According to Wikipedia a viral email (also known as a "pass-along email") is a certain kind of email which rapidly propagates from person to person, generally in a word-of-mouth manner.

The Wikipedia article on viral emails mentions an archive site called ViralBank. I did a search in Google and found a link. I clicked on the link but the site did not load, as if the server were overloaded or down. I checked the Internet Archive and did find some further information as well as some information through Who-Is.

The Who-Is information shows that the domain was registered toward the end of the year 2000 and that the domain name registration has been kept current. The first page indexed by the Internet Archive was in April of 2002 and the peak number of indexed pages was in 2005. The last update shown was in 2007. I don't know if the site is still active, but there are some conclusions that we can draw from the information.

Since domain name chosen was ViralBank it would appear that the purpose of the site was to display viral emails. This domain was registered in the year 2000 which means that the viral email phenomenon was taking place at that time. Email actually predates the Internet itself, but wide spread use of the Internet did not happen until the mid 90's. E-mail came into being in 1965. It started out as a way a way to communicate for multiple users of a time-sharing mainframe computer.

Commercial restrictions on the Internet ended in 1995 and Yahoo was founded in that year. While there were probably some viral emails in the earlier days we can guess that the tradition did not come into full swing until there was relatively wide spread use of the Internet. I bought my first computer and began using the Internet in 2000 and the viral emails were flying by that time. Today, many people have a short list in their email contacts list to whom they forward the these emails.

The proper way to forward these emails is to send them out to your list by bcc (Blind Carbon Copy). The previous senders addresses should be deleted from the emails you forward. Some email clients send forwards as attachments, so this may not be possible. It should be possible, in most cases, to copy the content of the email and paste it into a new email to send on.

The proper etiquette is to use the bcc function because you do not expose all the other email address on your list when you forward the email. It is also polite to delete the previous sender's email address so as not to propagate it across the Internet and expose those senders to possible spam or threats.

Sending and receiving these emails can be fun. There are good jokes, PowerPoint slide shows, interesting pictures, and videos that travel around the Internet. They can give you a break in your hectic day.  Wink Longnecker