From Meat to Menace: The History of “Spam”
The real story behind how unsolicited ads got dubbed “spam.”
Spam — we've heard the term thousands of times. The word, once known as simply a brand of canned pork product, has taken on an entirely different meaning since the worldwide adoption of the Internet in the late 1990s. Today, spam is most commonly used to describe unsolicited advertising and deceptive tactics of persuasion used online.
But how the word transform from the simple brand name of affordable canned meat to one of the most loathed terms in popular culture?
The origin of the modern meaning of “spam” began long before the inception of the Internet. The concept of mass-dispersing unsolicited messages actually began in the late 19th century, with the first recorded act of spamming occurring in May of 1864 when a group of British politicians received an unsolicited telegram promoting a local dentistry shop. Shortly thereafter, Western Union allowed telegraphic messages to be sent to multiple destinations within its network, and by the beginning of the 20th century, what’s known today as “spamming” had become a rather common practice.
Not until the 1980s was the term “spam” used to describe these mass-communicated messages, however. The term stems from a December 15, 1970 sketch aired on the British television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus. In the sketch, an elderly couple enters a diner and, upon asking what the diner’s menu consists of, a waitress recites a menu in which most every dish includes Spam. Throughout the sketch, a group of Viking patrons drowns out all conversations in the diner with a song repeating “Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam… lovely Spam! Wonderful Spam!”, hence “spamming” the dialogue.
The disproportionate mentions of Spam in the sketch are a reference to the multitude of imported canned meat products that found their way to the United Kingdom, particularly the Hormel brand of tinned pork and ham from the USA known as Spam, as the country struggled to rebuild its agricultural base following World War II.
In the mid-1980s, abusive users of bulletin board systems (BBSs) and multi-user dungeon (MUD) role-playing games often flooded the screens of the forums’ users with endless lines of nonsense — a practice that became known as “spamming.” Once the Internet replaced older dial-up modem-driven applications, spamming became associated with several other online entities like message boards, forums, online chat systems and, most commonly, email, often incorporating unsolicited messages promoting a variety of products and services.
In 1999, the Internet Engineering Task Force and Internet Society made the term the official title for unsolicited mailings in a Request For Comments (RFC) memo describing methods, behaviors, research, and innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems:
“The term “spam” as it is used to denote mass unsolicited mailings or netnews postings is derived from a Monty Python sketch set in a movie/tv studio cafeteria. During that sketch, the word “spam” takes over each item offered on the menu until the entire dialogue consists of nothing but “spam spam spam spam spam spam and spam.” This so closely resembles what happens when mass unsolicited mail and posts take over mailing lists and netnews groups that the term has been pushed into common usage in the Internet community.”
The earliest documented case of electronic spam occurred in 1978, when Digital Equipment Corporation marketing manager Gary Thuerk sent a mass-message to 393 people on ARPANET, the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network, advertising a new computer DEC had manufactured. Though the reaction from the message was rather negative, Thuerk’s strategy did produce a number of sales.
Thuerk — The godfather of spam
In 1988, spam took on an entirely different meaning thanks to an infamously ground-breaking chain letter circulated throughout the United States titled “Make Money Fast.” In the letter originally drafted by an unknown person operating under the name “Dave Rhodes,” readers are encouraged to send $1 to a series of names in the letter and replace their own names with the first name on the list. The letter tempted users with the promise of accumulating upwards of $50,000 in cash over a 60-day span. Though the letter claims the practice to be perfectly legal, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service refuted its claims of legality, citing Title 18, Section 1302 of the United States Code. This law only applies to physically mailed chain letters, though, and the use of similar tactics via email and other forms of online communication continues today.
Read a version of the Make Money Fast chain mail here.
Over the years, spamming has become a practice most commonly associated with email, with the majority of it being sent in the English language. Spamming is a practice carried out worldwide, however, with foreign spammers now utilizing translation tools to reach English-speaking targets.
Though it was once used as a simple means of promoting products and services, spam has grown into more than just simple advertising and is now a means of spreading computer viruses and other malicious software. Additionally, threats of identity theft have also become a major concern, as spam is now a primary way of acquiring personal information.
Despite the negative connotation of the word spam, Hormel Foods Corporation has never objected to the Internet’s widespread use of the word. However, the corporation did ask for sole rights to the capitalized version of the word in the late 1990s. Because the word had taken on an entirely different meaning by the arrival of the 21st century, Hormel Foods lost three court cases in which the food company sued manufacturers of anti-spam software using a capitalized version of the word. Despite not being successful in its attempts, Hormel stated: “Ultimately, we are trying to avoid the day when the consuming public asks, ‘Why would Hormel Foods name its product after junk email?’”
Source: Media Prowler
