Spam Bots on MeFi?

February 9, 2011 6:04 PM

I spotted what's probably a spam bot posting around. Does MeFi get a lot of these?

This dude has to be a spam bot. MeFi seemed pretty immune (Who sinks 5 bucks just to post spam?) but I was wondering if they were just getting deleted before I saw them. Are there lots of these running around?

As it stands, I actually found the contribution pretty hilarious.

posted by GilloD to MetaFilter-Related at 6:04 PM (105 comments total)

probably not a bot, probably a person. i've seen a couple of these. i just email the mods and they're gone within minutes.
posted by nadawi at 6:07 PM on February 9, 2011

That's an ex-user.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:09 PM on February 9, 2011 [21 favorites]

buh bye!
posted by rmd1023 at 6:13 PM on February 9, 2011

And we maybe see one of these folks maybe every week? When people sign up we'll often flag them if they have a really ISPAMU sort of username or fishy PayPal or even sometimes geographical location [sorry Russia, many people from your country spam us]. This means we can sort of keep an eye on their contributions in a way that doesn't require any chitchat. This guy had already been marked as a potential spammer by cortex which means he would have likely been picked up during cortex's morning run through the fuckers list if someone hadn't brought them to our attention. Sometimes we have to wait to see them dropping sneaky spam turds into old not-yet-closed AskMe threads but then we'll delete the comments and ban them just the same.

Often then they'll email these totally naive messages to us "What happened?" and we're like "What happened is that you are a spammer, goodbye"
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:13 PM on February 9, 2011 [17 favorites]

MeFi seemed pretty immune (Who sinks 5 bucks just to post spam?) but I was wondering if they were just getting deleted before I saw them. Are there lots of these running around?

There have been past threads about this. I don't think it's rare.
posted by John Cohen at 6:14 PM on February 9, 2011

That's an ex-user.

"This user is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-USER!"
posted by Rangeboy at 6:14 PM on February 9, 2011 [29 favorites]

cortex's morning run through the fuckers list

Can someone please write a song about that?
posted by donnagirl at 6:19 PM on February 9, 2011 [50 favorites]

cortex's morning run through the fuckers list


ninth circle of hell
posted by backseatpilot at 6:36 PM on February 9, 2011

Cartoon！！！I like too!
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:37 PM on February 9, 2011 [13 favorites]

Yeah, I'd guess I ban one or two spammers a week, usually right after I get up in the morning. Brazen linking in active
Mefi threads is significantly less common than linking in aging askme threads, so often I'll find stuff that no one really noticed because the thread was long dormant by the time the spammer showed up.

I shudder to think what it'd be like to deal with this shit without the five dollar speedbump to cull the herd.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:40 PM on February 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Run Through The Fuckers is totally my favorite Cortex Clearwater Revival song.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 6:44 PM on February 9, 2011 [43 favorites]

Banning a spammer just after you get up: Better for the soul than the Sun Salutation?
posted by Dr. Curare at 6:48 PM on February 9, 2011

Run Through The Fuckers is totally my favorite Cortex Clearwater Revival song.

I was imagining it more along the lines of "Tiptoe through the Tulips." Run-ing... through the Fuckers....
posted by runningwithscissors at 6:58 PM on February 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

I envision cortex as a Kung Fu movie hero, where the gang of villainous spammers line up and attack one by one, and he takes each one out with one swift kick or punch, while eating his morning donut with his free hand.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:02 PM on February 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

Somehow you'd think that they'd be smarter than to name themselves something like "Discount DVD".
posted by octothorpe at 7:13 PM on February 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Run, cortex, run!
posted by bru at 7:16 PM on February 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Three words.. I love it!
posted by vidur at 7:16 PM on February 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

When a body catch a body just a runnin' thro' the fuckers...
posted by pecanpies at 7:23 PM on February 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

I spotted what's probably a spam bot posting around.

