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FrankenSpam: A Story of Love and Marketing Ignorance

by: Donna Monday

In a remote corner of Transylvania, in a large and gloomy dark castle, there lived a lonely creature.

This creature lived alone and was not of ordinary human origins. He had been created by Dr. FrankenSpam, a mad webmaster who’d foolishly thought he could create the perfect human marketing machine. However, the experiment failed when it was discovered that the creature had no aptitude for using the Internet.

His dream of making millions from email marketing shattered, Dr. FrankenSpam accepted a teaching position at the University of California at Berkeley and abandoned his castle and his creation.

The creature languished on in solitary exile, afraid to show it’s face at the local village. His scary appearance frightened anyone who happened to catch a glimpse. Everyone that is, except a bright young woman touring Transylvania on vacation.

Several locals had told her about the strange creature who lived in a castle.
One day, she decided to investigate for herself. The woman, whose name is Karen Cash, gets directions to the castle and heads out.

By the time Karen arrives at the castle it’s nearly dark, which gives the place a spooky air. Undaunted, Karen boldly climbs the huge steps and rings the doorbell. Much to her surprise, the creature answers the door and gives her a lopsided smile.

“How do you do? I’m Karen Cash,” she said.

The creature grunts out his name.

“FrankenSpam. Good to meet you.”

The creature lets Karen in, which is the beginning of a beautiful and strange friendship.

One day while visiting with the creature (who she calls Frankie), he shows her a large book containing notes written by his creator, Dr. FrankenSpam. The notes detail FrankenSpam’s plan to use the creature’s large brain and nimble fingers to create a non-stop super Internet spammer.

The creature was capable of sending out thousands of spam messages a day and could quickly dominate the Internet marketing world—generating millions of dollars. That is, if he could somehow be taught to fall in love with surfing and working on the Net.

Karen Cash knew she had stumbled onto a potential gold mine for herself and immediately started scheming a way to get Frankie to do her bidding and start spamming for dollars. This proved to be easier than she thought, since Frankie had fallen in love with her.

In FrankenSpam’s lab, Karen sat Frankie down in front of the high-speed computer system and began teaching him how to set up free email accounts and write fast-buck marketing copy.

Soon, Frankie became a real pro at surfing the net and signing up for countless affiliate programs to promote. By sweet talking the creature, Karen got Frankie to quickly learn how to tap into his natural spamming abilities.

Almost overnight, Frankie became an enthusiastic spammer. He sat at the computer day and night utilizing sophisticated spamming software that sent out thousands of spam messages to unsuspecting email addresses.

He intuitively knew how to use autoresponders to avoid the angry flame messages. Frankie was happy. This is what he had been created for! Finally, Frankie felt he had a true purpose in life, and a true friend in Karen.

A whole month went by and Karen’s plan seemed to be working perfectly.
However, one day when she checked her online bank account, she was astonished to find that all she’d made was a few thousand dollars.

What happened to the millions?

Karen studied her affiliate stats. Although Frankie’s spam was blanketing the entire Web, they were only signing up 1 out of every 10,000!

Dr. FrankenSpam’s plan was a complete failure. There were no riches to be made from email spamming. Plus, it made a lot of people very angry. Spam cops were always on their tail trying to shut them down.

Karen broke the news to Frankie, but he didn’t understand. This is what he was created to do. How could it not be good?

When Frankie woke up the next morning, Karen was gone. She left him a note saying she was going home to write a book about her travels, and they’d never see each other again.

Heartbroken, Frankie sat down at the computer and stared at the screen.
He didn’t feel like spamming anymore—not with Karen gone. What would he do with his life now?

Frankie aimlessly surfed the Internet until he came across a web site that caught his attention. A place where he could make new friends regardless of what he looked like. Frankie signed up.

That was the best decision he ever made.

Frankie discovered online dating and met a woman named Peggy. Peggy moved to Transylvania where they got married, sold Transylvania trinkets from their web site, and lived happily ever after.

Oh. And by the way,

Frankie FrankenSpam never spammed anyone ever again.

THE END

About the author:
Donna Monday
Copyright 2005
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