trivial question on the etymology of "Spam": Did it originate at a Pern hatching?

September 8, 2008 12:08 PM

trivial question on the etymology of "Spam": Did it originate at a Pern hatching?

10-odd years ago I was browsing the web and came across a story of the origins of the term "spam". It stated that there was a MUD where the participants were having a "Pern hatching"*. The story went that someone stumbled upon the MUD/hatching and kept bugging them about what was going on and being a general pain, he would get booted off but would return a post a wall of SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM. Afterwards all the MUDders referred to "the guy who spammed us".

Googling turns up nothing and all the stories of the origin of Spam talk about the incident in very vague terms. It's a stupid piece of trivia but would still like to know if "spam" came from a Pern hatching, and would also like to know exactly what a "Pern hatching" in a MUD entails.

posted by Challahtronix to writing & language (8 comments total)

Wikipedia on the topic and a link to the citation used for the sentence In the 1980s the term was adopted to describe certain abusive users who frequented BBSs and MUDs, who would repeat "SPAM" a huge number of times to scroll other users' text off the screen.
posted by furtive at 12:17 PM on September 8, 2008

furtive is largely correct. Pern is the setting of a series of science-fiction novels. Telepathic dragons are involved, and a "hatching" refers to the social event surrounding the birth of a new batch of dragons, where the new hatchlings bond with nearby humans. The reason that the term "Pern hatching" has come to be associated with spam is that one of the aforementioned MUDs which received one of the earliest examples of spamming--a bunch of yahoos interrupting a role-playing session with a Monty Python sketch--was a Pern-themed community playing out one such "hatching."
posted by valkyryn at 12:23 PM on September 8, 2008

Thanks for the answers, Wikipedia vaguely supports what I had heard but nothing specific about the original incident being a pern hatching. I take it that the "hatching" is a text-based telling of a story about a dragon birth and bonding and is basically like an RPG?
posted by Challahtronix at 12:58 PM on September 8, 2008

The MUSH (not MUD, but from this distance probably hard to tell the difference) in question is TinyTIM. That link ought to provide you with enough of a jumping off point to figure out the rest of the answer to your question.

As far as I know, the TIMmers thought that this incident is probably responsible for the current usage of the term "spam," but I don't believe they feel sure of it. The obnoxious guy, incidentally, thought he was being funny, recalling the Monty Python "spam" sketch.

I was "at" that hatching. Long time ago.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:24 PM on September 8, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I take it that the "hatching" is a text-based telling of a story about a dragon birth and bonding and is basically like an RPG?

TIM is text-based, yes, but the objects in the world have a programming language and can be coded to behave in extremely elaborate ways, largely to manipulate other objects and output text onto user's screens. There are objects in TIM that have tens of thousands of programmer hours put into them. People use these objects to role play, yes, and there are game aspects too.
posted by ikkyu2 at 1:28 PM on September 8, 2008

Uh, wow. I was at that hatching too, or one very much like it. I have the memory that the term "spammer" came from that event, but I've never been able to substantiate it. I do recall using the term in response to a usenet posting from Canter and Siegel (the "green card lottery" spam) just after they started.

Small world.
posted by 5MeoCMP at 5:02 PM on September 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

And the Monty Python Flying Circus sketch is on youtube here

basically everyone repeats spam a lot... which is a lot funnier than it sounds....
posted by nielm at 12:29 AM on September 9, 2008

And, I don't believe it, but Hormel Foods (TM) have a SPAM(TM) website, which successfully parodies it's own product....

And there is a Book of SPAM...
posted by nielm at 12:39 AM on September 9, 2008