So, Slate–my favorite website on the entire internet–has given the Blargus a shout out! Since before the Columbia Spectator caught on yesterday we were the only site on the web covering the wegame.com spam sensation, Slate tech reporter Chris Wilson contacted us yesterday to ask a few questions about how we were absent-minded enough to give some random site our gmail passwords. Today, my co-editor Gianna Palmer got a shout-out in Wilson’s article, “Your Gullible Friend Has Sent You a Photo!”

I have a feeling most of the victims of the WeGame e-mails were more absent-minded than gullible. We decide we’re going to register for some new site and then go into autopilot, typing in whatever we’re asked for in the fields. After all, we’ve done it a thousand times before without incident. (One victim at Wesleyan claims to have been on the phone while absently clicking through the motions and ended up infecting her best friend’s mother.)

Apparently, our breathless and excessive coverage of the wegame spam wasn’t entirely pointless, either. Wilson says that wegame is a new type of more believable spam–a “new breed,” in fact.

I can’t remember the last time I saw any piece of old-school spam that looked believable. The spelling and grammar are often hopelessly mangled, and we’ve all learned not to open weird attachments or send strangers our bank account information. But notes like the one from WeGame are a new breed. Because we are so accustomed to interacting with friends over social networking sites, getting an e-mail about a photo link doesn’t seem strange. Sites that pose as social networks are the new spammers, and they’re a lot harder to sniff out than the traditional penis enlargement and fake Rolex watch crowd.

So I guess Wilson thinks we’re not even that stupid for falling for it, either! This is why I love Slate: they always make me feel smart.

Yay!

More: http://www.slate.com/id/2229299/

About Ezra Silk

I have been interested in journalism ever since I was an editor at my high school student newspaper, where I was involved in a freedom of speech controversy that was covered in the local newspaper as well as local television and radio outlets. The ACLU became involved, and the ensuing negotiations lead to a liberalization of my school's freedom of expression policy. I worked as a summer intern at the Hartford Courant after my freshman year at Wesleyan, reporting for the Avon Bureau under Bill Leukhardt and publishing over 30 stories. At the Argus I have been a news reporter, news assistant editor, news editor, features editor, editor-in-chief, executive editor, blogger, and multimedia director. I have overseen the redesign of wesleyanargus.com, founding the Blargus and initiating ArgusVideo at the beginning of my time as editor-in-chief during the spring of my junior year. During my senior year, I have co-edited the Blargus with Gianna Palmer and founded Argus News Radio, a 15-minute weekly show produced by WESU 88.1 on which I conduct a weekly segment interviewing seniors about their thesis topics. I have written over 70 stories at the Argus and continue to do reporting and blogging as much as I can.