Gotta Love That Spam

[filkertom]

Just got something from "GINNY", with the subject line, "DIVINE MERCY". Sorry, kiddo -- I'm Harry/Hermione all the way.

And there have been a whole lotta notices about movie acting jobs in my area, investment opportunities in Costa Rica (all from exactly the same person), concerns about dialysis and the Fenatyl patch (not together), and many, many things from a Mr. Song Lile.

Anything good in your filter?

Comments

[ericcoleman]

I posted this one in my LJ a day or so ago, the Subject line of the week ...

gibbeting braillex

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

I've noticed a lot of references lately to "your organism"...and here I'd thought I'd kept those experiments secret.

[delazan.livejournal.com]

Depends on which e-mail addy (I have several); Sometimes it's wanting to give me money (from Nigeria) or ads for Dish Network (I have DirecTV). My least favorite ones are for Christian singles, especially considering I am neither Christian nor single.

Then there are the ones for enlargement of specific body parts either male or female. Since I'm a large-busted (44D) woman, neither of these types of ads appeal to me.
-L.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I've been getting the Dish Network ones, too, as well as not only Christian dating but Christian loans. I'd like to borrow Amy Grant for the weekend, please.

[delazan.livejournal.com]

Dare I ask: For musical consultation, or something else?
-L. ;}

[jss]

Yes, you dare. Ask.

I suspect the answer is "Yes."

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket. I need a smokin' hot babe with an incredible voice for consultation on my upcoming Christian album. Jeez, it's not like I'm subtle or anything....

[randwolf.livejournal.com]

Something very bad; I'm getting a lot of spam promising to tell me how to screw over people with bad mortages, if I only go to a "conference" in Las Vegas.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

Somewhere out there, somebody is about to be ripped off by a scam artist who promises to teach them how to rip off other people.

Ain't karma grand?

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

A message from "SnoopDoggy" with the subject line "Wanna see you soon."

Which is really funny, because my roommate and I are going to a Snoop Dogg show this summer...for one of the opening bands, LOL.

[bschilli.livejournal.com]

I get Christian dating, various pills, offers of semi-real diplomas of various sorts. I think my favorite is "Apps Gone Wild". I have no idea what that's supposed to be.

Ben

[naomi-de-plume.livejournal.com]

An evangelical African American Baptist Women’s group wants me to join. Should be a fun meeting seeing as I'm a Pagan White girl.

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

It pisses me off that you love spam so much, but when I ranted about it before, it seemed like the blogosphere agrees with you, so I just kept my annoyance to myself. But when you tell me *I* gotta love it too, I can't hold it in and I have to scream at you.

By encouraging people to read their spam looking for funny stuff to repeat, YOU'RE HELPING THE SPAMMERS.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. They're cruising my LJ, cackling gleefully. They're in a cubicle just across the cave from Osama bin Laden, who's gloating about all the various shit the left wing is doing that helps the terrorists win.

Have you ever heard the phrase, "You got to laugh"? An extension of "If I don't laugh, I'll cry/scream/kill somebody/whatever".

And, oh, goodness, I'm helping the spammers. HOW? I'm not doing anything more than reading a subject line in my inbox. (That one didn't make it into the spam filter.) I'm not promulgating it, I'm not sending it to anyone, I'm merely reading the subject line before it gets MARKED AS SPAM and telling everyone that I thought it was funny.

More, do you have any magical way of reducing spam? 'Cause that'll be the first ever, and you're holding out on us.

You don't have to like it. You don't have to join in. But don't give me this bullshit about "YOU'RE HELPING THE SPAMMERS".

[tigertoy.livejournal.com]

You're actively encouraging people to be looking for their spam filters searching for funny. You make it a game, and you make it cool. That tends to make more people pay more attention to their spam. More people paying attention to their spam means more people deciding that this one actually looks like a good deal. And even if there isn't anyone that dumb left on the whole 'net, more people spending more time looking at their spam means more chances that someone's cat will walk across their keyboard and open an attachment with a virus.

But really, you're right. The amount of increased revenue or extra bots the spammers can recruit from that is so small that it rounds to zero; it's dumb to be worried about it.

