How did spam get it's name?

Question

I remember when spam was that mushed together meat - now it's turned into something even worst thanks to technology? Just wondering how whoever decided that was the best name to use for unrequested/unwanted mail, etc.

Answer 1

[edit] History
Main article: History of spamming
The term spam is derived from the Monty Python SPAM sketch (see video in External Links), set in a cafe where nearly every item on the menu includes SPAM luncheon meat. As the server recites the SPAM-filled menu, a chorus of Viking patrons drowns out all conversations with a song repeating "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM... lovely SPAM, wonderful SPAM", hence "SPAMming" the dialogue. The excessive amount of SPAM mentioned in the sketch is a reference to British rationing during World War II. SPAM was one of the few foods that were widely available.

Although the first known instance of unsolicited commercial e-mail occurred in 1978[6] (unsolicited electronic messaging had already taken place over other media, with the first recorded instance being via telegram on September 13, 1904[citation needed]), the term "spam" for this practice had not yet been applied. In the 1980s the term was adopted to describe certain abusive users who frequented BBSs and MUDs, who would repeat "SPAM" a huge number of times to scroll other users' text off the screen.[7] In early Chat rooms services like PeopleLink and the early days of AOL, they actually flooded the screen with quotes from the Monty Python Spam sketch. This was used as a tactic by insiders of a group that wanted to drive newcomers out of the room so the usual conversation could continue. It was also used to prevent members of rival groups from chatting -- for instance, Star Wars fans often invaded Star Trek chat rooms, filling the space with blocks of text until the Star Trek fans left.[8] This act, previously called flooding or trashing, came to be known as spamming.[9] The term was soon applied to a large amount of text broadcasted by many users.

It later came to be used on Usenet to mean excessive multiple posting—the repeated posting of the same message. The unwanted message would appear in many if not all newsgroups, just as SPAM appeared in all the menu items in the Monty Python sketch. The first usage of this sense was by Joel Furr in the aftermath of the ARMM incident of March 31, 1993, in which a piece of experimental software released dozens of recursive messages onto the news.admin.policy newsgroup. This use had also become established—to spam Usenet was flooding newsgroups with junk messages. As a portmanteau of "spew" and "scam", the word was also attributed to the flood of "Make Money Fast" messages that clogged many newsgroups during the 1990s.

Commercial spamming started in force on March 5, 1994, when a pair of lawyers, Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, began using bulk Usenet posting to advertise immigration law services. The incident was commonly termed the "Green Card spam", after the subject line of the postings. The two went on to widely promote spamming of both Usenet and e-mail as a new means of advertisement—over the objections of Internet users they labeled "anti-commerce radicals." Within a few years, the focus of spamming (and antispam efforts) moved chiefly to e-mail, where it remains today.[10]

Answer 2

Spiced pink meat And Ham. in the time of WWII, clean meat substitute into in short furnish in distinctive areas of the international and direct mail offered the protein desires for many many folk. I nevertheless love direct mail & eggs on party.

Answer 3

It has the same characteristics as the food.

* Nobody wants it or ever asks for it.
* No one ever eats it; it is the first item to be pushed to the side when eating the entree.
* Sometimes it is actually tasty, like 1% of junk mail that is really useful to some people.

Answer 4

Because it's something nobody wants, just like canned SPAM.

Answer 5

From the monty python show.

The sketch related to a cafe that only sold spam.spam spam spamspam.spam spam spam spam.spam spam spamspam.spam spam spam.

Looks like my inbox!

AND from its description 'SPiced hAM'.

Answer 6

From the food product " Spam " , because no one likes it :))