less than 2 sentences (e.g., Can you send me an autograph to me?)
  • 71 people asked for multiple autographs (1 of them asking for 20 for his classmates)
  • 82 people were not from the U.S.
  • 5 offered to send a SASE
  • 2 people were rude
  • 1 person claimed to be on his death bed (yet sent another request acting like a kid)
  • 46 asked for the photos to be personalized
  • 9 people said they wouldn't sell it on eBay, 1 said they would
  • Movie most often mentioned - The Jerk
  • 66 people claimed Steve Martin is their favorite
  • 1 person loved Steve Martin in The Coneheads movie
  • 1 person loved Steve Martin in The Hunt for Red October
  • 1 person loved Steve Marin of 7th Heaven (I think that was Steve Allen)
  • 2 people mentioned 9/11
  • 3 people mention the Tsunami (2 were collecting autographs for it)
  • 34 mentioned SNL, 4 said it sucks now
  • 2 used the phrase "Wild and Crazy Guy"
  • 1 mentioned that he was gay
  • 2 said that grey hair is sexy (1 was the gay guy)
  • 22 were obvious form letters
  • 2 used profanity

The greed and sleazy dishonesty is, unfortunately, not a surprise. Given this, we should all understand why many celebrities no longer respond to autograph requests.

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