the spam critic

If one lived by the old adage"You are what you eat" and applied it to email in the context of "You are what you receive in email" I know for sure I would be one interesting mix of a human. The best way of abbreviating myself using the subject lines of 20 or so spam emails I get in my hotmail account each day would be: a porn freak weakling who is seriously in debt because of his gambling addiction, can't get a hard on with his frighteningly small penis, never finished high school, thinks the possibility of winning a trip to play shuffleboard with some gimped out seniors on a cruise ship is the ultimate tantalizer, is sick of working all the time and making his boss rich and wants to work at his home which he is very interested in refinancing.

Besides being amazingly obnoxious, spam usually is written by some brain dead hack who's credentials in sociology are limited to slapping their kids when they spill applesauce on the floor. As obnoxious as television advertising is, it is carefully stitched together by professionals so that even a half second edit has the guise of being a philanthropic exercise. Spam seems to defy all logic - pretending to be a friend "replying" to an email at its "best" and seeming as valid as a third rate infomercial on a low rated cable station at 4am at its worst.

Here I've compiled some common spam emails and ripped them apart (not very hard to do):

the mail

Name: mikasaas@ox.ac.uk Subject: CONGRATULATIONS!! YOU WON!!

CONGRATULATIONS!! YOU WON!! (funny, didn't remember entering any contests. If I won, this must just be a formality and according to typical sweepstakes standardized rules, of which wording is fairly strict because of legal implications, I should expect my prize in the mail soon so I can just delete this email)

YOUR FREE MEMBERSHIP & SOFTWARE!! (holy crap a free membership on the internet? unreal. Besides porn sites and NY Times archives EVERYTHING on the internet is free. This is like wearing a "Free Blowjobs" tshirt at a Roman Orgy. A needless announcement. What club do I get into by signing into this membership, the Honeycomb Club? Bisexual Midgets of America? And the free software... it HAS to be Photoshop 6 or 3D Studio Max 4 and NOT some 4 year old shareware right?)

CHECK IT OUT! 1500+ MEMBERS A MONTH!! (there's a sucker born every minute, you'd think there'd be more members here but I guess they joined other spam email idiocies)

ALL new members that come into the club COMPANY WIDE will go under YOU. (This makes me feel like a 4 star general with my power I will have at this site of which I have no idea what they do)

Sign Up For FREE at: http://home.1freesite.net/jrt (verify that your email is a valid address here so we can further spam you and sell your email out to lists)

A true VERTICAL downline. YOU can easily get 1500+ members under YOU in a month! How would you like a Commission Check every Month? JOIN FREE!!!........JOIN FREE!!!! To join our FREE Postlaunch Program Sign Up For FREE at: http://home.1freesite.net/jrt (In case the overuse of the word "FREE" hasn't clicked into your brain stem as an often misused and underhanded tactic of "businesses" selling snake oil, here's a tip: The more times you see the word FREE the less credible the term is. In fact add $5-$10 for each time you see the word FREE cause when you finish going thru their "formalities" you will end up paying)

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