I've always known that spammers are big losers. But I've been surprised and a bit offended to learn recently that spammers apparently think that blog readers are big losers as well.
Let me explain. I screen all blog comments to weed out all the spam; and lately I've been detecting a pattern. Here are some samples of the kind of comments that the spammers have been leaving:
I've just been hanging out not getting anything done. What can I say? I've basically been doing nothing worth mentioning, but pfft. Not that it matters. Pretty much nothing exciting happening to speak of. I haven't been up to much these days.I can't be bothered with anything these days, but such is life. I don't care. So it goes. More or less nothing seems worth thinking about. I've just been hanging out waiting for something to happen, but that's how it is.
Basically nothing noteworthy happening right now, but eh. Today was a complete loss. I haven't been up to much recently. I've pretty much been doing nothing worth mentioning.
There are scores and scores more spam posts like this, linking to various weird things that I will not mention. But the question is, why are the spammers trying this strategy? I've thought about it, and I can only conclude that they think they are capturing the state of mind of blog readers, who will then be inclined to follow the spam links--right?
Please feel free to offer any other theories you may have to explain the glut of loser spam. And also feel free, in the comments, to defend yourself against the implication that blog readers are boring and have nothing to do but "pfft"--whatever that means....
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I am not an expert, BUT IMO, this is an attempt to defeat spam-blocking software, and try to actually wind up in your "In-Box" rather than your "Junk Mail" folder.
They're not trying to get humans to follow the links. They're trying to get search engine spiders to, thus boosting the search engine rankings of the sites to which they link. The weird zeitgeist language is just an attempt to fool the automated comment spam blockers.
Maximum genetic diversity. Spawn huge numbers, the ones that survive best [produce response] get increased next mail-out.
This is a technique from mail-order but it was limited there by printing and mailing costs to a few variations each mailing. That's the reason for the two numbers in the pink and yellow boxes on the back of the catalog. You're always asked for these when ordering from a catalog by phone. They're also on any printed order forms.
Mail-order tracks this stuff very precisely. Usually, mutliple versions of catalogs are sent out to gather experimental data. It's similar to national magazines which, if they have a distribution system that allows, will sometimes send different covers to different parts of the country just to gather data.
There's one thing that always boosts newstand sales for a magazine, tested over and over. Put red on the cover.
Wanna bet there's a sub-category. Some wobegone writers cranking out reams of variations of spam come-ons. A moment of silence for these guys trapped in a living hell.
Those read an awful lot like the output of the apathetic blog entry generator that was on Brunching Shuttlecocks back in the day.