The Internet Confuses Me

I get a lot of spam, largely because I don't really use any sort of spamfilters, and if you're part of any group at umich, somebody in that group is probably going to get a trojan every so often. Anyway, here's what I don't get. The spam I get seems to fall into several categories based on the subjects. These are (1) sex enhancements (2) offers for free money (3) innocuous greetings (4) Biblical quotes and (5) random gibberish.

Now, I can understand why someone might be inclined to open an email with the subject "Mak yo woman screem all nite." Or "Come pick up your check!" Or "Hey, what's up?" Or maybe even "Lo, Aaron did look upon the Israelites..."

But why would anyone open an email that has random gibberish as its subject? And why would spammers think this is a good plan? I got an email the other day that said "gargle noisily". Why would I open that? How is this effective spam? Do they think people are so retarded they'll open any email as long as the subject consists of properly spelled words?

Well, if they've checked out www.twitter.com, they probably do. Twitter seems fairly new, so you may not be familiar with it. Basically the idea is sort of like a myspace or facebook, except instead of filling out personal information that (hypothetically speaking) people could care about, you simply post single sentence updates on what you're doing, periodically through the day. Here are a few samples:

cleaning the scum off the sides of the fish tank.. joy!
getting some exercise
watching around the horn on espn
Listening to SLAY Radio

People, this whole real-time updates on our friends lives has gone too far. Away messages weren't that bad, because more often than not people just put up funny messages, or when it is actually info it's at least moderately useful info (i.e. "headed out to the bar, call if you want to come"). And while many people were rightfully creeped out by the facebook feed, it still didn't strike me as too bad. At least some of the info on facebook is somewhat important.

But Twitter has pushed us past the point of acceptable voyeurism. If you honestly need to tell people that you're eating cocoa puffs at the moment, you need to get a life. And if anyone is actually that interested in what you're doing every single instant, you might want to consider a restraining order.

Seriously, many of these people seem to be updating their Twitter Feed two or three times an hour. What the hell is happening to the world?

Totally unrelated note, my roommate just played me "Put it in your mouth" by Akinyele. This song came out about five years ago he said, but if you haven't heard it, check around. It's pretty fucking funny.