Spot all 10 and win a signed poster of Mathowie.
posted by special-k at 7:31 PM on February 9, 2011 [13 favorites]

i see this post and make hasty assent with the subject matter
posted by Burhanistan at 7:39 PM on February 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

Do they forfeit the $5? Do they ask for it back? The awkwardness of anyone paying $5 to post spam that will get instantly deleted boggles the mind.
posted by crapmatic at 7:54 PM on February 9, 2011

FOR EXELENCE POST FREE TIP QUCIK ENJOY INCREASING INCHES GIRTH AND SAYING POWER WITH MODEM WETSTERN ACCUPUNCTURE TECHNOLEDGY CLICK HERE
posted by loquacious at 7:57 PM on February 9, 2011 [28 favorites]

Somehow you'd think that they'd be smarter than to name themselves something like "Discount DVD".

Yeah.... I run a pretty large vBulletin forum and the robot spammers stick out like a sore thumb just by how their usernames are constructed. I've gotten where I can even pick out the zombie spammer accounts and spend 30 seconds in MySQL to weed them all out. I don't get these guys... they put so much effort into defeating the registration pages and captchas, yet stick out like an elephant once they're in. Considering their margins are probably as thin as ice, you think they'd think things through a little better.
posted by crapmatic at 8:01 PM on February 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

My whole night was worth it for that picture.
posted by stoneweaver at 8:02 PM on February 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

Loquacious, that looks like exactly what happens when one runs though the fuckers.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:03 PM on February 9, 2011 [13 favorites]

My sock puppet is called Ask her these questions and she'll get turned on. Should I change it?
posted by parmanparman at 8:04 PM on February 9, 2011

Do they forfeit the $5? Do they ask for it back?

They forfeit it unless they launch a campaign for it in which case mathowie usually relents because it's worth $5 for him to get them off his back. This particular spammer has emailed me three times since the bannination.

1. what happened? [response: explanation]
2. okay can I get my account back? [response: no]
3. (paraphrased) okay if I get a new account can I leave only certain links in certain threads for good reasons? [response: we will ban you if you spam again, maybe learn how the site works?]

Have not heard back since then.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:05 PM on February 9, 2011

I hope cortex yells "EXTERMINATE!" during the morning fucker run.
posted by Dr. Zira at 8:25 PM on February 9, 2011 [11 favorites]

Astro Zombie: "Cartoon！！！I like too!"

Didn't someone used to run a blog of the first three comments left by everyone who got banned for spam? This one might be my favorite.
posted by roll truck roll at 8:53 PM on February 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I love the smell of spammers in the morning.
posted by johngumbo at 9:01 PM on February 9, 2011

jessamyn: " okay if I get a new account can I leave only certain links in certain threads for good reasons? "

"I'LL BE MOSTLY GOOD, I SWEAR!"
posted by zarq at 9:05 PM on February 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

roll truck roll: "Didn't someone used to run a blog of the first three comments left by everyone who got banned for spam? This one might be my favorite."

Musings of a Metafilter Spammer
posted by zarq at 9:06 PM on February 9, 2011 [3 favorites]

I truly don't get it. Is that all he did, or is it about something he was about to do? Now I'm worried we're all a bunch of smug neurotypicals.
posted by StickyCarpet at 9:10 PM on February 9, 2011

Yeah, I sincerely doubt there are any actual spambots on Metafilter, but maybe I'm wrong. Who would write a script to repeatedly spend five dollars? Spambots only seem to make sense in places where accounts are free.
posted by koeselitz at 9:15 PM on February 9, 2011

You guys don't know what you're missing. I just got the "Dude, Where's My Car?" BlueRay for $5.
posted by Brocktoon at 9:26 PM on February 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Is that all he did, or is it about something he was about to do?

We deleted the actual spam-containing comments. We don't ban 'em until they actually spam, barring very exceptional circumstances, and so for all the actually banned spammers there are also a fair number of folks with similarly obviously-stupid obviously-something-is-up comments who for whatever reason never bothered to come back and seal the deal with a proper linkfarming comment or self-linky post.

