Spamusement Pop Quiz!
toomanybees.com/spam-quizA lot of people my age cut their teeth on web development through Neopets. For me, the first software I wrote outside of a school setting was a quiz based on Spamusement! fan comics.
From 2004 to 2007, Steven Frank created Spamusement! which he accurately described as "Poorly-drawn cartoons inspired by actual spam subject lines!"
A lively fan following grew on its forums, the central focus being the Spamuser Comics section, where members drew their own art to email subject lines that landed in their inboxes. (For the young'uns reading this, there was a time when email spam was truly surreal, rather than bland hyper-targeted product offers.)
After a few years, the Spamusers forums contained quite the body of work, and for fun I made a quiz to test forum regulars' spam-instincts. It was monstrously bad, as first attempts at web dev usually are, and it still has a special place in my heart.
The Spamusers fan comics collection has been decimated in the decade(s) following its heyday, by purges from the likes of ImageShack, policy changes to Photobucket, etc. I wish I could have saved more comics before they were lost, but I'm glad I could keep this little slice of internet art safe and sound.
Love you guys. 💛
- The quiz: Spamusement Pop Quiz! @ toomanybees
- Original quiz circa May 2010: Spamusement Pop Quiz! @ Spamusers
- Spamusement! by Steven Frank
- Spamusers fan forums