What is the oldest spam ad in the world?

ByStefano Brivio

"spam"Messages sent indiscriminately and massively ignoring the intention of the recipient at all," unsolicited e-mail "that is mainly used for advertisement by e-mail is the representative. If we define unilateral advertising activities for an unspecified number of people as spam, the history of spam is old and its origin seems to date back to medieval Europe.

Medieval Spam: The Oldest Advertisements for Books | medievalbooks
http://medievalbooks.nl/2014/12/05/medieval-spam-the-oldest-advertisements-for-books/

From the 13th century to the 15th century, the literacy rate rose in Europe and the number of people who read books rose sharply. Demand for books has increased with the rapid increase in reading population, "texts" took over the task of creating books from Christian monks who replicate the Bible began to appear. In the 15th centuryGutenbergUntil inventing letterpress printing technology, all books are handwritten, it is necessary to accurately copy one letter of one letter to increase the number of books such as the Bible, without misspellings or omissions, In addition to being able to write not only high knowledge but also very high reward was promised.


Competition among craftsmen will gradually begin to intensify as craftworkers who copy books and bibles to meet vigorous demand increases. From the beginning of the 13th century I have shown that it is superior to my neighbor rival craftworkers and I am beginning to realize that I will win the competition. It seems that efforts to overcome rivals have accumulated, such as appealing that it is superior to other craftworkers by elegantly using ten kinds of different scripts (cursive writing body).


However, among the craftsmen who appeal to customers by showing the high level of their abilities in the work of the book itself, craftsmen who write straightforward "propaganda complaints" will appear. On the last page of the book "If you like this beautifully written book or you know someone who likes it, please do visit me in ○ ○ ○ street of Paris" potentially "Advertisement" was inserted, such as adding words to appeal to customers. This is the world's first spam advertisement born in medieval Europe.


The spam advertisement that brings advertising complaints to prospective customers who have appeared in medieval Europe as well is something pre-squeezed targeted customers, "If you like this Old Testament, I will do it for you You can also make a new translation Bible ". Various patterns have appeared up to things that appeal to the collection. The prototype of the iTunes guru singing "Complete my album" (to complete the album collection) has already appeared at this point.

After that, spam advertisement has developed into credit card large flyers and leaflets, and at last it is transforming into a form of massive, indiscriminate mail in the modern age of the Internet. However, compared to being able to call a medieval European spam advertisement handwritten in one letter in one hand as a certain kind of "work" competing for the "arms" that took time and effort, Contemporary spam advertisements that are spoofed by the number of guns wrestling "method are unfriendly and shallow, so it may be unavoidable to feel that it is disturbing and cumbersome.