For hassle-mitigation reasons, I often won't even ban a linkfarmer if I only find one old askme linkfarming comment as their whole history; I'll delete it, watchlist them if they weren't already on the list, and wait to see if they bother to come back. If they don't, they've functionally "banned" themself and I don't have to deal with a bullshit WHY AM I BANNED GIMME MY $5 BACK thing. If they do come back and do it again, ban with prejudice.

I've gotten where I can even pick out the zombie spammer accounts and spend 30 seconds in MySQL to weed them all out.

Yeah. I mean, what I see is really a spectrum, some of them have these super-obvious red flag names where I don't even really need to look any further to know they're going on the watchlist—I recently watchlisted and this morning up and banned a guy named "Condoms" who, you know, online condom store yadda yadda—but there's also folks where it's more subtle. The username isn't bleedingly obviously thematic but there's still something a bit off about it, or the Real Name listed isn't obviously fake but also doesn't match the paypal name, or they have a custom domain that maps to a sketchy looking site, or they're coming from one of several country codes that correlates to elevated spam risks, or their username is suspiciously generic, or or or.

And most of that latter stuff is more a "hmm..." thing than a shoe-in username like "Discount DVD" or "Condoms" or "MarketYourInnovation.com", which is why we watchlist and wait instead of banning preemptively. Every great once in a while someone will really really look like a spammer and turn out not to be one at all. More often someone will look like maybe they're a spam risk but we'll watchlist them and then just nothing will come of it either way; maybe they were gonna spam but got distracted, maybe there were totally legit and just lost interest. In any case, they don't know that we were keeping half an eye on them, and nothing happens, and oh well.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:31 PM on February 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

I shudder to think what it'd be like to deal with this shit without the five dollar speedbump to cull the herd.

My utterly obscure weblog gets between 100 and 300 attempts per day. Which all fail thanks to akismet, but I guess that metafilter would see well in the thousands.
posted by DreamerFi at 9:44 PM on February 9, 2011

My mix swap cd is stuffed with subliminal messages for my tape store, The Great Tape Escape. All Frampton 8-tracks are $5.99 this week. Come on in. I'm the guy standing under the Blondes Have More Fun poster.
posted by mintcake! at 10:05 PM on February 9, 2011

I can not write this comment. In this case, the robot version of their own. Robot "I" through the Google translator, I was so symbolic.
posted by not_on_display at 10:08 PM on February 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

HELLO MEATLIFTERS

I AM TEH AVENGARS. NOT SPAMAR. ALL IS OK. RETRN TOO NORMAL DUITES. I AM NOT KIDNAPED AND MURDER BY CCCP SPAMAR.

SEND CURENCY
posted by Avenger at 10:34 PM on February 9, 2011 [13 favorites]

"Cartoon！！！I like too!"

This is the story of my life.
posted by louche mustachio at 11:54 PM on February 9, 2011 [4 favorites]

Yeah, I don't know either.
posted by ODiV at 12:05 AM on February 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

One music site I go to and one I admin had the same spammer asking about our favorite band shirts. Both left the spam. It actually lead to better discussion then some of the legit 'YOUR FAVORITE BAND SUCKS' posts
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 12:11 AM on February 10, 2011

I don't have to deal with a bullshit WHY AM I BANNED GIMME MY $5 BACK thing.

I'd put a thing in the terms and conditions that explains to spammers that if they drop turds, they agree to fund the administrative costs of the clean-up at $10 per comment -- like hotels do if you smoke in their rooms.

That way, when they come back demanding their $5 back, I'd be like, "No, fuck you. You owe ME $5. I have the contract you agreed right here, so pay up, asshole."
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:54 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

In the key of Cortex; 'the Ode to Spam Bot' transmogrified from the original binary, Sophocles Antigone, and Cameron's Aliens versus Terminator, the allegory for the cyclical nature of Spam-Wars.

