Have you ever found yourself using a phrase repeatedly and then suddenly wondered where it came from? That just happened to me with the word ‘spam’ in the context of unsolicited calls and emails. According to ChatGPT (though I haven’t independently verified this), the origin traces back to a Monty Python sketch.
The term “spam” for unsolicited or irrelevant messages—especially in email or online platforms—comes from an old Monty Python comedy sketch from 1970.
In that sketch, a group of Vikings sings “Spam, spam, spam, spam…” loudly and repeatedly in a restaurant, drowning out all conversation. The joke was that Spam (the canned meat product) was being served with everything, and you couldn’t avoid it. The constant repetition and unwanted presence of the word “Spam” became symbolic of annoying, unavoidable clutter.
When internet users in the early days of online communication encountered repeated, irrelevant, or intrusive messages, especially in forums and email, they began referring to it as “spam.” The term stuck, and today it broadly refers to any unwanted or unsolicited messages, especially bulk advertising or scams.
The opposite of spam, for users of the Spamassassin email filter is ham. Training the filter back in the day, required “feeding” the filter examples of wanted and unwanted messages.
Sorting thousands of messages into the two groups was done manually, and had to be repeated from time to time.
As a tech journalist, I covered the anti-spam movement starting in the 1990s and into the early 2000s. I can confirm that it’s called spam because of the monty python sketch.
There was a movement to call legitimate bulk mail “bacn.” It never caught on.
"The problem of spam e-mail messages will be gone within two years, Bill Gates promised Friday.
Speaking at a late-night session of the World Economic Forum, Mr. Gates, the chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, said the company was working on three ways to enable e-mail users to keep spam out of their computers. . . . "
Regardless of the etymology it is an appropriate term; something that arrives in a container promising wonder, whilst actually containing a hideous, undigestible, blob of garbage…sounds like most email to me, not just spam email….
My father had a book of Sad Sack cartoons from WW2. There was one showing Sad Sack (a lowly Private) getting served a plate of SPAM at every meal in the mess hall. In the last frames he receives a package from home – he opens it and it contains cans of SPAM. So there were jokes about spamming well before Monty Python.
Apparently this WW2 joke was quite relevant at the time. Meat was being shipped to our troops so was scarce and valuable (even SPAM!) at home, so not knowing that the troops had plenty this was believed to be a thoughtful and loving gift.
Drifting off topic, my father had said this happened to him with canned fruit cocktail, which he received. I guess the troops were being fed SPAM and fruit cocktail.
It isn’t all that difficult to obtain a different answer from an LLM:
I think I’ve finally clarified things! Yes, it appears that “Bacon” can indeed be a colloquialism or shorthand term used to refer to unwanted email. So, to answer your original question, yes, “bacon” is sometimes used as a term for unwanted email.
Spam is still considered a thoughtful gift in parts of the world. My daughter and SIL live in Hawai’i and when we spent a week there, it was usually on the menu of (non chain) restaurants in some form or another.
. Cue high pitched British accent: “I don’t like SPAM!!!”
