When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. - Hunter S. Thompson

02 April 2005

What my spam folder says about me

Having had the same e-mail address for years and years, I accumulate quite a lot of Unsolicited Commercial E-Mail (spam) every day.

Happily, my e-mail provider has very effective spam filters in place, and I never see 95%+ of the spam that arrives in my account... it vanishes into my Bulk E-Mail folder, and I usually toss it sight-unseen. I do lose the occasional legitimate message from an actual human being this way, but if it's important, I figure they'll write back eventually.

Occasionally, however, I wade into the spam folder to see what's up. And an interesting picture emerges, of me, as viewed by bulk-mail advertisers:
  • I am obsessed with sex, particularly web-based pornography, including some of the more outrĂ© fetishes. (Principally, I seem to really have a thing for teenage web-cam girls, although roughly 10% of the cam-spam, which is interestingly right in line with Alfred Kinsey's famous estimate, is for web-cam guys.)

  • Although obsessed with sex, I apparently also suffer from a severe case of erectile dysfunction, and am an excellent candidate for Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, etc. as well as "natural" remedies.

    Amusingly, these drugs are often offered to me in "generic" form, which would puzzle and outrage their manufacturers, as all are still under extremely severe patent protection.

    I can't read any of these names without recalling Seth Stevenson's trenchant observations:

    "Viagra" is supposed to suggest vigor and Niagara. Ehhh. "Cialis" is supposed to suggest—well, I have no idea. And then there's "Levitra." I love this name. It sounds like the Harry Potter spell for summoning an erection. Levitra!

  • Also, I have a really really small penis, which I desperately want to enlarge.

    This is becoming depressing. I'm hooked on porn, and I have a small, flaccid member. This is not a good combination.

  • Probably due to my impotence and porn addiction, I am depressed, anxious, and constantly in terrible physical pain, and thus need to buy Xanax, Prozac, Vicodin, etc. from Mexican pharmacies.

  • I am also wrinkled, fat, and bald(ing), and need to address all of these situations immediately.

    Well, okay. Even a blind hog finds a few acorns.

  • Although (or perhaps because) I seem to have really poor credit (and thus am deluged with ads for secured credit cards and "Christian debt counseling" -- do they do some kind of loaves-and-fishes thing with my bills?) I am apparently in the market for a dodgy, cut-rate mortgage with "no questions asked."

  • I am aching to serve as a middleman for transactions involving members of the African economic aristocracy who are currently in strained financial positions.

  • I love pirated software, and would be happy to give my credit card numbers to anonymous website operators in a former Soviet republic. Hey, $30 for Microsoft Office 2003! How can you beat that?
You get the picture. I would write more, but I have to go pop a little blue pill and give my secured Visa card number to a web-cam hooker.

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