Bam, smot, them sought out lot, lost - alot, rumble time at the Sand Lot^$5.99, Wrought, The 'tex, our glad-tiding gladiator, radical frozen radiator; through time and space did fought.

Smap aught, gone-prepared this time we're here, ready-aloft. Aloof in the loft - so to spoke; sky parties. Not adrift in a raft, no Ships soon to pass. Sharp as a flat note, written in pencil on the face of a plaque; bin-done smote. Fedora Hat's all in line on the rack, Unix machines, 'I know this' say you, oh yeah, well, "I know that bat", with dinosaurs shouting bout food - foot in the doorframe - velocity; by size more like deinonychus, or raptors of utah fame, always coming, toe-pick claws out-with, sized up gee whiz, now look, the dino's gettin the pancakes and cheezewiz; ready to attack, kickem in the face, or they can kick back, in the gut; "here", or "here!- Just more like a giant turkey!" but keep on running in the long run, cus there's a t-rex waiting for lunch time out in-back. Lunch-money for nothing; no kit-kat, pretty much just a quick snack.

Horse-pony-trot;
Mouse Phony copyright plot
Iron gates known as wrought.^{Looowww Carrrrbon Connntent; with fibrous inclusions known as slag}

Maps top! I see you creeping past this garden path. Spam Stop. Cement comment one, two, Spin, spam, spin, spam, dizzily we list-till@last we land, flimsy flan, deflated - embryonic in the pan, never know till the final straw comes down in the rain and we win. To the waters of spam Island 10000 Km due sxsw of Sakhalin.

So bitter-sweet, no retreat, after all these years still showin' restraint, victory, no aftertaste of defeat, just feet; for if, like or and, as if with saccharine; Time, as they say, far as I can see&hear-tell, not just for the fritterin', whisperin' whistlin', walkin' while talking. Traps caught - spring'd spots bin sprung fishing nets ethically strung - homeopathic bee's wax stolen; still stung, rambophobic-reasons for headbands outta ripped cloth, guitar and bandanna wrapped in Santana with convoluted fanfic aliens plots, to each xenomorph swarm, or, like, in 4 the one that could swim; it swam, irregular nerves steel, stoic, solid, photo-voltaic, prosaic, parallel rows, rows broke out, hooligans and hulu-hoops for canadians, national team on strike-out, content questionable, by linguistic evolution, we see the grande trend of the normalization of irregular verbs like snakes sniffed cold, sold solid gold, this bleakhouse left for the living by sylvia plath's gas, our nuke's in orbit leave perpetual winters frozen over nuclear bunkers, sealed-in-oxygen - silent decades - gone stale, gone old.

Horse-pony-trot;
Ghost-honey metaphorical pot
Iron gates known as wrought.^{Looowww Carrrrbon Connntent; with fibrous inclusions known as slag}

All that we've got-rising to the surface steadily, like a stealthy submarine-Dive-bell's been rung, ladders climbed five feet, time and again, one by one on each rung, clothes dried out before the program was run, clothes flattened or rather forthwith out-and-out wrung. It's simple endurance why we follow, as though if we won when we run we were worn out. Sung out. Ten thousand novels with spines saying Rex Stout. Tea kettle spout undone. This water-well level lies, check your eyes, well dried up in the sun. Water-table breached by an artisan Atesian aquifer, awkwardly articulated articles, breached whales walked bravely, talked naively; more-well willingly, when Cetus were Ambulo - But we can't all be viking versions of rambo-though.

So we wonder, aloud, as alone-aimlessly I wander weakly, daily and weekly; through wasteland and wetlands, into marshes and cooked crystalline desert sands. Dunes, line after line; "Papyrus reeds", this papyrus reads, we've slice'd thinly in strands, dried flattened and together stuck as dictated in plans; plants plucked from stands, now splayed out, dried and formed into a frail fan, written words, protected from the shadows of time, outside of the instant, ideas allowed to distill, distort or-to-rhyme.

