Over a year ago I started receiving a steady stream of e-mails offering me products to enlarge a certain bodily appendage that I don't have. This confused me a little as I thought most spam e-mails were at least gender-targeted and I wasn't sure why I was listed on these lists as a male.
And then came an onslaught of pharmaceutical offers for a magic pill that aids the functionality of said appendage. I dismissed it all as regular spam and didn't think much about it. I spent a good few months opening up all of the marketing e-mails to officially unsubscribe and mark as spam in efforts to clean up my inbox. I did a pretty good job, I've had my Yahoo! account since my first year of college and I get relatively little spam delivered to my inbox though my spam folder gets pretty ridiculous.
So today as I was waiting for a confirmation e-mail, I took a gander through my spam folder in search of it and found a TON of e-mails addressed to Jeremy L or Jeremy L Ortega. Someone must have opted me in to some sort of spam list as Jeremy L, inadequate male, which apparently is the root of over 60% of my spam. I am extremely annoyed that I am sharing my primary inbox with this unknown Jeremy, and will continue to curse him under my breath whenever as I unsubscribe myself off as many lists as I can.
A note on the origin of spam:
It is widely believed that the term spam is derived from a sketch of the BBC TV series Monty Python's Flying Circus. The sketch is set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes spam luncheon meat. (A reference to British rationing during WWII where spam was one of the few meat products that was widely available) A waiter recites the spam-filled menu and a chorus of Vikings drowns out all conversations with a song repeating "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM...", hence spamming the dialog.
Then in the 1980's, the term was adopted to describe abusive users who frequented BBSs who would repeat "SPAM" a huge number of times to scroll other users' text off the screen. Coupled with the slow phone-modem connections of the early internet days, this large, scrolling, irritating, meaningless block of text started to be called spamming. And that is how spam came to be known as excessive multiple posting of the same message.
And then came an onslaught of pharmaceutical offers for a magic pill that aids the functionality of said appendage. I dismissed it all as regular spam and didn't think much about it. I spent a good few months opening up all of the marketing e-mails to officially unsubscribe and mark as spam in efforts to clean up my inbox. I did a pretty good job, I've had my Yahoo! account since my first year of college and I get relatively little spam delivered to my inbox though my spam folder gets pretty ridiculous.
So today as I was waiting for a confirmation e-mail, I took a gander through my spam folder in search of it and found a TON of e-mails addressed to Jeremy L or Jeremy L Ortega. Someone must have opted me in to some sort of spam list as Jeremy L, inadequate male, which apparently is the root of over 60% of my spam. I am extremely annoyed that I am sharing my primary inbox with this unknown Jeremy, and will continue to curse him under my breath whenever as I unsubscribe myself off as many lists as I can.
A note on the origin of spam:
It is widely believed that the term spam is derived from a sketch of the BBC TV series Monty Python's Flying Circus. The sketch is set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes spam luncheon meat. (A reference to British rationing during WWII where spam was one of the few meat products that was widely available) A waiter recites the spam-filled menu and a chorus of Vikings drowns out all conversations with a song repeating "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM...", hence spamming the dialog.
Then in the 1980's, the term was adopted to describe abusive users who frequented BBSs who would repeat "SPAM" a huge number of times to scroll other users' text off the screen. Coupled with the slow phone-modem connections of the early internet days, this large, scrolling, irritating, meaningless block of text started to be called spamming. And that is how spam came to be known as excessive multiple posting of the same message.
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