Julie R. Smith
I swear, spam makes me nostalgic for junk mail.
Remember opening the mailbox to slick ads for tires, car painting, credit cards, Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes and book-and-record clubs? (I milked those shamelessly.) Plus, lumber warehouse flyers, women’s clothing catalogues, J.C. Penney and the mack daddy, Sears and Roebuck.
Direct mail companies shelled out big bucks on production and postage back then.
Now they shell out even bigger bucks for our online data. Marketers know our age, address, income, what we watch, what we eat, what we buy and most of all, our computer search histories.
This is not an anti-technology rant. I’m just saying what we already know: if you talk to your spouse about getting a cat, the next ad on your phone will be for kitty litter.
As for emailed spam, I don’t even open my junk mail folder anymore. I’ve probably missed a few important ones by doing blind dumps, but I cannot scroll through more than 1,000 messages every week to see if one or two might be legitimate.
Except for today. With this column in my head, I opened the folder and what do you know: I have the money-making opportunity of a lifetime!
I didn’t click because this ain’t my first rodeo. I’m not a brilliant consumer, but after more than 35 years online, I can smell spam at 50 paces. (Actually, a potato wired to a monitor could do the same.)
If the subject line doesn’t include my mother’s maiden name or my husband’s favorite parboiled vegetable, I pass it by.
Years ago, in a more innocent age, I’d actually open spam (back when I got 30 a day), to make sure it wasn’t “important.” This was before hackers and malware became so widespread. And by widespread, I mean like the bubonic plague.
As the spam increased over the years, I’d quickly scroll through while moisturizing my scaly feet, sipping coffee or sorting my vitamins. The second I saw “Free!” or “Madame” or “Lucky You,” my finger hit the magic button.
