The website youvebeenleftbehind.com is one of those things that, like Cindy McCain's eyebrows, is at once hilarious and terrifying.
I first heard about the website on Wait Wait … Don't Tell Me, NPR's weekly quiz show. I almost broke my neck diving for the laptop to check it out, eager to get in on the joke. Only, it wasn't a joke. This website is as serious as the apocalypse. Literally.
Youvebeenleftbehind.com is a service that enables customers to send e-mails to friends and family, just like Hotmail or Yahoo – only these e-mails will be sent after the Rapture.
Specifically, the website is designed to enable individuals who believe they will be physically swept up to heaven after the Rapture (aka the Second Coming of Christ) to contact loved ones who have been "left behind" on earth.
By sending your recently damned friends a quick note, you can "snatch them from the flames" by convincing them to stop doing things that will make them go to hell, like listening to Nickelback. With any luck, your friends will repent and will be able to catch the proverbial second bus up to heaven, where post-grunge is definitely not allowed.
For just $40 a year, you can store e-mails to up to 62 of your closest friends whom you believe are going to hell, which is great news if you know a lot of Bush supporters. The website holds onto the e-mails until the Rapture occurs, at which point they will be sent automatically. You have the option of writing your own original letters or using one of the website's templates, including the popular "Nanny nanny boo boo, I'm in heaven, how 'bout you?"
According to the UK's Daily Telegraph, youvebeenleftbehind.com was created by Mark Heard, a "49-year-old supermarket shelf-stacker from Cape Cod, Massachusetts."
"He said he got the idea in 1999 while trading in shares online," the article explains. "It suddenly occurred to him that he would not be able to send his trading password to his wife if the Rapture suddenly took him."
This statement has some curious implications. One is that, while Heard believes he will be in heaven after the Rapture, he also thinks his wife isn't going to make the cut. He also seems to believe that, once she is left behind, in the middle of the Antichrist's rain of hail, fire and blood, his wife plans on doing some serious online trading.
"Surely," I thought while reading the article, "there must be some kind of misunderstanding." So I decided to ask Heard about it.
"Yes, unfortunately at this point in time, my wife of 17 years will not be making the trip to heaven," Heard tells me during a rather colorful e-mail exchange. "How can I say that? She is vocally not a Christian and has no relationship with God, nor does she desire one."
And you thought your dinner conversations were awkward.
According to Heard, the e-mails stored at youvebeenleftbehind.com will be sent out precisely six days after the Rapture, in what is known as the "tribulation period," during which those left behind will experience great horrors like pestilence, famine, disease and Fox News, which will be the only fully functional news team still on earth.
"I have a team of Christian couples scattered around the U.S. – four active couples and one alternate," Heard explains. "They are scattered to protect us from having the team wiped out by attack, natural disaster or epidemic. They are couples in case one is sick, injured [or] killed. If three out of four fail to log in [to the website] for three days, the system figures the Rapture has taken place.
"Also," he adds, "one team member is located near the server bank with access in case the net goes down or malfunctions."
This brings up an interesting question: Will the Internet even work after the Rapture? Does Verizon Wireless have an apocalypse contingency plan?
"I do believe that the Internet will be up and running," Heard reassures.
"Eventually, God will take it down, as he destroys the world system," he says. "That won't be until the second half of the tribulation, though."
So that's a relief.
All of the e-mails stored on youvebeenleftbehind.com are specially encrypted so that you can safely send login information and passwords for your bank account, investments, retirement fund, etc. to your doomed loved ones. Because if nobody claims your money, says Heard, "the Antichrist gets your stuff." And that's a bummer no matter how you spin it.
Heard says he will definitely not steal your private information and use it to buy himself a new car, so that's one less thing to worry about.
The idea for youvebeenleftbehind.com is, of course, genius, albeit in a potentially soulless, "exploiting the fears of others" kind of way. With a clientele "between one and 1,000" people, Heard is raking in up to 40 grand a year to do little more than provide an e-mail account with storage space the size of Bill O'Reilly's tiny black heart.
And the best part is that – if it somehow turned out to be a hoax – no one could prove it until, you know, the end of the world.
But I will give Heard this: He talks a good game, and if he sincerely believes in what he is peddling, it's hard to bash him.
"[There] are those that think we only set this thing up as an elaborate ruse to get personal information," Heard says. "Most of those calling it a scam are only repeating what someone else said. They didn't look into it for themselves.
"It has been interesting just how much this thing has turned into a ministry," he adds. "Since I launched You've Been Left Behind, the secular media attention has been insane. Over 125,000 unique visitors from 160 countries have hit the site. You've Been Left Behind has been on every Internet site, blog and newspage. It's been on National Public Radio, ABC News, Fox News, hundreds of news.coms, The London Times, The London U.K.Gardian, the front page of the Irish national newspaper …
"I must say that God has used this site to get up in people's face again."
Here's hoping there are no spam filters after the apocalypse.
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