[geeks] Gotta love spam

[Andrew Weiss]

On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Big Endian wrote:

> I don't know how many of you have seen this but its fucking hilarious!
> http://petemoss.com/spamflames/ShifmanIsAMoronSpammer.html
> --

That kind of made me edgy.  I received a joke from a friend that she had
sent to a whole bunch of people which in 99.7% of cases I read, enjoy, and
file.  This time I had some personal experience with the subject matter
and I felt it was informative and fun so I did the "fatal" reply-all.  To
be kind I removed most of the text and sent a one or two sentence reply.
Sure enough... one idiot in the entire group violently accuses me of
spamming him and asks me to take him off my list.  I was doubly offended
by the misuse of the word spam and also the implication that I was running
some sort of list.  I was also offended by the pent up anger and his
ability not to just hit the delete key as I do with even the most
maddening of spam (which I consider to be almost entirely corporate).  So
I sent him a response which called no names and pointed out the obvious
details of what was going on and he sent back an even more scathing
name-calling reply which accused me of many things i.e. of being a
"spamming moron" and also somehow dug out the term homosexual out of thin
air with no relation to what was going on... Here I was thinking this
person has no grasp on reality, is covering for his own lack of computer
intelligence, and is basically an unhappy person... it still hurt.

Reading this page, I don't know what to think other than it reminds me of
that day two days ago, and then of course makes me wonder if like credit
histories... people tend to blacklist people by mistake or for strange
transgressions in this industry.  That's a really scary thought.  It seems
like a lot of people use neither kindness or common sense in their
everyday lives.  I think Mr. Shifman was being rather stupid and
egotistical, but somehow the first response by the person spammed seemed
overly negative as well.  Maybe I'm missing part of the story... either
way... it doesn't strike me as a hilarious site.  It does, however, make
one think more deeply about how people view things even if it seems like
some people take stuff way to seriously.

Andrew

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