Why Is Spam Called SPAM?
Everyone knows what spam is, people get spam emails, spam text messages, spam phone calls, spam everything. It’s all those unwanted and unwarranted messages that are used to get your information just to scam you even if, they pretend to sell you something first.
“Honey! Looks like I’m going to get that ‘big dick energy’!”
But why is spam called spam? If you thought it had something to do with the cooked pork in the brick-shaped can, well, you’re technically right but also, tis just scratching the surface.
What is SPAM and Why is SPAM?
In the early 20th century the Hormel Foods Corporation was pretty big in the meat industry, mainly the salami and dry sausages department, at the time it was known as the “George A. Hormel & Company” but I’m not typing all that every time.
In 1926, depending on what your feelings on canned meats are, things either got real gross or real freaking delicious because Hormel Foods entered the canned food business. That was the year they introduced canned ham and then in 1928, they introduced canned chicken.
“The goop really seals in the flavor!”
Apparently, it was a hit and H-Foods went all-in in the canned food industry, introducing pork shoulder in a can and calling it SPAM in 1937. Why is it called SPAM? No one knows, the story goes that the name was decided through a contest that a relative of a company executive won, so someone cheated… maybe.
Since its introduction, there have been many explanations given for its name, some say it stands for “spiced ham”, “Shoulder of Pork And Ham”, “Special Processed American Meat”, or “Salt Pork And Ham”, but the truth is the answer has never been revealed.
When I was younger I incessantly asked my parents and I assumed they were lying to me when they said they didn’t know. Eventually, I was told SPAM stood for “shut up and eat”, it didn’t make sense but I don’t think my parents were going for accuracy. So you never really questioned why it was called that or what it was made of.
If a pig built a house out of SPAM, is the house made of flesh, or is he made of house?
Back in the early 1940s, sales of SPAM were doing alright and then World War II reared its ugly head. While many industries were hit hard, the United States enacted the Lend-Lease Act that had them supplying Allied nations with a bunch of stuff including food and lots and lots of SPAM.
This meant when Britain started rationing supplies due to the war, SPAM was not rationed. You could have all the SPAM you wanted and you were going to love it!
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Post-war, companies outside of the United States were given licenses to produce SPAM and they happily produced the quick and convenient meal. Eventually, it was everywhere which meant that as the years went on people got bored of it… and annoyed by it.
Enter the Monty Python Sketch
In 1969 the highly influential British absurdist comedy group Monty Python started their sketch comedy show called Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The show and group consisting of Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michael Palin were immediately popular and have stayed popular through the decades creating some iconic sketches, films, and quotes.
Think of you’re favorite comedy show and its creator or writers are most likely going to be fans of Monty Python. One of their more influential sketches came about in 1970 in the penultimate episode of the second series (season if you’re American) entitled “Spam”. You can guess what it was about, or maybe you can’t because they were an absurdist comedy group.
The sketch starts with two patrons being lowered from the sky into a small diner and it gets weirder from there. The patrons ask the waitress what they have and she starts listing the menu. It starts with eggs and bacon, followed by eggs, spam, and bacon, and eventually, every item contains just spam. Not “we have spam”, it’s more like “spam spam spam and a side of spam”.
A group of Vikings start singing “spam spam spam”. Oh, did I forget to mention the Vikings? I won’t spoil all of the sketch but the sketch and episode end with a historian’s speech devolving into just repeating “spam”.
The credits roll and the word spam is sprinkled into them. Essentially “spam” is spammed into the sketch just like in real life except, our spam started with messages and emails.
SPAM becomes Spam
While many would assume that spam emails didn’t start until the internet really took off, the first spam email happened in 1978. Unsurprisingly, it was from a marketer. At the time it wasn’t called “spam” yet and it happened in the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network or ARPANET. Basically, ARPANET is to today’s internet as a rotary dial telephone is to today’s cellphone.
How am I supposed to record my TikTok dances with this?
The first time the word “spam” was used was in April 1993 when a system administrator accidentally posted 200 instances of the same message in the Usenet newsgroup network. One of the users in Australia jokingly called it spam and thus “spam” was born.
A year later, lawyers Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel of Arizona decided to purposely spam as many people with an ad for their law firm. The ad was a green card lottery message entitled “Green Card Lottery — Final One?” so, it was clickbait as well. They posted their message using a program sending it to at least 5,500 Usenet groups and people. Were. Pissed.
Many responded to the lawyer’s email with threats and essentially cursed them out for overloading their groups with a dumb spam message. Canter and Siegel’s internet providers canceled their account two days later because of the constant crashing from all the hate mail the lawyers were getting. Unfortunately, Canter and Siegel considered it a success since they got $100,000 worth of new business from the spam message.
By then these types of messages were known as spam and the term became tied to unwanted messages or emails from annoying people. As technology has evolved and we now walk around with brick-shaped computers in our pockets, it’s become easier for spam messages to invade our lives but these aren’t as delicious.
After reading all of this, some of you might be thinking “why not just start and end with the SPAM becomes Spam” section? And to that I say, I saw the opportunity to spam SPAM in the spam article about spam so I spammed SPAM. I have no regrets, also…
“Nobody expects a Spanish Inquisition!”
Quick Facts
Spam spam spam spam spam and spam spam spam spam spam
The programming language Python is named after Monty Python
Laurence Canter was disbarred for illegal advertising practices in 1997
Spam
