ON ANOMALOUS OBJECTS OF DIGITAL CULTURE An Introduction

The joke, of course, refers to Spam, the canned food substance that originated in the 1930s in the United States, but was famously imported into Britain during World War II.1 Spam (spiced ham) became a cheap supplement for pure meat products, which were in severe shortage during the conflict. Perhaps the cheapness and mass consumption of Spam during the period are among the reasons why it became the butt of many music hall jokes. Indeed, following the music hall tradition, Spam becomes central to the Python’s often nonsensical sketch as it quickly deterritoralizes from the more obvious context of the waitress–customer discussion to a full Viking chorus of spam, spam, spam . . .