E-mail is incredibly useful, and since I’m not terribly plagued by spam I’m fairly happy with that means of communication. But every now and then a few spam mails get through, and my cat-like curiosity makes it inevitable that I have to take a look at what they’re trying to sell this time.

…And I’m constantly surprised by how ridiculously formulated spam can be. Let’s have a looksee at what’s in my Trash folder:

First of all we have the enlarge your penis spam. Sure enough, they’ve found something that’s bound to cause a subconscious nervousness in all but the most well-endowed males, so it’s bound to catch one’s eye at least the first time one sees it. Good going, spam! Too bad that it’s always written with appalling grammar, so there’s no chance of receiving a treatment other than a quick press of the Delete button. If I were ever even considering trying some procedure like that (not that I need it! honestly! really!) I wouldn’t let anyone who can’t spell or apply proper punctuation near my precious parts.

Then there’s the cheap software spam. I don’t get the point of this. Sure, in Asian countries (and other places) it might be common to buy pirated software but in the West (or rather cold North) most people I know either buy the full price version, or download it for free. I never see people choose the middle option – it’s the worst of both worlds. “Hmm… Let’s see… I can get an official version of this DVD for $25. Or a pirated one for free. Oooh, but look here! A pirated version for $5; I’ll take this one!” Personally I go for another option: “$25 for a DVD? Screw that (unless it’s 300)! But if I see it for $10 I’m taking it, ’cause I really want the extra material.”

The we have all the spam for celebrity porn. Okay, I may be going out on thin ice here, but I personally see no reason why I’d want to watch celebrities do naughty things in the first place. They’re not trained professionals, so the sex will be boring to watch anyway! Delete!

There’s countless more examples of bad spam that seems badly put together, and not really thought out. But the prime example must be something that’s started to pop up the last year or so:

“Hello! I’m tired tonight. I am a nice girl that would like to chat with you…”

What the… If I were looking for a nice girl to talk to, why would I ever want to talk to a tired girl?! Sheesh. I don’t know what these people are thinking. Are they trying to make some strange connection between tired and bed and sex? Have these people ever seen a tired girl? Sex would be a pretty low prio thing in most women’s minds if they’re tired. (With exceptions of course. I’m trying to write something mildly amusing here; not make general comments about how women work or don’t work. So if you were thinking of writing “oh-oh-oh, you’ve been with the wrong kinds of women then,” just don’t.)

This “I’m tired” business must be a cultural thing. Somewhere in the world it has to appear appealing to people, but it just raises one question in my mind: if she’s so tired, what’s she doing by the computer spamming e-mails instead of going to bed?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 26th, 2008 at 10:15 am and is filed under Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.