Spam.

It's the catch-all name for unwanted messages you receive online, and everyone hates it. And while it has become easier to avoid spam thanks to things like advanced email filters, junk messages continue to fill up comment sections, email inboxes, and Facebook chats across the world.

In fact, did you know that even if you keep your own inbox clear of spam, you could be spamming your email contacts without even knowing it?

But where did the term "spam" come from?

You can thank a certain Monty Python sketch in which a couple enters a café and can't find anything on the breakfast menu that doesn't include Spam (the canned lunch meat).

The skit, which you can watch below, was meant as a humorous look at the widespread availability of Spam in the U.K. and the U.S. during and after World War II. As it became synonymous with cheap, bland food, everyone soon grew sick of seeing it and eating it.

To really hit this point home, the characters utter the word "spam" a ridiculous amount of times:

Fast-forward to the early days of Internet chat rooms: people would type "spam" dozens of times, quote the above sketch, draw stupid ASCII art, and otherwise type large amounts of meaningless text to drive other people out of said chat rooms.

Like the food, this kind of spam also ended up everywhere and hard to avoid, thus giving birth to the term we all know and love today. Combine that with the use of email as a cheap mass-marketing tactic and the rest is history.

How do you deal with spam? Let us know your thoughts on email spam (or canned Spam) in the comments!

Image Credit: TijanaM via Shutterstock.com