I swear, there is an epidemic of Stupid going around the new media marketing world. Or maybe it was always there and I simply didn’t notice until now.

Recently an indie label added me to their mailing list without my permission (Stupid #1). Their mailings don’t have any unsubscribe link (Stupid #2), forcing me to reply and ask to be taken off their list. This amount of stupid is typical, baseline Stupid, usually doesn’t bother me. Unfortunately, they had advanced Stupid.

Then the label argues with me via email (Stupid #3) and tells me that “If you don’t want someone sending you an email without asking, then you should not post your email on the web.” As though they were sending me an email as opposed to just adding me to a list. Not feeling sufficiently stupid yet, they then have the balls to throw this at me:

I would be glad to take you off the list, but I don’t know how to do that without taking up several hours of my time, which is rather short, since I run two for-profit businesses and a non-profit organization.
(Stupid #4)

Another savvy marketer has added me to a list and is CC-ing everyone on the list- meaning I can see all their addresses and they can see mine (Stupid #5).

This morning I found the last straw. Yet another music marketing company had been sending me emails about bands since I produce the High Orbit Podcast. Initially they added me to their mailing list without permission, but I’ll overlook that for now. They typically sent me one or two emails a month.

Then there were more.

Fast forward to the present and I’m getting damn near daily emails from these people (Stupid #6). Yesterday it got so bad they sent me two emails in one day about the same damn band (Stupid #7). This is getting ridiculous, so I asked to be taken off the list (oh yeah, no unsubscribe link again. Back to stupid #2).

Once again, I’m getting argued with via email (Stupid #3 again):

You know Matthew, I’ve had you up on my MySpace top friends for awile (sic) now trying to toss you a bone.

Apparantly (sic) your (sic) not as smart as you look.

So not only can they not spell (Stupid #8) but they think that insulting me will somehow make me change my mind about supporting their bands (Stupids #9-47)?

To all of you stricken with The Stupid lately… Grab a clue from the artists you represent: If people don’t want your emails, you don’t want to send to them. If you’re a rock band, you don’t want to force your way onstage at a country bar. All you’re going to do is turn someone who was ambivalent into someone who actively works against you.