A Passionate and Humble Defense of Spam

Spam is stupid. This much everyone knows. We all try to police it, but somehow, no matter how many hurdles we place in its way, it still sneaks through. Bots are like your Uncle Richard who only knows how to talk about his uninteresting life ("I got two pounds of salmon for $8 at Piggly Wiggly last night--you shoulda seen the look on my face! What a deal!"), ignoring any attempt on your part to get a word in edge-wise: both are impervious to your efforts to shut them out. Listen, it's just life: Uncle Rich will keep coming over for Thanksgiving dinner even if you have it in the tool shed out back with the lights turned out on the second Tuesday of November. He will find you.


But looked at the right way, spam can also be fun, provided it's not some mashup of words devoid of prepositions or definite articles like some Djuna Barnes nightmare. The ones that highlight male enhancement I can do without (which I've been getting a lot of lately, and which are making me feel like someone out there knows something I don't). But beyond that, I've been seeing some funny ones of late.


And by funny, I mean lazy. Whoever dreamed up this spam is a mental midget. Or I don't even know how it works--does some software program generate spam it thinks will lure people in? If so, James Cameron can rest easy--I don't think we have to worry about computers taking over the world anytime soon. Not when you see messages like this:

Hahah. Totally! That so true. Hilarious stuff. I bookmark your page and show all my friends. My website: _______.

That one was left in the comment section of a post I wrote about how life is fragile and we all could die at any moment. That's what I mean: lazy. Know your audience, spambots! Here's another left on a post I did where I photoshopped Teddy Roosevelt's head onto Edvard Munch's painting "The Scream":

Oh wow! Your post really made me stop and think. Your words are so deep and meaningful. You capture exactly my life. Here's my website: ____________________

Well, at least someone knows I exist on the internet. Which is a comfort, I guess. And apparently their first language is not English! At least spam keeps things interesting, with their silly pidgin-speak and ballsy pronouncements to "Visit me website!" We should all be so bold.