Don't Try This at Home!
Written: Aug 09 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: funnee! and deliciously mean-spirited toward people who deserve every bit of it!
Cons: Some exchanges drag on; not suitable for an extended period of reading
The Bottom Line: Jonathan Land reams some spammers a new one, and we get to watch. What could be better than this (as long as there's enough beer and popcorn)!
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| scmrak's Full Review: Jonathan Land - The Spam Letters |
There are some people who just irritate the crap out of you, right? You know the ones I'm talking about: door-to-door solicitors who stick a foot in the doorway and then refuse to leave... telemarketers who interrupt your peace and quiet by mispronouncing your name and then shouting over the din of their boiler rooms to be "heard"... moronic direct mailers who think that envelopes festooned with officious-sounding snippets of the Code of Federal Regulations will entice you to open their junk mail. And then there's those )&^%&()(*$# spammers!
Retribution's fairly easy for most such warts on the nose of society: large dogs and heavy doors do nicely to deter door-to-door solicitors; police whistles, hang-ups, and the national "do not call registry" can give telemarketers an earful of their own; and the junk mail fits perfectly in the recycle bin. But what shall we do about spammers???
You could turn 'em over to Jonathan Land. That'd serve 'em right.
Jonathan Land's The Spam Letters started out as a lark: what wheels would be set in motion if the recipient actually replied to spam? Would the spammer reply in turn? Could someone actually engage one of those slimeballs in an email conversation? The first thing Land learned was that the vast majority of the return addresses are bogus - his email bounced more often than an Enron paycheck, but it proved to be the process that Land found cathartic, not the results. And, of course, there's the proverbial icing on the cake: sometimes spammers actually answer their email...
Click over to that email window you have open right now and take a look. I'm willing to bet that you have half a dozen emails awaiting your attention, from people with ordinary-sounding names (Matt Minor... Tamara Barnard...) or not quite so ordinary names (Okna Linnea... Luv Maaker...) , about topics such as mortgages, naked starlets, viagra, university diplomas, naked divas, herbal viagra, "manhood" enhancement, nude pop stars, Viagra-like substances, male potency enhancement, nekkid coeds, erectile dysfunction, breast enhancement, celebrities caught in flagrante delicto, and the booming business of ink-jet cartridges. Am I right? Told you so.
Land gets the same email as you and I. It's just that before he hits the "empty my junk-mail folder button," he has a little fun; and he decided to share his wicked sense of humor and well-developed sense of the absurd with all of us. It's not merely that he answers that wretched spam; it's that he does so with such aplomb!
Have you ever gotten one of those "Nigerian banker" letters? In return for letting the sender park his imaginary ill-gotten gains in your bank account for a couple of days, he'll give you a healthy percentage of some staggering amount, say, thirty-one million dollars. All you have to do is give him your bank account numbers (you are truly stupid, or terminally confused, if you do that). I've been getting them for twenty years, dating back to when they were faxes and even snail mail. Land got one - and he answered it, engaging the man on the other end in an exchange that lasted for months. By the time Land had finished jerking around "Hamza Kalu," his correspondent claimed he was brewing up a "voodoo" curse on him. Hmmm, John, what's that enormous, odd-shaped lump growing out of your right nostril, anyway?
What about the time Land got an email from some "coeds at UCLA"? He wrote 'em back, asking for information about the campus! Or how about the email interchange in which Land poses as roadie for a heavy metal band (named Fluffy Bunnies, in German) looking for some... heavy metal from a purveyor of sheet steel? Or when he gives diet advice to people hawking fat-burners? Or offers up his very special doughnut recipe? Oh, yes, the man has a wickedly sharp tongue. Read this, and you will believe that the pen is mightier than the canned processed pork product!
But, then, there must be a downside as well. For Land, it's obvious - after replying to dozens or even hundreds of spams, he now receives upwards of 450 unsolicited emails every single day! (Hence the title.) For his readers there's a downside, too - all that relentless energy gets rather tiresome after you've read a few pages. That's not say it's not a fun read; it's just to point out that this is not the sort of prose one reads in a single sitting (if you know what I mean).
Mechanically it's sound - the letters from the spammers are reproduced in all their cockamamie glory, mangled English and all. Land's replies are in turn scathing, loony, nutso, and just plain weird - and almost invariably fun to browse. So for that brother-in-law who likes to complain about all his nasty email, or that cousin who keeps sending her SSN in reply to emails from "CittyBank," this one's a perfect gift. Just make certain you read it first!
Recommended:
Yes
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