Three blogs. Three times more likely to attract spam comments. Somedays, I take a little time to figure out why they chose that particular post to comment on.
This morning, on a post I wrote a month after mam died, I got this:
What i do not realize is in fact how you are no longer actually much more wellfavored than you might be right now Youre very intelligent You recognize thus considerably in relation to this topic made me in my view believe it from numerous numerous angles Its like men and women are not fascinated until it is one thing to do with Lady gaga Your own stuffs excellent All the time handle it up.
I read it a couple of times. I even tried to punctuate it. And copy-edit it.
What I do not realize is in fact how you are no longer actually much more wellfavored than you might be right now. You’re very intelligent. You recognize [this] in relation to this topic. [You] made me believe it from numerous angles. It’s like men and women are not fascinated until [they read] one thing to do with Lady Gaga. Your own stuff [is] excellent. All the time hand it up.
And it still made no sense.
I googled spam comments on WordPress and got this:
Spam comments are nothing new in the blogging world, and they’ve been around since 2003. These unwelcome comments are created in an effort to drive a high clickthrough rate to the spammer’s own site. The end goal of this strategy is to increase the target site’s search engine ranking.
Today’s spammer has a casino site – I didn’t click it; that’s what their email says. Others have porn sites. And vitamin sites. And dating sites.
They also dropped the same comments on a piece I did on Bortodoor, a wine bar in Budapest. And on a piece on the death of my mate, Donna.
The mind boggles.
It boggled, too, when I first discovered Spam, the meat. A tin of high-fat, low-carb meat that has a very long shelf life. It was a staple on fishing and camping trips back when I was fishing and camping.
Canned spam is a love-it-or-hate-it thing that made a huge comeback during COVID.
Spam was introduced in 1937 as a way to sell pork shoulder during the Great Depression, and in three years 70% of urban Americans were eating it. Around 100 million pounds of Spam were shipped to troops during World War II.
Today, it’s served in restaurants. And there’s a cookbook detailing 100+ ways to cook with it:
Food historian Rachel Lauden penned an interesting read on Spam.
Austin, MN, the birthplace of Spam, has a spam museum and a street called Spam Boulevard, Johnny’s Spamarama restaurant, and the infamous Spam De’ Melt (a grilled cheese stuffed with Spam, bacon n, and sour cream).
Each year, state fairs in the USA hold qualifying heats for the Great American Spam Championship.
This mind is boggling again.
The link between my spam comments and a Hormel tin of spam can be found in a Monty Python skit where the word spam is used at least 130 times in three and a half minutes.
I learn something new every day. I am grateful for the lesson. You can keep the spam comments.
4 responses
I actually have nothing to say, but I feel obligated to spam this post. It did make me smile and grimace as I remembered generic spam and generic spam ‘ham salad’ as one of ten kids in the ’50s and ’60s (yes, that’s 1950s and and 60s). I’m not sure I’ve ever had Spam brand processed pork and ham (the original ultra processed food?). Maybe that’s why I don’t like it. Maybe people should post their favorite recipes!
The best recipe I’ve seen is a schnitzel-type Spam steak…
I had to look up the origin of the name: SP(ICEDH)AM. But I don’t know how the email meaning was invented. And if it was shoulder, it wasn’t ham, which was relatively expensive, rather a luxury item in my youth. I remember hearing discussion about the wake when my grandmother died (1940-odd), and grandfather put an end to the arguments by stating emphatically “We shall bury ‘er with ‘am” – no expense to be spared
Presumably the ham was for the mourners and not to go in the grave with her???