The real problem is the difference between laughing AT something and laughing ABOUT it. Laughing AT something -- satire -- is a great way to attack it, to turn people against it. But laughing ABOUT it is a way to make it seem harmless, funny, even having good points. It softens people's attitude -- laughing about something is a mechanism for not feeling bad about not doing anything about it.

Hell, I probably just have too much anger and not enough humor in my soul, and it makes me prickly about everything and a pain to have around, and I'm sorry for making your day worse. But I want the world to be angry about spam, not laughing about it.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

You have not made my day worse. And I'm doing my best to save my anger for things that deserve it.

Back some, god, musta been thirteen or fourteen years ago, I had an issue of Penthouse Variations ("You young'uns and your internet and your fan fiction! Back in my day, when we wanted to read badly written smut, we had to buy it! From disreputable party stores!") which had ads for phone sex lines, two of which I will always remember with great affection. One had huge block letters, announcing:

BOOBS! PINCH THEM! SQUEEZE THEM! WATCH THEM BOUNCE!

Which I'm pretty sure the phone technology at the time really wasn't up to.

Then there was:

Lesbians Trained To Please Men

Those two stupid ads have, over the years, given me way more entertainment that I ever got out of those long-forgotten digests.

Spam is. Can't avoid it, can't stop it, can only reroute it... and, if it pleases you to take the minuscule amount of time to do so, make fun of it. And, yeah, laughing about it is a way of making it seem harmless... precisely because the alternative is raging about something you can't do anything about. I always think it's a good idea to render weapons that might be used against me less dangerous.

So there we are. Laugh, or not.

[lariss.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, simply opening one's filter and looking at the mail titles doesn't help the spammers one bit.
But, referring to the karma comment above, if you actually open one of these (does anyone even do that anymore?), you are very likely to be Trojaned or Wormed.
And really, I'm not sure anyone is telling you to love spam. In fact, in that headline, I get this strong sense of - what - tongue-in-cheekness?
But if you realy want to work for your anti-spam cause, you could get a law degree and work on anti-spam legislation and enforcement...
I dunno... I get jumpy when people get upset with other people for things they enjoy which are consensual.

[dandelion-diva.livejournal.com]

Dija get the one about upgrading your penis? I think that may be my favorite of all time...I should write back and say that mine would be a new install, and can they take care of that for me...but I don't really have much faith in the system.;)

[singingpatient.livejournal.com]

i can't read my best spam. it's in chinese, or random strings of chracters.

[sdelmonte]

I cleaned it out an hour ago. But it's as full of Russian as the main library in St. Petersburg. And my filter at work tends to get a lot of spam in Hebrew.

[omahastar.livejournal.com]

Some of the recent spams ...

1 - "Come work for a Faith-based organization" ... Um, no.

2 - "Enlarge your breasts, without surgery!" ... I have guy parts, don't need bigger boobies.

3 - "Someone's looking for you!" ... Someone found me.

4 - "Don't blame us for not telling you about this great herbal..." ... subject line too long and boring, I blame you.

5 - "Come find the Napster of Christian Music!" ... No. gods, no!

[laurel-potter.livejournal.com]

I get very little span. Most of mine comes through yahoo groups I belong to.

Just got something from "GINNY", with the subject line, "DIVINE MERCY".

That may not have anything to do with HP, you know. It's not like Jo invented the name "Ginny".

[the-yoyogod.livejournal.com]

I seem to be getting a lot of spam telling me I can run my car on water instead of gasoline. If only it was true...

Also, someone called federico bevilacqua sent me an email called "with all my love" and the text "You are always on my mind" and a link that I won't post. It
s nice to be loved, but I'd much rather be loved by beautiful women than male spammers.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Pretty normal here. Most spammers appear to think I'm an impotent insomniac with some pretty serious debt problems and quite the gambling habit. Go figure.

[wizwom.livejournal.com]

Looks like 7 of 11 in foreign languages; 1 German, 3 Hebrew, and 3 Katakana. Two of the remainder are in broken English typical of Hindus.

[gridlockjoe.livejournal.com]

I got one today advertising "Phentermime".

Perfect for the budding Marcel Marceau who's budding a little *too* much.

You should also check out www.spamusement.com.

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

My best one recently seems to be about Viagra for mummies:

"Even in 100 years your leather column will arise!"