The Next Generation of Spam

A childhood friend sent the following email a few days ago:

Hi Everyone!
I wanted you to know about my new blog:
http://applelaptoprevolution.blogspot.com
If this link doesn’t work, cut and paste it to your browser!
I love you all!
-Grant

I was interested to see Grant’s blog. This is the golden age for bloggers. There is no better way to keep up with friends and family in this digital world than through blogs. It is the perfect hybrid of scrapbook and journal. Some blogs follow the family feel, whereas others are more abstract and goofy. In most cases, blogs are interesting.

Grant’s blog is not. It is a horribly masked advertising campaign and a pathetic attempt to make a few bucks. There are ads on the blog offering deals on Mac laptops. The subject matter of the SINGLE blog post is completely designed to steer you to the ad where Grant is set up to make money each and every time someone clicks on the ad or any links in his post. Furthermore, anytime someone actually purchases something after linking from Grant’s site, he makes a good percentage from the sale.

I figured it had to be a mistake so I clicked on his profile. There were two other blogs, one of which was http://spanishspeakingdestinations.blogspot.com/ Grant served a mission in Spain, so this one had to be legit, right? WRONG! Another post steering you to click on the ads for Travelocity and cruise lines. It’s hard enough having to filter out male enhancement and cheap pain killer emails. I have to withstand the tsunami of junk mail in my snail mailbox. I don’t need to be spammed now by blogger friends.

Grant you should be ashamed of yourself. As a matter of principle you shall now be flamed…

You are a cowardly wolf in a really bad sheep costume. This ploy is greasier than an unwashed Jiffy Lube attendant eating a day-old turkey leg off the floor with no hands. The least you could do is make an actual legitimate looking family blog and sneak in a post or two about how rad Macs are, with a link in the post. You have less creative juice than the loser college dropouts that come to my house selling bad print replicas of famous paintings. You are a stick figure drawn by a blind left-handed Parkinson’s victim in a Bob Ross landscape.

You are small potatoes at a Yukon Gold potato bar. Spammers with any self-respect will at least buy marketing lists. Instead you prey on your friends and family. There were over 50 names in your email, ranging from L through W. Mathematically that means you could have easily blasted 150 people with this diatribe. If you want to play with the big boys, spend some money. Gary Coleman doesn’t play ball in the NBA. Cows don’t swim with piranhas. Bill Shatner doesn’t act with DeNiro. And skinheads don’t walk alone at night in Harlem. Because, like you, they can’t hang.

The deepest darkest corners of hell are reserved for pedophiles and spammers.

**pause**
How did the best canned mystery meat ever produced draw the short straw when it came down to naming the art of blindly delivering unwanted crap? Spam and eggs is a breakfast staple. And now Spam will never be seen the same way again. Like the hijacked rainbow.
**resume**

If it’s a money issue, Grant, grow a pair and get a second job. Get a third. Borrow money from the mob. Sell plasma. Join the circus. Start a cock-fighting ring. Hunt cougars and sell their pelts. Run up credit cards and file bankruptcy. Sell drugs. Apply for welfare and leach off of my tax dollars. Nothing is as morally defunct as spamming Travelocity ads.

But it’s not too late son. Simply kill the blogs. Start a new one with pictures of your kids, your thoughts on life, or photos of your hair. I’ve always wondered, did you ever draw blood with that hair? I was always terrified of impalement when we played ball.

Let me be clear…I have no problem with people that link to ads from their blogs. I have friends that do it. But they do not promote it, they do not email me to solicit business, and their sites are legitimate multi-subject blogs or web pages.

Finally, write up an apology, blast your email list and grovel for forgiveness. You have placed yourself in the same category as Viagra, Trend West, and Amway. You can’t simply bail on the product and expect everything to be fine. Repentance is required, period.