Spamming is an underappreciated art form. In fact, "hated" may be a more accurate adjective. Like mimes in a public square,
spammers seek to capture the attention of people who actively try to avoid them. Thus they must strike fast and hard, bewildering
their prey with astonishing bombast, no-holds-barred familiarity, and too-good-to-be-true promises. Much depends on the effectiveness
of their initial pitch--the e-mail header--and in exploiting that space, they put practitioners of haiku to shame, delivering
their come-on to the rubes (that is, us) in a single line and usually in far fewer than 17 syllables.
And yet if you equip your e-mail program with a good spam filter (we at PC World use the Postini service), you're unlikely
to see the fruits of the spammer's labor unless you enter the world of the Quarantine Summary, where "potential junk or virus-infected
messages" go to die. If you think of your daily trip to the quarantine zone as a usually fruitless scan for wrongly incarcerated
messages, it can't help but seem a nuisance. But if you go there looking for poetry, Delphic mystery, and fortune-cookie philosophy,
you can discover gems of unrecognized genius.
So let's take a spin through the quarantined messages of PC World's editorial staff and see what wisdom our spammers wish
to impart to a cynical, uncaring world. Our guarantee: All of the e-mail headers listed here are certified as-is, found-in-the-filter,
pure organic spam, without any artificial editorial enhancements. (However, since spammers have the naughty habit of commandeering
innocent people's e-mail addresses in order to gain a patina of legitimacy--and since innocent people are not above filing
nasty lawsuits--I have altered the e-mail addresses included here.)
GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS
I don't know you
(from Z-na@2zzz.com)
I'm glad we cleared that up right away. (Incidentally, FHM magazine recently named this one of the ten best pickup lines ever.)
Happy New Now!
(from grant@kibbleburn.com)
Too late: It's already old.
Hi it's Monica
(from unknown@mysterymiddie.com)
Okay, let's give it a try: "Hi, Monica. I don't know you."
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES
Help Your Customer Live the Fantasy
(from tellingwc@martianfail.com)
This opportunity may be a bit more hands-on than I'd like.
For more PC news, visit PC World. Story copyright PC World Communications, Inc.
