Saturday, January 2, 2010

ſpam ſpam ſpam

Gutenberg's movable-type printing press was no exception to the general rule that any new medium of communication is soon adopted for the purpose of publishing porn.

It is not so well-known that spammers canny entrepreneurs were next to grasp the potential of the new medium for advertising their product, and the synergy from the untraceable cross-border money-transfer facility provided by the Fugger banking family. Anyone foolish enough to divulge personal details in order to receive the promised free subscription to Aretino's Loveſ of þe Godſ found his or her inbox clogged with offers of dodgy hair-regrowth concoctions with unexpected side-effects,inflatable heifer-skin sex dolls
and vibrators feminine massagers [Iſ ȝour man working too hard at þe office or ſpending all hiſ time wið þe boyſ?].Because Riddled is all about good taste and decorum we will not reproduce any of the contemporary fliers for mandrake extract [Doeſ ſhe laugh at ȝour little red rooſter and take recourſe to her feminine maſſager inſtead?]; instead, here's a money-back guaranteed nostrum for stopping your pet lion from throwing up snakes. Evidently this was a widespread anxiety of the period.

Assuming that spammers are accurate observers of their environment and are governed by the efficient market, it follows that spam at any time is a snapshot of the prevalent cultural insecurities of the moment; this is why my inbox is clogged with offers for cut-price sheep drench, homeopathic grass-grub control, and bigger trebuchets.

15 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

A quick check of my inbox reveals "are you missing out on your military benefits", "get a safe career in the Medical Field", and COPS are so in Demand that...".

Also, "I need you as my foreign partner" and "Urgent Transfer".
~

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

whatever that guy is brewing, it's STRONG. Just the fumes are making him see the Sun and the Moon just outside his window.

He must be an ancestral Bronner. Dilute! Dilute!

mikey said...

Hmm. 2 heads, 1 wang. That's gotta result in some hilarious moments.

Spam hell - I see a sitcom!

Smut Clyde said...

whatever that guy is brewing, it's STRONG.

Brewing teh ergot beer? I thought that his bee-hive was on fire. Probably the bees had been imbibing at those weird flowers on the bench, got stoned and rose up against their aristocratic overlords.

Hamish Mack said...

The bees have mead their own beer and are at the "Hold ma beer, I can jump over the BBQ", stage. The lion is worried sick about them, the man thinks it's pretty cool.
The lady with the personal massager does seem conflicted as she tries to comfort the bloke wiv the snake stick in his leg.
The first picture actually illustrates the dilemma of being a naturalist and seeing a maritime accident about to occur but having no means to signal. Then when ones hair is ablaze a sheet appears from bloody nowhere and makes you look like a fool. Typical!

Hamish Mack said...

Also the empty heifer shows the scientists of Olympus coming to terms with the fact that their Wonda-Flush internal drenching system is a failure. Soon after this picture was taken there was an unseemly scuffle.

mikey said...

And the feral baby, being a baby after all, doesn't understand that the personal massager is intended for other uses, and is trying to use it to work out a kink in his neck.

Give the little bugger a couple years and he'll have it in his arse, he will...

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Hey! That guy doing the brewing is Buck Dharma!! Has to be, you can see the BOC symbol, at least a variant of it, hanging right between the weird flowers.

Which would make that thing he's holding onto a Hohner G3T.

But that overgrown kitty better NOT be eating one of Godzilla's relatives....

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

Doeſ ſhe laugh at ȝour little red rooſter

Can'ticleer?

ckc (not kc) said...

...on further investigation (I'm really bored) - why does Mercury offer us a plumber's crack? [this is in the nature of a rhetorical question]

tigris said...

No wonder that lady can't keep her tub top up, her bubbies are just below her clavicle.

tigris said...

Goddamn spiders ate my 'e'!

M. Bouffant said...

Two heads, one wang, one (lady-style) wazoo!

And I did not save that lion from the gummint's animal genocide center to have him heaving up the snakes he's s'posed to be catching on the floor of the workshop. If I let the spiders around here get away w/ that sort of thing I'd be ankle deep in insects.

Smut Clyde said...

Goddamn spiders ate my 'e'!

I haven't heard that excuse for years.

Lawnguylander said...

Close examination reveals that in the upper left corner there is a bloke passed out on the side of the hill there. My theory is that he was trying to find his way home after a piss-up but gave up and found a nice craggy spot to sleep it off instead. I would be more worried about his safety if he had not had the foresight to wedge his neck under that large protruding root so that he could sleep more securely. Let your eye(s) wander a little to the right and down the hill just a bit and you'll see that another local appears to have been sent out to look for him by their angry wives but he has become distracted by the fucked up scene below. What he can't see from his vantage point is that two headed guy's penis is not a penis but a baby's face. Also it is decidedly off center and to its left is a vagina. Winged hat dude also has a vagina. Right where you would expect his belly button to be so he is probably being restrained by the lady from trying to take the feral baby's sex toy/shaving brush for his own masturbatory/grooming needs.