I don't have a spam filter for two big reasons:
1. I can't be bothered to figure out how to install one on my computer.
2. I'm terrified that a spam filter will keep me from receiving an e-mail from a reader who wants to praise me for something or an Atlantic Monthly editor who wants to commission me to write an essay about the nature of life in modern America.
And so I deal with a lot of spam, and I don't complain.
Checking my e-mail after writing an article for Speechwriter's Newsletter or after a phone interview with a Chicago politician, bold subject lines demand that I contemplate questions I would normally save for evenings and weekends.
Questions like, "Want something extra in bed?"
Or, "It's not working like it used to?"
Or, "Want the sex life to be like it used to?"
Or, more obscurely but clearly enough, "Remember the old says?"
There are less obscure questions, too; I'll spare you.
But I can deal with the Viagra stuff預nd the back-alley whispers about how I can get a Rolex "replica," the phony "friendly notifications" that my Earthlink account will be shut down any moment and the invitations to "spend 15 minutes and get 36 hours of pleasure" (a ratio that would be tempting even if it were reversed).
But what's got me confused and a little freaked out is the nonsense spam subject lines I've been getting. Not since my Late 20th Century American Poetry class at Kent State have I scratched my head so vigorously and so often. Here are a few of the spam subject lines I've contemplated in the last week:
Re. But ask he hubcapRe. A drink he overtook bur
in talk go sonny
At bring or gally
No travel of edgeways
Re.: As dance do blare
Re. At smoke at dread.
What's the marketers' theory with these weird headlines? As I do when I come up against all things that make me feel 36 going on hopelessly out of touch, I asked my 26-year-old nephew Dan.
Dan said, with the air of authority I was looking for, "Oh, they just do that to try to confuse you and get you to open the e-mail."
Perhaps he has the right answer. But I'm not sure. If sheer confusion worked in spam subject lines, why wouldn't it have ever been tried in direct mail promotions, or newspaper headlines for that matter.
Editor: "We really want people to read this editorial on gun control."
Publisher: "You're going to have to go nuts with the headline, then. How about half Chinese characters and then the words, 'Slim onions, leaf blower and think." That'll really suck 'em in!"
And yet, Dan's answer is the best I've heard. Readers: Do you have a better one?
Comments (8)
Maybe they're randomly generated from a big list of English words? Or maybe they're machine-translated badly? Or maybe the whole point is to have words in English in the subject line--like the T-shirts you see when traveling overseas, that have English phrases that make no sense, the message conveyed being LOOK! I HAVE A SHIRT THAT HAS ENGLISH ON IT!
Posted by Jennifer | June 22, 2005 4:11 PM
Posted on June 22, 2005 16:11
So you're thinking these e-mails, which I dare not open, might be from a foreign country? But couldn't they go the extra mile and get somebody to translate a message that makes some durn sense? In any case, your answer is as good as Dan's. Better, maybe ....
Posted by David Murray | June 22, 2005 4:31 PM
Posted on June 22, 2005 16:31
i would guess the reason for the random subjects is so that they can get through the spam blocker software. as i understand, spam blockers will look for keywords (like sex, viagra, etc.) - and will also look for phrases, such as 展ant something extra in bed?� so, these randomly generated subject lines have a better chance of getting through the blockers...
doesn't really matter for you, though...the only person on the planet not using a spam blocker.
Posted by k bosch | June 22, 2005 5:13 PM
Posted on June 22, 2005 17:13
k bosch wins the prize. <hands over a slightly used Firby>
I deal with this one daily -- on both ends -- as part of my work. (No, we don't send spam or nonsense headers. :P But we do have to deal with filtering for our permission-based mailings.) Nonsense headers will slip past the spam filters every time. The vast majority of email users use a client like Outlook, typically configured to display the email contents without a click-to-open action required. Thus, just by hitting your inbox, they generate an "open" which both confirms that you have a live address and drives up whatever demented metrics they track in order to sell their ill-gotten wares. The subject headers can't fit a filtering pattern, because no pattern exists.
Lately I've seen a new twist on this that somehow inserts relevant words into the headlines randomly. I presume this is based on keywords scraped from the same pages the email addresses are scraped from, or perhaps they have some odd, insidious way of accessing doubleclick cookie histories or search histories ... I'm not sure how they do it, but I've seen subjects like "His joyful genealogy rake" or "She often gardening shovel" and their ilk. Those aren't exact examples, but they get the point across. They seem to follow some sort of pattern and insert a keyword relevant to the address (but not the spam) in the subject line in order to arrest your eyes. Obviously, I do a lot of genealogy and gardening. That seriously creeps me out, though.
I'm endlessly amused by the ones that couldn't get their software set up correctly, and will come through with headlines like "%rand% she said %rand%"
My favorite spam header ever, though, was a dood-ridden marketing gem that I'll still be laughing about when I'm 80.
"U R Stupid Dumbass If U Pay Retail Pri-cee For Softwares cause"
My instant reaction, as a gamer, was "Ahmg! I R stupid dumbass!"
Then I laughed for the rest of the day. :D
Posted by DeAnna | June 23, 2005 12:50 AM
Posted on June 23, 2005 00:50
Mystery solved. Every day is a school day when you R Stupid Dumbass like me.
(K. Bosch, all, is my sister-in-law the computer programmer who feels sorry for me because I work on a Mac and am afraid of computers in the way some people are afraid of snakes. Love you, Sis!)
Posted by David Murray | June 23, 2005 9:30 AM
Posted on June 23, 2005 09:30
For the terminally curious (no pun intended) the list of SpamAssassin's current tests is at http://spamassassin.apache.org/tests_3_0_x.html. It's a very popular filtering program, and widely emulated I think. Perusing the list will quickly reveal that while they can trap for a lot of things, they just can't anticipate nonsense like "Good news? Star app le maple grocery happy duck." No matter how smart they get, computers don't read English.
Posted by DeAnna | June 23, 2005 11:12 AM
Posted on June 23, 2005 11:12
I just got one this morning titled "obligatory beard." That's an entirely new one.
Posted by Eileen | June 28, 2005 11:16 AM
Posted on June 28, 2005 11:16
I don't know. I don't only get those in the subject lines, but they are often below the advertisement in the email. Sometimes the body of the email is only a link that I would never click on, and a paragraph of nonsense. I don't buy the machine translated idea because they are usually full of poetic sounds. I keep thinking there is some message hidden there for only the "initiated." Some of the language is fascinating.???
Posted by Christiane | July 26, 2005 12:45 PM
Posted on July 26, 2005 12:45