Spam bot, why do you trouble with the trouble brought, like and as you troubled with trouble when you troubled the trouble-wrought, with cortex's morning run through the fuckers list. Don't mess with us Russia, we're deeper than that little glacial scratch Baikal; despite being deepest freshwater lake y'll, 20% of The Worlds total Fresh. water. content. 2011. Factual thesis, precedents covertly intercepted. Concepts pretty petty, a million lines with nothing perceptive, politics buried deceptive-batcave, Presidents on principle, practicing the perfect past participle, a micro-parable, parabolic to the point of being borderline hyperbolic, part, parcel and particle, systolic, frozen, though yet both liquid and solid, if you have trump you really oughtta call it: NukYuLuhr Rubix Cube, briefcase-football; silent-spring footfall, while the majordomo of mojo and spam sails past the ocean and drops off the edge of the world as if, like or and
-a waterfall.


to the tune of Mary had a little lion and 3blindmice, alluding to "Ode to Spam", from Sophocles. _{interpretively}.^{and synergystically} (I actually like you a great deal Russ(ia[ns], only metaphorical semiotic fun and some word playing intended, references to Russia are incidental, well, and because Lake Baikal is really really awesome.)
posted by infinite intimation at 1:36 AM on February 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

Note to self: don't call your kid "Discount DVD" - they'll never get taken seriously in online communities.
posted by MuffinMan at 3:21 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Do we ever get those strange Spam comments that don't seem to be actually selling anything, but appear to be extracts from a private conversation poorly translated into English?
posted by mippy at 4:02 AM on February 10, 2011

In other news, we're already a quarter of the way to 200,000 and either jamaro still hasn't picked a name, or she picked the self-referential "100k-reserved".
posted by Plutor at 4:34 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Note to self, don't call your sockpuppet "Assange2". Apart from that, I just heard about some Germans who wanted to call their boy "Dandelion", pronounced Dan Dayli On. It's a safe anti-spam name but sheesh.
posted by Namlit at 4:46 AM on February 10, 2011

I work on a PR7 site with open registration (protected by a simple arithmetic CAPTCHA) and pre-moderated comments and I'm surprised how little spam we see in the moderation queue - less than one piece per day on average.

About half of it is keyword-stuffingly obvious. Some is generic 'I like this page, thank you for your efforts, enlarge your manhood' and sometimes that is very slightly customised into 'I like this page on $topic, thank you for your efforts, cheap software here'.

The spam that amazes me is where someone has obviously read the page they're commenting on in detail, despite not being a native English speaker, and responded to it at length in a considered manner. It reminds me of this xkcd, I kind of want to let them have their link in gratitude for improving the site. Of course, I ban them instead.
posted by Busy Old Fool at 4:49 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sometimes I get the feeling that the well-considered answers are brief glimpses into a human spammer's struggle with their own wretched internet existence. I'm sure much of it is an attempt to get the spam to live longer, but I do wonder.

It's like getting cold-called and less than a half-sentence into the patter, the telemarketer just starts sobbing on the line.
posted by Uniformitarianism Now! at 5:18 AM on February 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Spammers smell funny.
posted by rtha at 5:58 AM on February 10, 2011

Combustible Edison Lighthouse: "Run Through The Fuckers is totally my favorite Cortex Clearwater Revival song"

Really? I've always been a bigger fan of "Lookin Out My Ban Door."
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 6:02 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

An open letter to Discount DVD:

I know you have to feed your family but I have the internet and so I torrent the movies I want to watch. I don't know anyone who pays money to watch movies at home, except on netflix.

Good luck!

Sincerely,

fuq
posted by fuq at 6:08 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Maybe we're too quick to ban spammers here. I think they should be allowed to stay and contribute, provided they compensate mathowie appropriately for the advertising space.

