My Spam is So Goddamn Boring

when you look forward to a subject line mentioning Threeway Steel, you know spam has jumped the shark

I am almost constantly disappointed by the spam I get nowadays. These are the sort of subject lines I get:

At least I can still muster a sophomoric giggle for the name “Threeway Steel”, but the subject lines in my spam folder are generally too mundane to be worth much attention. The "Request regarding your offerings" is so bland that my provider’s spam filters didn’t catch it, and it ended up in my inbox instead. I suppose I should at least skim it.

“Hello, we have checked your website and it looks like your website has serious SEO issues, and it’s also not optimized for Google AI. We can get you into the TOP3 search results for a very affordable price. You can WhatsApp us: +48 886 181 383”

email allegedly from “Judith Sutton (zuchowskinegel@gmail.com)” to undisclosed recipients

Oh, no. My website has serious SEO issues. Such as? Of course these clowns don’t say. They expect me to hit them up on WhatsApp. Like I’m going to help Mark Schmuckerberg get even richer by using any tech he’s had his grubby little hands on? Not fuckin’ likely.

As for optimizing my website for Google AI? The rest of Hell will be as cold as Cocytus before I optimize my website for AI, let alone allow AI scrapers unopposed access to my site for training data. (And if you didn’t get the allusion, you need to read more Dante Alighieri.)

Another thing that annoys me is that this particular slice of spam came from Gmail, which one of the worst offenders when it comes to running your own mail server impractical because they seem to treat all independent SMTP daemons as spam vectors unless they prove themselves otherwise. Never mind that Gmail is slowly degrading as a service to the point where it’s only use is as a source of disposable addresses to give to businesses who think that you buying something from them establishes a meaningful “relationship”. And if I’m not acquainted with the sender, I tend to assume that somebody with a Gmail address is the sort of person who would have been on AOL 25 years ago, as elitist as that sounds.

Seriously, though, I miss the days when spammers were hawking generic Viagra or Cialis or breathlessly telling me that hot singles in my area were looking for sex. Have I aged out of those target demographics? What sort of spam am I going to get in my 50s and 60s? Assisted living "communities"? Medicare Advantage plans scams?

Dear creeping gods, I hope not. I want more lewdness in my spam folder. More full-frontal nudity. More tits, more ass, and — why not? — more cocks and balls, too. I mean, what the hell else is HTML email good for? At least make your phishing attempts more plausible, and thus more challenging. You spammers are here for my entertainment, so be about it!

Yes, I know that kids get spam, too. But, as I’ve said before, if I had had kids I would have preferred that they be exposed to pornography at an early age than advertising. Though not necessarily PornHub. At least not right away. Maybe B&W still photos from the late 19th and early 20th centuries first, or lewd texts. I wouldn’t object to my thirteen-year-old (of either sex) reading Anaïs Nin; you know how hard it is to get kids to read anything when the public schools make of reading such drudgery? It’d be a fucking miracle.

Regardless, I still think Vlad Tepes would have known how to handle these spammers. It’s also why I found myself unable to sympathize for the protagonist of Rule 34 by Charles Stross: I’d be OK with spammers (not to mention politicians, dirty cops, CEOs, and sexual predators like Gerard Depardieu and Neil Gaiman) getting assassinated.

meme made with a portrait of Vlad the Impaler
Vlad Tepes on how to deal with invasive Turks, petty criminals, and spammers: rebar suppositories

Incidentally, I’m serious about the assassination of spammers. I would happily participate in a “prediction market” that discreetly arranged for spammers to be killed. I mean, what else is cryptocurrency good for? Besides enriching grifters?