Did the term "spam" exist in the 1980s?

[theaveng]

I started surfing the net in 1987, but don't remember the term "spam" ever being used??? My earliest recollection was during the late 1990s.

 

Did "spam" exist in the 80's? I certainly didn't get as much junk-mail as I get now (~100 a day).

 

troy

[S0V13T]

It's been a canned meat for aeons.

[TetsuoShima]

spam started to get used whem e-mail started to be used...

[NiteShdw]

It was a meat first (HAM + Extra weird stuff swept off the butcher-room floor). Does anyone know how it came to be used when talking of junk-email? Maybe it's because no one likes Spam (the meat)?

[NiteShdw]

From Wikipedia:

 

The term spam is derived from the Monty Python SPAM sketch, set in a cafe where everything on the menu includes SPAM luncheon meat. As the server recites the SPAM-filled menu, presently a chorus of Vikings drowns her out with a song, repeating "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM" and singing "lovely SPAM, wonderful SPAM" over and over again, drowning out all conversation. The excessive amount of SPAM in the sketch comes from British rationing in World War II, SPAM was one of the few foods that was not restricted and widely available; so by the time of the sketch, the British were fed up with the luncheon meat.

 

On the other hand spam is also associated with the innovative advertising campaign which Hormel Foods Corporation started in 1937 promoting with their canned meat product, SPAM. For the first time a commercial advertising campaign has engaged very intensive mass media marketing tools frequently emitted radio spots, shows and the first singing radio commercial and even a weekly radio show. This is another possible connection between the term "spam" and the meat product, although the Monty Python link is more contemporary and more likely.

 

Although the first known instance of unsolicited commercial e-mail occurred in 1978 (unsolicited electronic messaging had already taken place over other media, with the first recorded instance being via telegram on September 13, 1904), the term "spam" for this practice had not yet been applied. In the 1980s the term was adopted to describe certain abusive users who frequented BBSs and MUDs, who would repeat "SPAM" a huge number of times to scroll other users' text off the screen. In the early Chat rooms in services like PeopleLink and the early days of AOL, they actually flooded the screen with sizeable quotes from the Monty Python routine. This was generally used as a tactic by insiders of a particular group who wanted to drive newcomers out of the room so the usual conversation could continue. This act, previously termed flooding or trashing, came to be called spamming as well. [6] By analogy, the term was soon applied to any large amount of text broadcast by one user, or sometimes by many users.

 

It later came to be used on Usenet to mean excessive multiple posting—the repeated posting of the same message. The first evident usage of this sense was by Joel Furr in the aftermath of the ARMM incident of March 31, 1993, in which a piece of experimental software released dozens of recursive messages onto the news.admin.policy newsgroup. Soon, this use had also become established—to spam Usenet was to flood newsgroups with junk messages.

 

Commercial spamming started in force on March 5, 1994, when a pair of lawyers, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, began using bulk Usenet posting to advertise immigration law services. The incident was commonly termed the "Green Card spam", after the subject line of the postings. The two went on to widely promote spamming of both Usenet and e-mail as a new means of advertisement—over the objections of Internet users they labeled "anti-commerce radicals." Within a few years, the focus of spamming (and antispam efforts) moved chiefly to e-mail, where it remains today. [7]

 

There are two popular fake etymologies of the word "spam". The first, promulgated by Canter & Siegel themselves, is that "spamming" is what happens when one dumps a can of SPAM luncheon meat into a fan blade. The second is the backronym "shit posing as mail."

 

Hormel Foods Corporation, the makers of SPAM® luncheon meat, do not object to the Internet use of the term "spamming." However, they do ask that the capitalized word "SPAM" be reserved to refer to their product and trademark. [8] By and large, this request is obeyed in forums which discuss spam—to the extent that to write "SPAM" for "spam" brands the writer as a newbie. However, Hormel has begun to press the trademark issue—first, when a firm registered the trademark "SpamArrest" in 2003, Hormel sued to invalidate the mark, [9], and more recently two failed attempts to revoke the mark "spambuster".[10], [11]

 

In other words, Monty Python started it all!!!!

[theaveng]

That quote says what I remember: "internet spam" did not become a common term until the mid-1990s. Prior to that it was called "flooding" or "trashing a topic"

 

Since many people still don't know what that term means, I usually call it what it is: "junk mail"

 

troy

[reddragon86]

sh*t posing as mail, thats genious, sums junk mail up completely

[theaveng]

If you've been online since 1987 (what were you' date=' three?) you'd remember it, too.[/quote']

 

 

I was 15. This is the second time you slung a personal attack at me. I think you are older than me chronologically, but you're not acting it - "yet another pointless thread" and "what were you, three" verbal slaps. Not necessary.

 

 

 

The use of the word "spam" must have been a localized phenomenon. Back in the 80's I hung out on local BBSes + rec.arts.startrek and that term "spam" didn't exist in those locations. As the article says:

 

"It later came to be used on Usenet... in the aftermath of the ARMM incident of March 31, 1993" which matches my earliest recollection.

 

troy

[TetsuoShima]

People please keep this friendly:

 

2. No foul' date=' obscene, or [b']demeaning[/b] language.

4. Please be kind and curtious in your responses.

 

Thank you. ;)

 

[theaveng]

thank you

[StitchInTime]

Actually, somebody elsewhere stated that S.P.A.M. is really an acronym that was coined by the people who created the Internet, and that it has nothing to do with the Monty Python connection, but I forget what the letters stand for.

[Beawulf]

Super People And Mice ;)

 

ok maybe not

[StitchInTime]

Okay, I found it.

 

It's "Stupid Pointless Annoying Message."

[S0V13T]

Scene: A cafe. One table is occupied by a group of Vikings wearing horned helmets. Whenever the word "spam" is repeated, they begin singing and/or chanting. A man and his wife enter. The man is played by Eric Idle, the wife is played by Graham Chapman (in drag), and the waitress is played by Terry Jones, also in drag.

Man: You sit here, dear.

Wife: All right.

Man: Morning!

Waitress: Morning!

Man: Well, what've you got?

Waitress: Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam;

Vikings: Spam spam spam spam...

Waitress: ...spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam...

Vikings: Spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam!

Waitress: ...or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam.

Wife: Have you got anything without spam?

Waitress: Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.

Wife: I don't want ANY spam!

Man: Why can't she have egg bacon spam and sausage?

Wife: THAT'S got spam in it!

Man: Hasn't got as much spam in it as spam egg sausage and spam, has it?

Vikings: Spam spam spam spam... (Crescendo through next few lines...)

Wife: Could you do the egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam then?

Waitress: Urgghh!

Wife: What do you mean 'Urgghh'? I don't like spam!

Vikings: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!

Waitress: Shut up!

Vikings: Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!

Waitress: Shut up! (Vikings stop) Bloody Vikings! You can't have egg bacon spam and sausage without the spam.

Wife: I don't like spam!

Man: Sshh, dear, don't cause a fuss. I'll have your spam. I love it. I'm having spam spam spam spam spam spam spam beaked beans spam spam spam and spam!

Vikings: Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!

Waitress: Shut up!! Baked beans are off.

Man: Well could I have her spam instead of the baked beans then?

Waitress: You mean spam spam spam spam spam spam... (but it is too late and the Vikings drown her words)

Vikings: (Singing elaborately...) Spam spam spam spam. Lovely spam! Wonderful spam! Spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam spa-a-a-a-a-am spam. Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Lovely spam! Spam spam spam spam!

[Guest c4evap]

Where the term SPAM comes from...maybe.

 

c4 B)