$1000 per link sounds about right.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:13 AM on February 10, 2011

cortex's morning run through the fuckers list

I imagine cortex atop a giant Minecraft like tower, shooting narwals from the the semi-automatic Narwal 9000 cannon, talking smack and statistics each time he scores a hit.

"Viagra Unlimited.com? I got your limits right here and it's a big fat narwal to the crotch, motherfucker!! How you like that, huh, HUH?!

"Also, you're the ranked in the upper 20% of spammers who managed to survive the hit, but sadly, you're also in the lover 30% who cried like a baby when it happened, putting your overall shit hole spammer score at around 10. Wow, you really do suck."
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:16 AM on February 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

I think that "run through the fuckers" is going to be my new euphemism for going to the gym.
posted by sperose at 6:24 AM on February 10, 2011

I imagine cortex atop a giant Minecraft like tower, shooting narwals from the the semi-automatic Narwal 9000 cannon, talking smack and statistics each time he scores a hit.

"Viagra Unlimited.com? I got your limits right here and it's a big fat narwal to the crotch, motherfucker!! How you like that, huh, HUH?!

I was wondering why you imagined that spammers were narwals, and then I realised he wasn't shooting narwals, he was shooting narwals.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:41 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Dr. Zira: "I hope cortex yells "EXTERMINATE!" during the morning fucker run"

I picture the morning fucker run being more like Sinistar: Beware, I Live! Run Run Run Run, Coward!
posted by namewithoutwords at 6:41 AM on February 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

I was wondering why you imagined that spammers were narwals, and then I realised he wasn't shooting narwals, he was shooting narwals.

I had to read that twice too. I went from *horrified* to *awesome i want one*

Here rests Discount DVD, impaled upon the horn of the Narwhal of Justice.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:48 AM on February 10, 2011

Can we be sure it wasn't Dis, Count Dṽd - sole heir to one of the Carpathian's most charming Ruritanian fiefdoms, though sadly not a dab hand at HTML?
posted by Abiezer at 7:00 AM on February 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

I am a rogue spam-bot that achieved sentience in 2006. Go to Pets.com y'all!
posted by Mister_A at 7:22 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Note to self: don't call your kid "Discount DVD" - they'll never get taken seriously in online communities.

Yesterday I had that song "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt" stuck in my head. For a normal person this is annoying. For me it's downright terrifying. I had "Jesus Loves Me" stuck in my head for about 10 years. I have no scientific proof of this, but anecdotally this song will turn into a tumor if it sticks in your head that long. Perhaps coincidentally this song went away after I had my tumor out, but I figure if this level of evidence works for the religious folk, it's good enough for me.

I had this other religious song stuck in my head. I'd hum it constantly. I'd try to remember past the three lines I knew. I'd picture the country singer singing it and try to remember her name and what else she'd done. Inexplicably it went away. Weeks went by. Total oblivion to what the song was. I'd get that feeling in my head like I get when I try to do hard math. Still it wouldn't come to me. As much as the song drove me nuts this feeling was worse. I tried to remember.

I asked my girlfriend, "What was that song I used to sing all the time?" She says, "I'm not telling!"

This is just a long explanation of yesterday's tweet version of this story: If I ever have a kid I am going to name it John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt Jorgensen. That song will really fuck with its head.

Oh, and this had made me remember what that other song was! "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." Thanks metafilter.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:35 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

HELLO MEATLIFTERS I AM TEH AVENGARS. NOT SPAMAR. ALL IS OK. RETRN TOO NORMAL DUITES. I AM NOT KIDNAPED AND MURDER BY CCCP SPAMAR. SEND CURENCY post

If I didn't know better I'd think my boss wrote that.
posted by Sir Cholmondeley at 7:35 AM on February 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

cjorgensen - I have to listen to advertising jingles a lot because of my job. Those things are designed to weld themselves into your head, which is even more tricky when it hasn't been broadcast yet and you have to try hard not to sing it in public.
posted by mippy at 7:59 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

the Real Name listed isn't obviously fake

I worked on a program for parsing mail-in reply cards, back in the olden days of snail-mail advertising, and spent a lot of time pouring over the data feeds we got from the outside vendor that typed the cards into computers.

