As Bad as Spam....

So email service providers seem to be trying to get a handle on all the annoying spam that makes it way to our inboxes daily. I say kudos to them for it; the amount of spam I've been receiving of late has been greatly reduced. Additionally, roadrunner has installed customizable filters so I can further tweak the process (as well as block a limited amount of addresses as well).

However...

there is another annoyance that poses an issue to me, and I'm not sure how to solve it.

Family and friends.

Specifically, family and friends mass forwarding emails they've received to everyone in their address books. You know the type of emails I'm talking about.

• "Check out this awesome...." (video, website, powerpoint presentation WITH music, etc.)
• Tear-jerker stories
• Patriotic stories (another type of tear-jerker story)
• Dancing animals with messages of love and friendship
  
• Rants against the right, the left, government, schools, yada yada yada
  
• "You were hit by the first snowball of the season, forward this...."
• Any number of urban legend warnings that are currently saying they have been verified as true by snopes which is an outright lie in most cases.
• Chain emails saying that if you are truly a _________________ (fill in the blank) you will forward this email to everyone you know.

and so on, and so on ad nauseum.

Here's the problem as I see it: I tried letting a family member know that I didn't want his mass-forwards any more, that I'd appreciate it if he didn't send them to me as I just delete them anyway.

It hurt his feelings. I could hear it in his voice.

So I gave in and said go ahead, send them.

It's not just him. Other people send them as well. I guess they think they are sharing a little joy and sunlight with me. Or maybe it assumes that they have special access to information that everyone absolutely needs for whatever reason.

Doesn't matter to me what the motivations are. Those email are still annoying.

I'm thinking about reporting them as spam. Should I?