Fun Facts Archive

Wonderful Spam?

The popularity of email has brought with it the unfortunate side effect of unsolicited messages, otherwise known as spam. But how did this term come to be and what does the 1937 "miracle meat in a can" have to do with unwanted communications?

For the benefit of those too young to remember, during the Second World War Britain's population was put on food rations with meat being a particularly luxurious product. However, the reconstituted pork product in a tin, SPAM Luncheon Meat, was exempt from these rations and as such the British people ate their fill. When rationing was removed the appeal of SPAM Luncheon Meat declined and a certain stigma attached itself to the product.

In tribute of these events Monty Python's Flying Circus, a popular BBC comedy sketch show broadcast from 1969 to 1974, wrote a skit in which a man and wife try to order breakfast from a greasy spoon cafe which features the famous meat in every dish. While the couple argue with the waitress about the presence of the unwanted processed pork product a group of Vikings at a nearby table crescendo into a chorus about the "Lovely SPAM! Wonderful SPAM!" which drowns out the couple trying to make their order.

In the early 1990's the Internet's use of the term spam hit the mainstream from unknown underground origins and was used to describe posts to newsgroups and message boards advertising products or proclaiming political messages sent automatically by computers. These messages were called spam because their net effect was to drown out the ordinary conversation of the newsgroups in the same was as the Vikings did in the cafe.

Written by Gareth Williams on Jul 22nd 2005.

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