my least favorite kind of spam is that which shows up with no subject, no date or time, no recipient except for your bare email address, and no sender.

where does this spam come from? is it a hiccup in an autospammer in which the thing forgets to fill anything in?

the reason I hate this spam is that it is perhaps the least gratifying mail message one can get. you get no bizarre subject, for instance, which although I know the subjects never go with the body in spam, I normally peruse with interest, often opening those messages with the most randomly meaningful subject headings, hoping to see something equally absurd and sublime inside and although that never ever happens at least I get to hope it will.

I almost always open the blank ones. I don't know why. it seems to me though that a plain wrapper ought to contain something so I always look to see what it is and it is always nothing. this makes them also the most disappointing of spam. not that spam message bodies are particularly exciting, but it is always at least a question of what variety of spam you are getting before you open it. with the blank ones there's never any question. it's going to be blank. still I open it. still it's blank.

I sigh.

it's not even the empty signifier which connotes lack and enflames nostalgic longing. it's no signifier at all. it is lack in the place of the signifier which in an odd way should make me happy about the return of the negative to contest the positive but it does not. I don't find blank spam revolutionary although I suppose it could be or at least subversive.

perhaps I will start forwarding my blank spam to you, my friends. I'm not certain what purpose this could serve, but it strikes me as the zen thing to do. which could be the very reason why.