Click here now, Zippity Da Do Be Bop!

January 27, 2003 8:58 PM

There is Naked Flute Girl, Add Four Inches to Your Penis Now. 21st-century cultural-commentary bebop? Mark Morford of the SF Gate writes an entire column composed of nothing but copy from e-mail spam ads culled from his own inbox. Ignoring the depression that I recognize half of it, reading it out loud is virtually art-house hypnotic.
posted by XQUZYPHYR (29 comments total)

Spamradio uses spam to great effect as well, with a synthesized voice reading spam over ambient dub music.
posted by 4easypayments at 9:01 PM on January 27, 2003

It really picked up there in the middle with all the money-from-overseas offers, but I was disappointed with the ending.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:13 PM on January 27, 2003

Hardcore Pounderama

Story of my life... story of my life.
posted by BirdD0g at 9:16 PM on January 27, 2003

really good idea!
posted by sgt.serenity at 9:18 PM on January 27, 2003

Slightly OT.. Anyone use Spamassasin? I'm looking for a high score spam speciman. So far I've captured a 55 in the wild but heard of someone with a 67 but remains unverified.
posted by stbalbach at 9:22 PM on January 27, 2003

For fans of spam that rises to the level of an art form, Quonsar has posted some of the most ludicrous junk mails he's gotten over the years on his mirrors site.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:34 PM on January 27, 2003

This has given me an idea for a wonderful mass mailing.

The tagline:

HOT NEW CURE FOR WRITERS' BLOCK!!!!! ACT NOW!!!
posted by IshmaelGraves at 9:45 PM on January 27, 2003

Did anyone else send their regular emails as, for instance, ****Steve!!! Hot Slatheringly WET PUSSY Awaits You!!!**** when they were younger?

It used to be great fun amongst my friends and I.
posted by crasspastor at 9:55 PM on January 27, 2003

Ben Brown's automated spam poetry.
And the Poetry S(l/p)am
posted by Su at 10:17 PM on January 27, 2003

Holy cow, that spam radio is great!
posted by josh at 10:21 PM on January 27, 2003

Nigerian spam e-mails collected.
I'm sure you've received at least one of these...

in alphabetical order
posted by bureaustyle at 11:14 PM on January 27, 2003

I wonder what happens should one reply to one of those Nigerian spam e-mails.
posted by dazed_one at 12:52 AM on January 28, 2003

Oh, but they get worse than the Nigerian scams...
posted by twine42 at 1:29 AM on January 28, 2003

I wonder what happens should one reply to one of those Nigerian spam e-mails.

I was ignored. I was so offended.

But my father got an old fashioned *paper* version of it from South Africa a while back.
posted by twine42 at 1:31 AM on January 28, 2003

I recently got one that had the subject line of:

Before the Apocaplypse check the Beta version

Which wins Best Title Ever.
posted by Katemonkey at 1:36 AM on January 28, 2003

I often play "Guess the Spam" with my friends. When one is checking email and finds a particularly ambiguous subject line (e.g. - "I know you're tired."), everyone in the room takes a stab at the subject matter. Winner gets a cookie.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:45 AM on January 28, 2003

PROFESSIONAL STEAK KNIFE LIQUIDATION!!!!
posted by quonsar at 5:51 AM on January 28, 2003

[this is good]
posted by adampsyche at 6:11 AM on January 28, 2003

We have incest of all kinds! Just take a private anonymous tour!

Mother-Daughter, your looking for? aisle 3.


Take control over me horney body.

Aye Aye, cap'n.

But I'm gonna insist ye remove the hook. I'm still recovering from the last time ye scratched me back.
posted by jonmc at 6:35 AM on January 28, 2003

You, too, can be an award-winning poet, just like me, by submitting a poem to the National Library of Poetry. I wrote this little gem by taking words out of the official US Government Standard Occupational Classification that I edited:

Cryptographic Clerk

plan, organize, direct, control, coordinate
fillers, buckers, chicken sexers
disaggregation, fungibility
onet detail was not adopted
action: aggregate to residual


You can tell it's good poetry because it's in all lower-case letters, and it doesn't rhyme. Made it through the whole process, including publication in their print version. Actually, every poem makes it through the whole process, as long as it's under 20 lines long (sorry, Dante). Dave Barry did a column about it, as did a Washington Post writer a few years back; she submitted goo-goo sounds from her daughter, and paid to have it engraved on a plaque, IIRC. There are many more stories on the contest, and there's been a spam poetry contest, too.
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:12 AM on January 28, 2003

err, make that engraved on a plaque
posted by MrMoonPie at 7:14 AM on January 28, 2003

A very interesting piece of spam I came across recently. :)
posted by zerofoks at 8:38 AM on January 28, 2003

Did anyone else think of this Tom Waits song?
posted by argybarg at 9:13 AM on January 28, 2003

please someone add 4 inches to everyones penii around here...(apart from King MacDongs of course)
posted by sgt.serenity at 9:45 AM on January 28, 2003

there's been a spam poetry contest, too.

I knew somebody else had to be thinking about this. I've called it HotMail Junk Poetry and, using just subject headings, done it for about two years now, in the privacy of my own home. I try to collect all the subject lines from the same day, or at least the same week, and in the order they came in, just to add some form to the chaos.

Here's a 'poem' from October 12-18, 2001:
LIVE PSYCHICS / NY Fire Dept. Hat / Sex in a Bottle! / Show Your Pride in America.

Another from February 20-25, 2002:
From Your Dentist / Get cheap legal help now / barely legal.

And maybe my favorite (October 26-27, 2001):
Do You Like Having Sex? / this can help in an emergency / Become a jockey.

HotMail has gotten so annoying these days, though, that I haven't 'written' a good poem in months. I also think the quality of junk email Subject headings is way below what it was, say, two years ago.
posted by LeLiLo at 11:26 AM on January 28, 2003

I also think the quality of junk email Subject headings is way below what it was, say, two years ago.

Lord, I guess you can get nostalgic for anything....
posted by jokeefe at 2:42 PM on January 28, 2003

I wonder what happens should one reply to one of those Nigerian spam e-mails.
You can have some fun with these, if you are patient. I currently have one e-mailing me every second day or so to make new arrangements on where we are to meet to exchange the millions (currently Hong Kong). I am still amazed that these guys are writing to me as Dr Donald Guck with a straight face. There are a couple of people who have it down to an art form, but I cannot find the links at present, including one couple who managed to drag a scammer into the middle of a complicated and hilarious marital dispute.

Hey, it's a community service - if only everyone did it, we could bring their whole scam to its knees in no time and save lots of really, really gullible people from losing their life savings :-) Go on, next time you get one of these, don't trash it - reply to it and have some fun!
posted by dg at 3:47 PM on January 28, 2003

OK - here is a link to one of those scamming the scammers, but nowhere near as funny as some.
posted by dg at 4:00 PM on January 28, 2003

Step Right Up just about says it, Argybarg.
posted by Quixoticlife at 8:10 PM on January 28, 2003