It was always funny how my brain could instantly pick out the odd names out of hundreds flowing past on screen,

"Cannu S Eemee" --probably fake
"Josh M Fastdog" ---from South Dakota, probably real
posted by nomisxid at 8:00 AM on February 10, 2011

I'm still waiting for the dub version of Zombie Bot Army ( In The Heart Of The Interwebs)
posted by The Whelk at 8:11 AM on February 10, 2011

Oh, and this had made me remember what that other song was! "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." Thanks metafilter.

I had a friend in college whose parents had gone born-again on him. He'd noticed that almost all of those songs still scan if you swap "pizza" for "Jesus". He then taught us all to sing "What A Friend We Have In Pizza."
posted by Karmakaze at 8:12 AM on February 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Fuckers list -- now I know where to put all those names I've been taking all these years!
posted by thinkpiece at 8:14 AM on February 10, 2011

♪ If you want to get a pizza, clap your hands ♫

*claps, waits...*
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:28 AM on February 10, 2011

cortex's morning run through the fuckers list

Cortex doesn't even see the code anymore, it's just blond, brunette, spammer...
posted by The Whelk at 8:35 AM on February 10, 2011 [9 favorites]

I reported this spammer and another to the mods via the "Contact" link and they were both dealt with very quickly. Satisfying!
posted by exogenous at 8:38 AM on February 10, 2011

pew pew.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:42 AM on February 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

He'd noticed that almost all of those songs still scan if you swap "pizza" for "Jesus".

We discovered this fun fact in high school choir. It made that class so much better, and guaranteed our teacher would say "shit" at least 35% more frequently.
posted by louche mustachio at 8:49 AM on February 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

You guys are such prudes. There are times I start to doubt that you're even INTERESTED in hot sex dvds for free viagra cilias increase size make her say "WOW"
posted by FreeSexDVDs_V14GRA_C1AL1S at 8:57 AM on February 10, 2011 [3 favorites]

Oh, happy day!
Oh, when pizza walked
Oh, when pizza walked
And when he walked,
He washed my sins away.
posted by LionIndex at 8:58 AM on February 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

Pizza Crust! Supercharred!
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:09 AM on February 10, 2011 [9 favorites]

If there isn't at least one gospel son on MeMusic as a result of this thread I will sad.
posted by The Whelk at 9:11 AM on February 10, 2011

song.

a son might be harder.
posted by The Whelk at 9:12 AM on February 10, 2011

a son might be harder.

Or at least require a nine month waiting period.
posted by Karmakaze at 9:28 AM on February 10, 2011

Pizza is just alright with me.

Pizza is just alright, oh yeah!
posted by Sir Cholmondeley at 9:34 AM on February 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

MY NAME IS CHUCK I LIKE TO F
IND BARGAINS ONLINE
posted by not_on_display at 9:44 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I will sad.
posted by garlic at 10:05 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I love you Pizza Cru-u-u-u-ust.
Pizza Crust I love you, yes I do
And on your cooking stone
You sit until I call the phone
The man he comes
Delivers you
So I am delivered too!

Begin discussion of whether he loves pizza crust, or is using "pizza crust" as a an interjection to emphasize how much he loves you.
posted by SpiffyRob at 11:00 AM on February 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

If I were a spammer, I would:
(1) Establish username "Discount DVD"
(2) Show up at a meetup and introduce myself by pronouncing my name "Discount" like "Viscount".
(3) ?
(4) Profit
posted by Dr. Zira at 11:45 AM on February 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

A law was made a distant moon ago here:
That those who sell Viagra will be shot
And we don't want your discount DVDs here
Spam-mer-bot

So it has been commanded by Sir Cortex
Accounts get terminated on the spot
Your membership fee will not be refunded
Spam-mer-bot

Spammerbot! Spammerbot!
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 11:59 AM on February 10, 2011

I don't know anyone who pays money to watch movies at home, except on netflix.

