If there’s one thing about the Internet that everybody can genuinely appreciate, it’s spam. Is there anything better than opening your e-mail and seeing a massive load of messages from some distant friend who is trying to sell you a subscription to a Web site where you can refinance your home with the assistance of certified lonely, horny housewives?

Of course that was a rhetorical question, because if you were to answer with anything other than “of course not,” then you would need to have your ass kicked.

When you’re feeling sad and alone and you’re contemplating swallowing a live snake just so you can see your name in some news outlet’s offbeat news section right next to a story about Tom Sizemore getting caught trying to use a fake penis to pass a drug test, it’s the good people at Amalgamated Spam Co. who trick you into thinking that somebody might want to talk to you.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had my pitiful life brightened by an e-mail with a subject like “Hey, whassup dude it’s been a while” or “check out this link it is lol.” Sure, when I find out that the e-mail is a clever rouse from somebody trying to sell me herbal Viagra it slams me farther down the pit of depression than I was before I opened the spam, but at least the very thought that somebody was thinking enough about me to want to sell me herbal Viagra makes me want to pull my head out of the oven.

Which, by the way, is why people who make anti-spam software are essentially murderers.

But I digress. This kind of “tricking-you-into-thinking-people-like-you” advertising is easily the greatest kind advertising invented by humans (and at least the third greatest kind of advertising invented by moles), and I can’t believe it doesn’t exist in more mediums than it does.

Telemarketers do it. How many times have you heard this when you pick up the phone: “Hey is [your first name] there? … Oh awesome, that’s great. This is Doug, we met at Brian’s party, remember? … Of course you don’t remember, you were hammered! …. Anyway, I’ve got some great news, dude! If you switch your long-distance provider to Sprint, you’ll get twice as many night and weekend minutes!”

While it’s great that the telephone is trying to trick me into buying stuff by pretending that it likes me, I would really like to see this kind of advertising on television. And I don’t just mean commercials where somebody says in a real friendly and inviting voice, “If I know you, then nothing bothers you more than stubborn soap scum,” and I in turn am thrilled that somebody is giving me advice based on how much they know about me, even if it’s wrong.

Now although the television can pretend to like me, it obviously can’t address me by my first name and trick me into thinking that people I went to elementary school with are trying to contact me so they can give me information about a revolutionary and miraculous weight-loss patch.

But what the television can do is have commercials for the same types of products advertised in spam; you know, stuff you would never, ever want. The most obvious example of this is television commercials for penis pills. I think it’s safe to assume that the most popular product endorsed by the hundreds of e-mails I get daily are products designed to make my penis bigger or better or faster or hairier more stylish or whatever.

I can’t imagine there is such a demand for penis enhancement products that the trillions of e-mails sent by the Internet on a daily basis aren’t satisfying that demand and that there is still a multitude of people unhappy with their penises.

Now personally, my penis is perfect and I don’t need any of those crazy pills or potions. But I still love penis pill commercials because they at least remind me of spam, and as I believe I made painfully clear, I love spam. And those penis pill commercials don’t just remind me of spam because of what they are selling. The television ads are essentially the same as about 90 percent of all spam.

The only difference is that commercials for penis pills use innuendos instead of direct attacks on the size of your genitalia. Spam doesn’t try to be tactful by any stretch of the imagination. In addition to tricking you, spam makes a point of telling you that there is something wrong with your penis, usually via a colorful metaphor. For example, “Hey dude, it’s me Doug, and everyone thinks your meat noodle is inadequate! Quick click here to fix it.”

On the other hand, televised spam uses images that hint at what their product is for because there are obviously standards of decency, and commercials for penis pills can’t show graphic before-and-after pictures. That is why commercials for Cialis, Levitra and Viagra (penis pills) all show elderly couples cuddling on a park bench or practicing Tai Chi together or playing a carnival game where they attempt to throw uncooked hot dogs into empty milk bottles.

But all the while as grandma and grandpa are shown enjoying horseback riding or fencing or whatever, a voiceover talks about erectile dysfunction and the suggested duration of grandpa’s erection and uses very scientific terms like “engorged with blood.”

It is the juxtaposition of the delightful and wonderful images of grandma and grandpa enjoying a day of shopping or whatever together with the omnipotent commercial voice reciting a glossary of sexual anatomy terms from a middle school health textbook that make commercials for penis pills easily as creepy as the hundreds of e-mails I get a day, reminding me that I don’t have to sit idly by and watch my flesh piston get ridiculed for its tiny stature.

See how that works? That just proves that if you love weird, unsolicited e-mails that make your computer seem so dirty they make you want to type with gloves on, then you should feel the exact same way about commercials for erectile-dysfunction cures. And I think we all know how we feel about spam!