Spammers get philosophical

Usually, when I go through my comment spam logs on Wordpress, I skim through, see lots of links to sex sites, penis enlargement products, and credit card debt consolidation services, and quickly press the “Delete All” button to get rid of the offending comments. Today, however, I was a bit taken aback by what I found.

Instead of the usual comment with four links saying “I like this site” or something mundane like that, I found that all my spam comments didn’t contain any links and they all had these little nuggets of wisdom in them. I almost felt bad deleting them. Of course, then I realized that I was admiring spam and immediately got my head together and deleted them all, but not before copying and pasting some of the comments into this post.

So here you are, a selection (only six of about 350 this week) of spam comments that got me thinking. Yes, I know they’re just famous quotes that have been stolen by the spammers without attribution, but hey, you can’t fault them for trying to be clever:

• There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. (Quote by Albert Einstein.)
• I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low And the stars are shining bright. (Quote by Percy Bysshe Shelley.)
• But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade, and to do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard. (Quote by John F. Kennedy.)
• Was she so loved because her eyes were so beautiful or were her eyes so beautiful because she was loved? (Quote by Anzia Yezierska.)
• Whether outwardly or inwardly, whether in space or time, the farther we penetrate the unknown, the vaster and more marvelous it becomes. (Quote by Charles Lindbergh.)
• I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary. Whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. (Quote by Isaac Newton.)

Sometimes, even comment spam can be enlightening. But most of time, it’s just annoying. If you aren’t using it yet, get the Akismet plugin for Wordpress, it is by far the best spam protection you can get for your weblog.