Cats and Trails and Garden Tales
Musings on cats, travel, gardens and life
Creative Spammers
Like you, I receive dozens of spammy comments on my blog posts daily, and most of the time WordPress classifies them so.
It’s giving this Spam a bad name! I found these at the Aloha Bowl Swap Meet in Oahu. Hawaiians love their spam, though I do not. π
Anyway, my job is to watch out for the other spam, comments flagged such by WordPress. I like to review the comments in case legitimate ones have been wrongly captured – it happens, though as the spammy comments grow in number, I’m starting to send them directly to trash.
But lately there’s been a new twist. I’ve had comments classified as spam, but they also generate an email, telling me there’s a new comment awaiting my approval. (I require all first-time comments are moderated. Good thing, huh?)
I had one like that today. I saw the email before I looked at my blog and the comment sounded reasonable, one I might have written myself. Turns out I did. I headed to my blog and found the same comment in my spam folder, and as the comment sounded familiar, I went to the post, and confirmed it was an exact copy of a comment I had made. Sneaky, huh?
Apparently, WordPress was conflicted, so it generated an email to me, as though it were legitimate, but also captured it as spam finding it suspicious, for other reasons.
I still don’t know what drives spammers to such lengths. Don’t they have a life? Couldn’t their technical knowhow be put to better use?
Confusing as a piece of modern art!
Like this legitimate picture from the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.
~ Susanne
Cats and Trails and Garden Tales 
Well, art is clearly in the eye of the viewer, right? As for Spam, I have cooked with it and that’s all anyone needs to know! As for spam, I have shared stories in the past of the most colorful spam note and the newest wrinkle for me is that I get many with inspirational messages – so why are they spam? Because the came from RV repair!
I know you have braved cooking with SPAM and I applaud you for that! π I gave it a try myself and didn’t really care for it. As far as the spam comments go, yes!, 90% of them now come from RV Repair! What’s up with that??
Yes!!! RV Repair here in France too!!! ππ
It’s a small world indeed! π π
Ha true! I also keep getting things about a product called ‘amazing’ but I have no idea what that is! π
That’s amazing! π π
My (late) dad loved spam, he had a spam sandwich for lunch every day when I was a kid. With both French’s mustard AND Heinz 57! Sorry you have to deal with the other kind of spam and hope it’s at least of the relatively harmless variety. I made the decision against blogging because there’s so much spam of the other kind. Your photos are gorgeous, and your commenters are a lovely and like-minded community. It is sad you are targeted with spam but it’s wonderful that you have a sense of humor about it. Loved the “spam art” too!
Thanks so much for your comment! I’m happy to hear of people who enjoy real SPAM. π The other kind is annoying and mostly handled well by WordPress.
I also got three comments directly using replies I had made to other comments. I suspect that AI is getting better! π I Spammed them all of course.
As for actual Spam, I really like it. It is nice in a sandwich, and my mum used to fry it in batter as a fritter when I was a schoolboy. Back then, it was an exceptionally cheap food, but now a tin of Spam in the UK is surprisingly expensive! (Almost $4 US)
Best wishes, Pete.
I guess copying legitimate comments is the latest thing! At least WordPress recognized the source as spammy, though it also sent me the email as if it was legitimate. And I’m glad to hear you like the real SPAM. I bought an interesting flavor when I was in Hawaii and came home and fried it up with an egg. I wanted to like it, but just couldn’t!
Man, do not click those links! You may get a virus on your computer. I don’t get many spam comments at all but would eat spam if it didn’t have 2 million milligrams of sodium!
I definitely do not click on links from unknown sources; or even links on messages or emails that purport to be from someone I know, but still look suspicious. That’s the beauty of WP, isolating spam comments into a separate spam folder. The other kind of SPAM looks inviting but is indeed salty, so maybe it’s fortunate I don’t like it! π
I have chronic high blood pressure so that stuff is off of the menu!
On Spam, whenever I hear the (food) Spam mentioned, (although I kind of hate to admit it) I always think of a Monty Python clip I saw as a teenager where they were singing βSpam, spam, spam, spamβ and then I think it went βSpam, wonderful Spam!β But as far as blogging, I donβt get many spam comments but I get what I think are spam followers. It will say I have a new follower so I click to see who they are, and it will be a blog thatβs only trying to sell you things, or is about something so random that I feel they canβt possibly be interested in my content. Also I think Iβm getting some spam βlikesβ from similar sites. Iβm guessing they want you to click on their site and try to βspamβ you further.
Heehee. Spam, spam, scam, scam! ππ I get a lot of spam comments and a lot of scam phone calls. Fortunately they are usually caught and don’t do any damage. And I too have gotten spam followers and I remove them from following me. The spammy comment ‘likes’ are annoying and more difficult (impossible?) to deal with. Comes with using the technology, I guess.
True!
I noticed that a local sushi shop now offers Spam sushi. I thought it was a joke at first.
Spam seems to be a thing, some folks really enjoy it, but it’s not for me. But then I don’t like sushi either!
First, I made a turkey pot pie using turkey spam on Sunday. It was delicious! but most of the other Spam flavors don’t thrill me. As for the spammers – it amazes me that they are trying so hard to get people to visit their websites. It would seem a waste of time. I’m sure they are savvy enough to figure out a target audience and focus on them instead of using the “scatter shot” approach…
Interesting about the turkey pot pie with Spam. I’m glad you enjoyed it! π I don’t get what the other spam is trying to accomplish, either. π€·
I used to get a lot of spam comments, but it’s greatly reduced since I closed comments after 30 days. As for Spam, I’d lived here in Hawaii for almost 10 years before I tried it again (bad school memories!). Had it in Spam fried rice and it was pretty good.
That’s a great tip, Graham! π I’m going to try that, since most of the spam comments show up on older posts. Maybe the other SPAM wouldn’t be bad in small bites. I think I’d try it in fried rice, too.
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