By The Onion Staff, Experts in Absurdity, who never loses their touch in crafting satirical content.
In a shocking turn of events that has left anthropologists baffled and productivity enthusiasts weeping into their bullet journals, a local man in New York City has stumbled upon a relic of the digital Stone Age: the act of “checking email.” The Financial Times, in a rare moment of reporting on something other than stock market fluctuations or the existential dread of Brexit, chronicled this harrowing tale of one Jeremy Tuttle, a 34-year-old graphic designer who accidentally opened Microsoft Outlook and was immediately transported back to 2003. What follows is a satirical descent into the madness of modern communication, as told by your trusty purveyors of fake news at The Onion.
It was a Tuesday morning like any other, or so Tuttle thought as he sipped his $8 oat milk latte and scrolled through his curated X feed, blissfully unaware of the digital guillotine about to drop. According to sources close to the tragedy—namely, Tuttle’s roommate, who was eating a Pop-Tart in the next room—Jeremy had been attempting to locate a client’s feedback on a logo design when he made a fatal error. “I thought I’d find it on Slack, or maybe Discord, or hell, even a carrier pigeon,” Tuttle reportedly told the Financial Times. “But then I saw it: an email notification. From Gmail. I didn’t even know I still had a Gmail account.”
What ensued was a descent into a Kafkaesque nightmare of unread messages, spam folders, and auto-generated calendar invites for meetings that never happened. The Financial Times, with its characteristic flair for making mundane office tasks sound like the plot of a dystopian novel, described Tuttle’s ordeal as “a confrontation with the Sisyphean nature of digital correspondence.” Translation: the dude opened his inbox and immediately regretted every life choice that led him to that moment.
Tuttle’s first mistake was assuming he could “just skim” his inbox. The Onion has obtained exclusive access to the contents of his email, which included 17,392 unread messages, 4,392 of which were from LinkedIn reminding him that “Someone Viewed Your Profile!” Spoiler alert: it was always a recruiter offering a job that paid in “exposure.” Other highlights included a 2017 email from his mom with the subject line “FWD: FWD: FWD: Are You At Risk For Shingles?” and a cryptic message from an unknown sender titled “Urgent: Your Package Is Delayed,” despite Tuttle not having ordered anything since the Great Toilet Paper Panic of 2020.
“I thought email was dead,” Tuttle told reporters, his voice trembling as he clutched a fidget spinner for emotional support. “Like, didn’t we all move to instant messaging apps? Why is my dentist still emailing me about my six-month cleaning? Why is there a newsletter from a yoga studio I visited once in 2016? Why is my inbox a digital landfill of my past mistakes?”
The Onion’s crack team of investigative journalists—by which we mean our intern, Chad, who once wrote a 500-word essay on why Pop-Tarts are a personality trait—dug deeper into the phenomenon of email’s stubborn survival. According to a 2024 study by the Pew Research Center, which we’re pretty sure we didn’t make up, 92% of Americans still receive at least one email per day, and 87% of those emails are immediately marked as spam or ignored. Yet, like a cockroach surviving a nuclear apocalypse, email persists, lurking in the shadows of our notification bars, waiting to strike.
Tuttle’s experience, while uniquely pathetic, is not an isolated incident. Across the globe, office workers and freelancers alike are grappling with the existential horror of inboxes that refuse to die. “It’s like playing whack-a-mole with your own sanity,” said Sarah Jenkins, a marketing consultant who once spent three hours crafting an email only to receive a response that said, “K, thx.” Jenkins now communicates exclusively through TikTok dances, a move she claims has boosted her productivity by 300%.
The Financial Times article, which we’re legally obligated to mention again because journalism, noted that Tuttle’s inbox contained a particularly damning email from his former boss, dated 2019, with the subject line “RE: Can You Stay Late Tonight?” Tuttle, who quit that job after being asked to design a logo for a cryptocurrency called “Dogecoin 2: Electric Boogaloo,” described the discovery as “like finding a cursed artifact in an Indiana Jones movie.” He immediately closed his laptop and considered moving to a remote island where the only form of communication is smoke signals.
But the real kicker, dear readers, is what happened next. In a moment of misguided optimism, Tuttle decided to “tackle” his inbox, vowing to achieve the mythical state of “Inbox Zero.” For those unfamiliar, Inbox Zero is a concept invented by productivity gurus who clearly hate fun. It involves clearing your inbox of all emails, either by responding, archiving, or setting your computer on fire and claiming it was an accident. Tuttle, armed with a Spotify playlist titled “Boss Babe Energy,” dove headfirst into the abyss.
Four hours later, he had responded to exactly three emails, two of which were to unsubscribe from newsletters that immediately sent confirmation emails requiring further action. “It’s a trap,” Tuttle whispered, his eyes bloodshot as he stared at a pop-up asking if he wanted to “Sync Calendar Events.” By hour six, he was drafting a 500-word email to his internet provider about a billing issue, only to delete it after realizing he could just call them. By hour eight, he was googling “how to fake your own death and move to Belize.”
The Onion reached out to Microsoft, the makers of Outlook, for comment on why their software continues to haunt users like a poltergeist with a vendetta. A spokesperson responded with a 12-paragraph email that included phrases like “leveraging synergies” and “optimizing user workflows,” which we’re pretty sure translates to “lol, good luck.” Meanwhile, Google, the overlords of Gmail, sent an automated reply directing us to a help forum moderated by a bot named “MailBot 3000.”
As for Tuttle, he has since sworn off email entirely, opting instead to communicate via handwritten letters delivered by his neighbor’s pet parrot, which he claims is “more reliable than Outlook.” His story has sparked a nationwide movement called #DeleteEmail, which has gained traction on X, where users are sharing screenshots of their own inbox horrors. One user,
@InboxAnxiety420, posted a photo of an email from 2009 with the caption, “Why is Blockbuster reminding me to return ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’?”
In the end, Tuttle’s saga is a cautionary tale for our hyper-connected age, a reminder that technology, like a clingy ex, never truly leaves you alone. The Onion advises our readers to approach email with caution, or better yet, avoid it altogether. If you must check your inbox, do so with a strong drink in hand and a therapist on speed dial. As for Jeremy Tuttle, he’s reportedly considering a new career as a goat farmer, where the only notifications he’ll receive are bleats of approval from his furry colleagues.
And so, we leave you with this parting wisdom: the next time you see an email notification, run. Run far, run fast, and never look back. Your sanity depends on it.
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