the president doesn't get a funny hat.

[faceless_wonder]

i've been getting AIM spam from screen names with "Salmon" or "Trout" in them for months. some of them are boring. some of them are weird. this one is just historically inaccurate:

OutOfSyncTrout: Pope Pius XII was a great President, don't you agree?

>.>

Comments

[cashbox.livejournal.com]

all is revealed here, sort of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheGreatHatsby

[faceless-wonder.livejournal.com]

yeah, i assumed it was something like hatting. i was hatted a few times back in the day...although it was with far less frequency, and the "old bean" line was far more charming than the random stuff that these trout/salmon/whatever bots are giving me.

[c4bl3fl4m3.livejournal.com]

Dude, I kept getting IMs from someone with the name Salmon in it that said that I had IMed them and said hi first. And I replied, and it was an ACTUAL person on the other end, talking back to me, noticeably pissed. Eventually I just blocked them.

It was WEIRD.

[c4bl3fl4m3.livejournal.com]

I just got one now:
(8:09:25 PM) WiredTrout: Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

I don't get how/why this happens? I mean, the point of spam is to have a website or to sell something... this makes no sense. There's no selling something at all.

I'm so terribly tempted to answer this one with "I think so, Brain, but burlap chafes me so."

[faceless-wonder.livejournal.com]

i think it has the same purpose as the hatting thing from a few years ago...basically, someone thinking it's really funny to cull AIM names off the internet and get two very confused random people talking to each other. i know the AIM names from hatting were taken from LJ; i don't know where they got the names from on these Trout or Salmon names.

[c4bl3fl4m3.livejournal.com]

See, I wouldn't have a problem with it if you had to sign up to be on their list. But you don't. And therefore it's unwanted and very confusing for some people. I think that they should only have people who sign up or they should have some kind of "Want to know what's going on? Click here for the Project" kind of link that comes with the initial IM.

I mean, I was going to reply tonight, but I was worried about the person sitting on the other end, the confused, scared person that might be there, and how they probably feel. I couldn't think of a way to explain it to them quickly enough in the first reply to put their fears at ease and to get them to play along.

[faceless-wonder.livejournal.com]

i completely agree. i replied the first time i got hatted, several years ago, and the other person was extremely confused--and extremely annoyed at me. i replied to the first of those Salmon IMs too, not knowing that it was a repeat of hatting...i asked how they got my AIM name, and things got more and more confused from there. i haven't replied to one of those things since...and i've been getting them at the rate of at least one every day or two for a while. [at least the hatting came far more infrequently--i think i've only been hatted maybe three times, ever.]

a list would make it far better, though. i'd probably sign up out of curiosity, and respond. yes, there would be less confusion, but maybe there'd be some interesting conversations out of it.

[c4bl3fl4m3.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I really think that w/o a list, this project should be reported to AOL and banned and this kind of bot should be banned unless it only sticks to the list.

I've been hit up about 3 or 4 times ever. I never got hatted, but I got Salmoned about 3 or 4 times, and tonight I got Trouted for the first time.

(And on an aside, oh, the joys of verbing nouns. :-D)

[faceless-wonder.livejournal.com]

hooray for verbing nouns! they may not be "actual words" according to Webster's Dictionary, but i can't object with something that allows fewer words to make a point more clearly.