*sings*
“Yes I would. If I only cooooould. I surely would”
A while ago, I asked questions about the unfortunate term ‘blog’ – why it is used, where it evolved from, why it is such an unattractive term off the tongue? My mate Amy from Never True Tales researched – she’s great at this – and provided me with an answer that was not related to something as hideous as the sound of the word. BLOG.
And now I’m perplexed by the word SPAM.
Spam is that fakey, flakey, gluggy, bloggy, splodgy, murky, meat in a tin that reminds me of the seventies for some reason. Perhaps this was when I was first introduced to its texture and flavour on a childhood sandwich somewhere? I can’t be sure, but the vague memory still coats my taste buds whenever I log onto Fangirl Sings the Blues.
Now Spam has taken over the Interwebuals (my made-up name for this cyber addictive place we have going) and every day I jump on this wordpress dashboard, I have up to fifty spam messages.
It’s enough to turn a girl vegan. Give me Golburn Valley Gold Fruit in a tin any day, ploise. At lease the canned fruit doesn’t infiltrate ones blog (oh, that word! How I love to spam people with it) and spread comments like swine flu coughing patients. Seriously, I’m getting 50 spam comments a day here and every single one of them relates to pharmaceuticals!
So? Now Spam is the drug of bloggers? Makes sense. If you’re not getting many comments but you are addicted to attention (like some writers and bloggers I know, lol) Spam can do it for ya. You log on, see that you have 50 NEW COMMENTS, and think ‘Oh, my! I am vair popular and talented. Lots of peeps wanna comment on my words!’
Then you click the access links and find SPAM. About drugs! Keeping you addicted to writing just to ascertain how many spam messages you can accumulate in a week. It’s a funny old cycle. Even funnier are the contents of the spam messages:
Hello! Buy Viagra in bulk. Buy Xanax for one dollar. Come in and buy discounts on Phemotineals and Cominotials and Bloggerotials and Ego-orifices. All for mastercard.
It leads me to another question – why has a word synonymous with canned meat been adapted to mean ‘a disruptive commercial message’? Why wasn’t another term coined, like slodge or glunk or bizzel?
Why user the poor old tinned meat term which lost its glamour somewhere between WW2 and the movie ‘Babe’?
Spam, in all its inconvenient, meaty glory is here to sty (um, I mean stay). Tis a pity that words like blog and spam are the new generation buzz terms, whereas we may prefer a word with a bit more grunt? One day, maybe? But then again, pigs might fly.
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5 Responses to I’d rather be a spammer than a nail
*spams you*
From Wikipedia:
According to the Internet Society and other sources, the term spam is derived from the 1970 SPAM sketch of the BBC television comedy series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”
The sketch is set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes SPAM canned luncheon meat. As the waiter recites the SPAM-filled menu, a chorus of Viking patrons drowns out all conversations with a song repeating “SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM… lovely SPAM! wonderful SPAM!”, hence “SPAMming” the dialogue. The excessive amount of SPAM mentioned in the sketch is a reference to the propinquity in the United Kingdom of imported canned meat products -- particularly corned beef from Argentina -- in the years after World War II as the country struggled to rebuild its agricultural base. SPAM captured a large slice of the British market within lower economic classes and became a byword among British schoolboys of the 1960s for low-grade fodder due to its commonality, monotonic taste and cheap price -- whence the humour of the Python sketch.
I woke up this morning and my brain has gone on holidays. So, I find myself unable to leave a comment of my usual high standard. SPAM is never a good idea regardless of how it’s served up. Hey -- does anyone actually buy Viagra from those emails? Never tried it myself. Do you think it would help me find my brain? I think I need one of those extra large G&Ts!
I hate spam. Both kinds. Although, in fairness, I’ve never tasted the canned kind.
I get lots of spam on WordPress, but very little on Blogger. Who knows why?
Thanks Laura love. What a great Monty Python reference. I LOVE the term spam now, *g*
To Fiona: It’s not like you to awaken without your brain, love. Paps you need to purchase some online pharmaceuticals to get you UP? Oh, yes. G and Ts are the way to go.
Amy *waves* WordPress and spam seems to be a diabolical combo. I don’t know if I’ve eaten much spam either. *shudders*
I love your internet vocabulary questioning