The True Story Of How Internet "Spam" Got Its Name
by
H. Kent Craig
{Click here to jump directly to the Python's "Spam" skit transcript}
Perhaps the most frequently used term in all of netlingo is "spam"...hated spam, reviled spam, hastily deleted spam, spit-upon spam. "Spam" is one of the very first Webological terms any newbie to Net learns the definition of, yet so few Users know how the term originated.
Contrary to what some strictly Netizens have promulgated as its lexibio, "spam" is not an acronym for "specific purpose alluser massmailing" or similar, though some torturing of words may have been created to fit the term in the early days of the Net and of the Web. Indeed, the term "spam" goes back to the very earliest day of BBS's. For those of you too young to remember, Computer Bulletin Boards in the very early days of the first PC's, the old 8086's and Apple II's and such, were stand-alone personal computers that usually had a single phone line coming into the system (thus limiting online usage to one User at a time), though sometimes two, or even as many as five for some strictly commercial BBS's. They ran early BBS software, the first baby steps of what would evolve into the Web, where Users could post publicly in SIGS (Special Interest Groups, early precursors to Usenet groups) and send in-house email to other registered Users of that particular 'lone machine.
Eventually, sysops (System Operators, the owners and proprietors of these individual, stand-alone BBS's) figured out how to chain-link their respective machines into the first primitive networks like FIDO, FITTA, WWIV, etc. By having "daisy-chain" calling schemes, where one machine would call the closest machine in its local dialing area and that one would call another and so forth on down the line, crossing nearby exchange boundaries cheaply, or by having a hub-and-spoke system much like an early non-RT version of what's now the Internet's architecture where one machine would act as host to several machines in its area and then once a day at 1 a.m. when LD rates were the cheapest the hubs would call each other and exchange message packets for the now-evolving SIGS, Users who generally were limited to local participation at first now could exchange email messages and public SIG messages from those all across the country.
What does all that have to do with how "spam" got its name? It has to do primarily with the British comedy show from the early 70's which everyone's heard of, "Monty Python's Flying Circus", how the early BBSizens adopted its wit and humor and acerbic satirization into the early slang usage of its terminology, and how flamewars would erupt over the earliest of BBS networks. Believe it or not, the flame wars, the vitrioloc public and private exchange of opinions which would become attacks on a personal level in these emerging national SIGS, really do make the odd flamewar that erupts in unmoderated Usenet groups from time to time look like a group of Gentleman Jim Dandies hurling gentle insults at each other, when compared with the extreme nastiness and perverse pure hate from many sides which would be hurled at one for stating the most seemingly of innocuous opinions in these SIGS.
One retaliatory measure which quickly developed as tactic of offense and defense and just plain revenge of these flamewars was to create a single, large message, and send it repeatedly to the person you were in a flamewar with's emailbox, again and again and again and again, so many times that it would stuff that person's mailbox so full (most of the time, most early BBS's had a private mail message limit of 10-20-30 per day) that they didn't have room for any friendly or other email that they did want to receive, i.e., sending repeated message clones to choke their access to their emailbox as a juvenile and sophomoric get-even tactic, but one that would guarantee irritation and anger on the part of the person who it was being done to.
Because there was a 'Python comedy skit as part of their second season's offerings which was being shown in heavy rotation in most of the public teevee stations around the country then in on-going perpetual re-runs, where the punchline was a single word used close to a hundred times during a three-minute bit, yes you guessed it, "spam", and because of the embracing of the 'Pythons by the nerd community, such a deliberate abuse of sending mass quantities of clone email in flamewars became known as "spamming someone", and eventually, just "spam", much to the dismay of Hormel, the makers of the real Spam. Eventually, with the rise of the Web and the subsequent rise of use of programs that allowed easy unsolicited and unwanted mass commercial mailings to Netizens that posted publicly in Usenet groups, the term "spam" of course has evolved to mean the receipt of all unwanted email from any source, not just masses of clone email which were the result of a private flamewar. And that, my friends, is the story of how spam" got its name.
If you're still a little skeptical, talk to another BBS' old timer; you may get the same story, you may get a similar story, or you may get a different story altogether. All I can say is that I was there when the term first popped locally in the Raleigh, NC, BBS community all the way back in the early 80's, that I was the recipient of said early mass clone email from flamewars and said became publicly known in the SIGS as being "spammed", and if this isn't the entire story, it's most of it. Below is the transcript from the original 'Python sketch which, when read, adds weight to my case that this how the term "spam" when used in techlingo was born.
****The Spam Sketch
****From the second series of "Monty Python's Flying Circus" television program series
****Transcribed 9/17/87 from "Monty Python's Previous Record" by Jonathan Partington ( JRP1@PHX.CAM.AC.UK )
(Spam = Spiced Pork And Ham, a sort of cheap luncheon meat)
Scene: A cafe. One table is occupied by a group of Vikings with horned helmets on. A man and his wife enter.
Man (Eric Idle): You sit here, Dear.
Wife (Graham Chapman in drag): All right.
Man (to Waitress): Morning!
Waitress (Terry Jones, in drag, as a bit of a rat-bag): Morning!
Man: Well, what have 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 bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam.
Vikings (starting to chant): Spam spam spam spam...
Waitress: ...spam spam spam egg and spam; spam spam spam spam spam spam baked beans spam spam spam.
Vikings (singing): 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 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 (shrieks): 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 baked beans spam spam spam and spam.
Vikings (singing): Spam spam spam spam...Lovely spam! Wonderful spam!
Waitress: Shut up! Baked beans are off.
Man: Well, could I have her spam instead of baked beans then?
Waitress: You mean spam spam spam spam spam spam... (but it's too late and the Vikings drown out 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!
-30-
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