Junk email got its name from a noisy Monty Python comedy sketch

Unsolicited junk email was not named directly after the canned luncheon meat, but after a 1970 Monty Python comedy sketch. In the skit, a chorus of Vikings repeatedly chants the word "Spam" with rising volume until it drowns out all other conversation in a diner. Early 1990s Usenet and MUD gamers adopted the term to describe flooding chat channels and message boards with repetitive text, an origin officially documented in internet networking standards.

Sources

• RFC 2635: DON'T SPEW - A Set of Guidelines for Mass Unsolicited Mailings and Postingsrfc-editor.org ↗
• SpammingWikipedia ↗