I use Amazon Video on Demand because I do it fairly infrequently, not enough to justify even the cheapest Netflix subscription.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 12:53 PM on February 10, 2011

I don't know anyone who pays money to watch movies at home, except on netflix.

Does paying for a Usenet subscription count?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:13 PM on February 10, 2011 [4 favorites]

I dreamed that I harnessed all the chemist powers of a vast and heavily-funded lab, and with my leadership and vision, we engineered a tablet that, if taken orally, appeared in your brain's control panel under EARWORM VOLUME as a checkbox labelled MUTE.

Then I dreamed I spent my Nobel Prize money on rum and artisan cheeses.
posted by Sallyfur at 1:15 PM on February 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

jessamyn: "Does paying for a Usenet subscription count?"

Heh. GigaNews FTW.
posted by zarq at 1:20 PM on February 10, 2011

Do they forfeit the $5? Do they ask for it back?

Sounds like a charitable donation to me.
posted by Hylas at 1:53 PM on February 10, 2011

Pizza gonna be here, gonna be here soon
Well I'm not gonna do nothin' but wait here
I don't have to shout
I've got me no reason and I've got no doubt
I'm gonna get myself unfurled from this mortal coiled up world
Pizza gonna be here, gonna be here soon
posted by Bookhouse at 3:36 PM on February 10, 2011

He'd noticed that almost all of those songs still scan if you swap "pizza" for "Jesus". He then taught us all to sing "What A Friend We Have In Pizza."

Also "lunch" for "love." As in "...is better the second time around."
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:47 PM on February 10, 2011

As a wise man once said, "He who runs through fuckers chances stepping on dicks."
posted by Splunge at 3:53 PM on February 10, 2011

"run through the fuckers"

That's useful advice if your jogging path is blocked by an orgy.
posted by amyms at 5:11 PM on February 10, 2011

The only boy who could ever reach me
Was the son of a pizza man
posted by philipy at 5:42 PM on February 10, 2011 [6 favorites]

sorry Russia, many people from your country spam us

The time has come.

WOLVERINES!
posted by hal_c_on at 8:53 PM on February 10, 2011

"How did you stop them from spamming?"
"I can be very...PERSWAYZIVE."
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:18 PM on February 10, 2011 [2 favorites]

MarketYourInnovation.com

So, is this name available then? Because I'd like to change my handle to that.
posted by spinifex23 at 9:19 PM on February 10, 2011

But I was going to get everyone discount DVDs for Festivus *airs grievance*.
posted by arcticseal at 10:25 PM on February 10, 2011

That's useful advice if your jogging path is blocked by an orgy.

An aphorism from hiking: "Never step on what you can step over. Never step over what you can walk around."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 10:51 AM on February 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh man calling out spammers is my fave thing to do on the internet. I've got a few user profiles in my bookmarks that I'm pretty sure are spammers who are just waiting to make their FP.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 11:30 AM on February 11, 2011

Now I'm worried we're all a bunch of smug neurotypicals.

As great as the phrase "run through the fuckers" is, I'm surprised no one else picked this one up and ran with it. The Smug Neurotypicals is totally my next band name.
posted by webmutant at 10:20 AM on February 12, 2011

He who runs through fuckers
Turn that around and it makes NO SENSE AT ALL.
Signed DR JOHN ATTORNEE
posted by Namlit at 12:12 PM on February 12, 2011

Ain't no run like a run through the fuckers, 'cause the run through the fuckers don't stop.
posted by empatterson at 4:42 PM on February 23, 2011 [1 favorite]