The first Usenet 'spam' was a bug
Did you know the first post called 'spam' was a bug?
· 28-sec read
The word comes from Monty Python's 1970 sketch in which Vikings drown out a conversation by chanting "Spam". MUD players were using 'spamming' for flooding a chat or system by the late 1980s. On March 31, 1993, a bug in Richard Depew's ARMM moderation software posted about 200 messages in a row to news.admin.policy, and Joel Furr called it spam. The 1994 Canter & Siegel 'Green Card' ad made the word famous.
Popular version vs. what really happened
Popular version
Popular version: the 1994 Green Card ad was the first spam.
What really happened
Reality: it made the word famous; the term was already in use on MUDs and on Usenet in 1993.
Why it matters
The first Usenet flood to be called spam was automation with no rate limit, so put a cap on your bots.
Sources
Medium confidenceChecked October 20, 2026.
- Origin of the term 'spam' to mean net abuse (Brad Templeton) templetons.com
- spam (Wordorigins.org) wordorigins.org