Is There Disaster In Your In-Box?

For many months I saved the spam in my laurabenedict.com email account because I was getting so many interesting character names from it. But I would dump them after I got three or four hundred because I got paranoid about keeping all that trash around. Mostly I get Viagra offers and other opportunities to “enhance my manhood.” (Sometimes the sender is, well, me. Haven’t figured out how that happens. Weird.)

But recently, the subject matter has gotten rather nasty. Crude or frightening headlines about international disasters or animal cruelty. I wonder if this is some kind of strange new twist in our culture–are spammers getting media-savvy? Do they now go for shock value and emotional manipulation rather than just over-the-top vulgarity or butchered-English come-ons?

I started noticing the new trend a couple weeks ago. And hard on the heels of it was the story of Edward Davidson, the convicted spammer who killed himself and his young family. Tragic madness. One can’t help but think that all those years of cheating people must have eaten at his soul.

I long for the days when Benjy Jacky and Jermaine Thompson were helping me to reduce my credit card debt and, uh, increase the size of my pole. I’d just as soon never again hear from the likes of Sharifi who wants to sell me a trip to Vegas by tempting me with tales of A Boy Who Eats Cats Daily. The world is a truly dismal place when even the spammers lose their sense of humor–and their minds.