Korman: Spammers know us all too well

‘ ‘ ‘ Whether referring to unsolicited, junk e-mail or the canned pork shoulder product that’s… ‘ ‘ ‘ Whether referring to unsolicited, junk e-mail or the canned pork shoulder product that’s endured through the ages, Spam has a pretty nasty rep. ‘ ‘ ‘ But consider this: In Hawaiian cuisine, Spam is often featured as an ingredient in sushi, fried rice and on sandwiches. On April 25, upward of 20,000 people are expected to attend the seventh annual Waikiki Spam Jam, a six-hour beachside celebration of the speckled pink meat block. ‘ ‘ ‘ Imagine how royally ticked off Hawaiians must get when they hear people equate what many locals consider classic Hawaiian soul food with the dregs of our e-mail inboxes. What if Hawaiians started referring to their junk mail as your favorite food? ‘ ‘ ‘ Think about the prospect of a folder named ‘Pizza’ designated for all your unwanted e-mails. To Hawaiians, the prospect of a ‘Spam’ folder must sound equally as absurd. ‘ ‘ ‘ Sometimes, just for fun, I’ll glance into my spam folder. I always end up asking myself the same questions: How do the senders acquire such enigmatic e-mail tags? Do people actually click this stuff? Why are almost all of them about boners? ‘ ‘ ‘ According to an article in The New York Times, some people really do respond. Of all the different genres of spam out there, those that advertise Rolex watches, drugs and pornography yield the three highest click-through rates, with the latter leading the pack at a rate of 5.6 percent. ‘ ‘ ‘ If your 300-person Introduction to Psychology lecture represented the general population, almost 17 of your classmates would read the subject line ‘Julia loves my new size’ with genuine interest. This is terrifying. ‘ ‘ ‘ It is also precisely the reason why we shouldn’t necessarily consider spam useless junk. The subject lines we come across provide a candid, startling glimpse into the state of our society at large. ‘ ‘ ‘ I quickly categorized all the messages filtered into my spam folder since the beginning of this year. Out of the 96 e-mails my client deposited, 66 were in some way sexual, advertising either a male enhancement product or some form of pornography. I decided to take my experiment a little further by actually clicking one of them at random. ‘ ‘ ‘ Subject: Like a steel rod. Click! ‘ ‘ ‘ The sender’s e-mail address was somehow displayed as my own, except somewhere along the way it inexplicably picked up a plus sign. ‘ ‘ ‘ Obviously, I did not send this message to myself. But it worries me that spammers possess the technological aptitude to make it appear as if I did. Surely there are more productive ways to harness this technology, such as convincing your least favorite professor that he has an alternate personality by sending him messages from himself. ‘ ‘ ‘ As I clicked the foreboding ‘display images’ button, instead of bursting into flames, my laptop loaded a photo of a spandex-clad woman flexing her biceps ‘mdash; the ad was for an exercise machine. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Now, I have even more questions. If they wanted me to buy an exercise machine, why didn’t they just say so? Why did they try to lure me in with the ‘like a steel rod’ tagline? ‘ ‘ ‘ And suddenly I realized the genius behind spammers. ‘ ‘ ‘ They have their fingers on our collective pulse. They know that exercise machines are nowhere close to male enhancement pills, Rolexes and drugs in terms of attracting clicks from the larger American demographic. We love sex, gold and Vicodin, not ellipticals, silly! ‘ ‘ ‘ So the spammers fudge it. The people who are dumb enough to actually click the ads, by no coincidence, are also likely not apt to notice the thematic disparity between the subject line and the actual message. Thus, they’re more likely to spend their money on the useless contraption being marketed. It’s a brilliant strategy, and apparently it works ‘mdash; on average, one response is generated for every 12,500,000 pieces of spam sent. Yet some spammers send out so many messages that they manage to turn daily profits in the thousands. ‘ ‘ ‘ I tried to force myself into a state of mind where I would actually feel compelled to buy this product under these circumstances: the grammatically awkward subject heading, the inconsistent message, the pictured woman’s relatively unremarkable bicep and, namely, the message’s mere presence in my spam folder. I couldn’t do it. ‘ ‘ ‘ Only in some alternate reality in which all my perceptions and intuitions were skewed toward absurdity could I have clicked on that ad ‘mdash; a reality where one can buy a Rolex at a 78 percent discount and it’s possible to extend one’s member 18 inches overnight, steel rod optional. ‘ E-mail Ben at bek25@pitt.edu.