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From spam hilarity to heart-touching truth
Kootenay Crust
The Internet is a vast sea stuffed to its frothy green spray with everything human.
You name it – A to Z – it has it, in vast, mostly unchecked or edited digital reams. This is of course nothing to new to anyone, unless they’re over the age of 80 and living in the great state where denial of life’s constant change paints the ink of law.
Like fleas on mangy mutts following 100 skittish yards behind the grinding war machine cities that once scraped their way across scorched countrysides to lay siege or conquer, spam has become a part of daily life for people ensconced in the digital age.
Even for those still trapped in the ‘e-mail era,’ a period of time that threw the freak into snail mail providers, in a time when Apple computer users were considered with smug chuckling by PCers, the reality of spam e-mail has hunkered in the room like the ever-hopeful teenaged boy with the greasy acne and rotten teeth, obsessed with the hope that the fifth best looking girl in his homeroom will give in and go out with him. He tries and tries and tries again to get her to take notice and to skip over the hideous bits – just like spammers.
Electronic mail is rapidly becoming a thing of the near past as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and the other social media giants continue to stomp all over the digital landscape, seizing on egoism and the basest human emotions to prosper and infect.
As a result of this shift (shh, listen, you can hear it creaking and groaning in the spaces between the wires), spammers have had to re-focus and re-arm and attend, apparently, schools that teach them the same English as support technicians, telephone operators, collections agents and London souvenir shop clerks.
When I first became acquainted with spam (and dear God don’t get me going on the ‘real’ Spam), I found it mildly entertaining because the English was so deliciously wrong most of the time – sorta like those Nigerian investment scam letters. I still have a printed copy of one in some box stashed beneath cobwebs and dust somewhere. Hilarious and disturbing in a single synapse firing.
Sadly, the ‘new’ spamming activities that have become the endless norm of the blogsphere and Internet, are steady and the spammers are, one must suppose, legion.
Some spammers are clever and they manage to penetrate the force-field barrier of ‘spam detection systems’ but those efforts are no more than the daring hero sneaking into the castle only to be completely ignored and then unceremoniously thrown in the trash. A strong industry has been created where special computer programs are created to ‘get around’ spam detection.
Since I revved e-KNOW up and started rolling down the ole cyber highway, I’ve been receiving fresher, funnier spam. I’d like to share a few samples (sic applies in all cases) of the items that make it into the ‘anti-chamber of eviction.’
From ‘Articles’ concerning 11:11 – Chapter 41: “I have been exploring for a little bit for any high quality articles or blog posts on this sort of area. Exploring in Yahoo I at last stumbled upon this website. Reading this information So I’m happy to convey that I’ve a very good uncanny feeling I discovered exactly what I needed. I most certainly will make certain to do not forget this web site and give it a look regularly.”
A ‘Wesley Cultbertson’ wrote, responding to ‘Creekside celebrating one year with pancakes:’ “I observed your blog using google and I must say, this is most likely one of the greatest nicely ready articles I have come across in a long time. I’ve bookmarked your site for more posts.”
But the ‘best’ was from ‘Cheap Wow Gold’: regarding Alice MacDonald’s obituary:
“I would like to show thanks to the writer just for rescuing me from this type of crisis. After looking out through the the web and seeing tips that were not pleasant, I believed my life was over. Living without the presence of strategies to the difficulties you’ve sorted out as a result of this report is a crucial case, as well as ones which might have badly damaged my career if I hadn’t encountered the blog. Your actual competence and kindness in playing with the whole thing was very helpful. I’m not sure what I would have done if I hadn’t discovered such a stuff like this. It’s possible to at this moment look ahead to my future. Thanks so much for this specialized and sensible guide. I won’t hesitate to refer your site to anyone who needs to have care about this subject matter.”
I am always left pondering: “WTF?” But that same response is brought about by much in this world, cyber and real. We seem to be veering away from what is real more and more, drawn like moths into our ‘electronic devices’ and diverted from reality. The ‘man’ is doing this to us. It’s the latest way to control the sheep and even better, we’re consuming like bovines led to a grassy shoreline after a starving voyage. Just saying, as today’s fabulous hipsters blurt, hoping this cue makes people get their joke. Laugh tracks once served this purpose, but it is difficult to infuse a laugh track into your witty blog rant.
Fearing this loss of reality on a massive scale, I wish to leave the reader with a story about real life and a real hero. Raised and edumackated in all aspects of life’s gritty wassail in Winnipeg, I am feeling a burst of pride from this story. I am also feeling a surge of hope as such stories tell us that the root of the human experience remains intact. We’re still shoeless in the concrete wilderness and we need angels to keep our feet warm.
Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
Lead image from: The Badger Flats Gazette
