Because of my job, I deal with spam a lot. I’m sure there are some who deal with it more (my heart goes out to you), but I definitely see my fair share. The question I keep coming back to is “Does spam work?” Are there really people out there who have the following thoughts:

– Well this certainly seems like a reputable enough place to purchase all of my pharmaceutical medication, though I’ve never visted a drugstore in Yemen

– Man this home-loan from Stanley P Maxenhowser seems like a deal you only see once in a lifetime, I better jump on it

– I suppose my woman could use a little more pleasin, this seems like a good source for all my crushed cialis, I mean they’ve only mis-spelled 70% of the words in this email, 40% of which are the words penis or erection.

Every spam email I see seems to get more ridiculous. Some of them just don’t even make sense. There seems to be a random conglomeration of English poems, German techno lyrics, and Greek sensibility. If those emails are just a shell for housing a virus, then I guess I understand, but it’s hard for me to imagine the person who actually goes through the effort of putting that email together, then emailing their beloved creation out for every spam filter to read.

From the selling aspect, it’s like tele-marketing. Someone must still be out there that falls for it and buys whatever they’re selling, or else you’d think they would have stopped by now.

Can that be true of spam too? At least with telemarketers you can feel a little sad for them. They probably don’t want that job. They’re just trying to make ends meet and that’s the closest they’ve been to a real job. I can relate to that. Stay strong man. Just don’t call me during dinner again or I’ll rip your ears off.

However, a spammer doesn’t even employ anyone. It’s just some guy with nothing better to do, programming from his bathtub in New Orleans, drapes pulled shut so as not to expose his pale bloated skin to natural light, as he lives out his hollow lie of a life. Is he trying to make money by selling discount copies of Windows XP from Bangladesh, or is he just being annoying? My vote’s for annoying.

Truth be told I’ve never met a spammer, so my description may be completely inaccurate. Maybe they’re the staunch business-man type, or the hopeless romantic-type, or the lanky artist-type just trying to make some extra money on the side. Either way they need to die.