Spam junk mail. Computer artwork of a hand reaching out of a mountain of junk mail envelopes. This could represent spam, the name given to unsolicited mass mailings sent by email. Recipients of spam often have their email address on a list with millions of other addresses. Most spam messages are written in a manner that conceals their true content to avoid anti-spam detection software. The term spam originates from a Monty Python TV sketch about the meat product SPAM. Spam is considered a nuisance, wasting system resources and bandwidth, and may even harbour viruses.