Everyone knows it, hardly anyone loves it: spam mail. Massive advertising e-mails with dubious products, international nobles who promise us millions or attractive people from the area who really want to get to know us.
We are all well aware of the content of these mass e-mails, which regularly fill up our inboxes. But why exactly do we refer to the digital counterpart of the vacuum cleaner salesman as spam mail?
The answer, surprisingly, involves post-WWII food rationing, Vikings, and an 80’s role-playing game.
What is spam anyway?
Originally, the term spam had nothing in common with email. Because original spam is canned meat. Already at the beginning of the last century, the American Hormel Foods Corporation produced spiced ham in cans. But because it didn’t really want to sell, the name was changed in 1937 to its short form Spam.
During World War II, spam was essential to feeding US troops and their allied allies. More than 65 million kg of durable meat
After the war, food was scarce in many countries and in some cases heavily rationed. So also in Great Britain. One of the few exceptions: Spam meat, which is available almost everywhere and in unlimited quantities.
This is what the ham looks like with a past steeped in history.
A classic: Monty Python’s spam sketch
Canned ham has a colorful past. But what exactly does all this have to do with email?
In order to establish the connection, you still need the central link: the British sketch troupe Monty Python, who, in addition to classics such as Knight of the Coconut
or The Life of Brian
also for the TV series Flying Circus
responsible.
One episode of the 1969 series includes the so-called spam sketch. He takes a good look at the omnipresence of canned meat after the war. Unfortunately, the sketch is not officially available on YouTube, which is why we cannot embed it directly for you at this point. But if you can speak English, you can in full on the Monty Python channel on Dailymotion
Monty Python’s cult British comedians. (Image source: BBC)
The sketch can also be summed up very briefly in words: A British couple visits a restaurant and wants to order food there. On the menu, however, there are almost only dishes that contain spam. The problem: The couple’s wife doesn’t like spam. So she tries unsuccessfully to ask the waitress for spam-free dishes. She then suggests new dishes that contain spam. The whole thing is repeatedly interrupted by a Viking choir, who speaks the word Spam
sings.
Overall, the term spam is mentioned more than 120 times in the roughly two-minute sketch – so the word spam is mentioned almost every second.
How canned meat became advertising rubbish
The change from canned meat to annoying news According to internet pioneer Brad Templeton, it happened sometime in the late 1980s
However, the term is said to have gained greater popularity in 1994, when two US attorneys distributed their advertisements in every newsgroup on Usenet to publicize their questionable services for obtaining a green card.
The lawyers’ campaign was quickly labeled spam and the term caught on. When the mass sending of e-mails later became established, the right term for mass and often misleading messages was already ready – and spam e-mail was born.
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