The Bloggess is simply hilarious. That's why I'm a fanboi.

But because she's simply hilarious, she gets huge traffic. And because she gets huge traffic, she gets huge amounts of blogspam — press release spam, let-us-advertise spam, etc. We get a little here, but nothing like that.

Part of what makes the Bloggess hilarious and awesome is that she has a lot of fun with them, as I've pointed out before.

But spammers and other forms of marketeers are, as a rule, an entitled bunch. They don't like it when people make fun of them.

That's how marketeers from a firm that is supposed to be in the business of media relations and marketing called the Bloggess a "fucking bitch" and told her, in effect, that she should be grateful to be spammed by them.

The outfit in question is called Brandlink Communications LLC. Their Twitter account describes them thusly:

BrandLink Communications. Builds brands with ROI strategies Leverages its relationships with media, influencers and talent to ensure a clients messag

The kids these days — they're in such a hurry.

Anyway, Brandlink sent the Bloggess an unsolicited PR pitch, hoping that somebody might blog about a Kardashian wearing panty hose, which they view as newsworthy. From the email:

“The Kardashian’s once again show they are right on trend, and this is on (sic) Mommy’s are all going to want to follow.”

Global illiteracy is also a trend that is widely followed, though I do not believe that it is a paying client of Brandlink Communications per se.

Anyway, the Bloggess sent her standard whimsical reply: a picture of Wil Wheaton collating paper. It means "thanks for the thing I didn't ask for; here's something you didn't ask for, albeit almost certainly a far cooler thing.

Some marketeers laugh this off, or engage in amusing banter with the Bloggess. Not this one. "Erica" of Branklink sent a snippy email threatening the Bloggess with the ULTIMATE MARKETEER SANCTION: they would stop sending the Bloggess things she didn't ask for and didn't want:

We’ll make note of this email in moving forward and remember if we have any advertising opportunities with any of our clients not to go through you.

How will the Bloggess know whether or not the Kardashians are wearing hose now?

But that wasn't all. "Jose" — would that be VP Media Director Jose Martinez? — sent a "reply all" calling the Bloggess a "fucking bitch." I haven't been to media relations school, but I'm pretty sure they don't recommend that. Perhaps the "reply all" was an accident — but it strikes me as just the sort of deliberate-accidental move you might make if you are a passive-aggressive douche who spams people about Kardashians for a living.

The Bloggess responded with an unusually serious email about how she fights PR spam. "Jose" replied. "Jose's" reply is why I am writing about this — not because of the "fucking bitch" reply-all, which could be Jose having a bad day. "Jose's" reply shows him swollen with typical marketeer/spammer entitlement, including the following:

I get it and I was out of line by saying that however you put way too much effort into your approach. A simple "I don't cover this, no thanks" or "Please remove" would suffice. To go out of your way to be snarky and rude is a little inappropriate. Again, I should've been less harsh – but I also feel like your email was rude and unprofessional as well. We will do a better job to research who we are pitching but maybe you should be flattered that you are even viewed relevant enough to be pitched at all instead of alienated PR firms and PR people – who are actually the livelihood of any journalists business.

Jose is freakishly entitled: he thinks people should be grateful to get his spam, and that people should, out of courtesy, simply politely decline or ask to be removed from the mailing list. Jose sees himself as participant in a polite conversation, not as the equivalent of a stranger deluging you with unwelcome, over-capitalized and oddly spelled screeds telling you how you can make your dick bigger. Jose is wrong. Jose is a classic loser in high-tech form: someone who makes his money sending insipid spam emails about uninteresting things done by vapid people to masses of people, 99.9% of whom don't care and the other .1% of which only care because they are stupid.

Jose's attitude is typical of his ilk. Remember when we made fun of SEO spammer Jamie Spottz, and he showed up in the commends to tell us we should be grateful like his other clients? Remember Spara Townson, the the marketeer who thinks that the comments to other people's blogs are fair game for her shitty little advertisements? Remember serial spammer Bradley Johnson, who inspired a different marketeer to show up and call us assholes for not just deleting comment spam meekly and moving on? Spammers and other marketeers are entitled. I suspect they feel so entitled because they secretly know what they do is so loathsome. They don't just feel entitled, under the First Amendment, to spam you — they feel entitled to be free of criticism and ridicule for doing it.

But they are not. People like this aren't entitled to such polite deference. They aren't entitled to the expectation that you will simply delete the email or unsubscribe, that you will refrain from telling them what you think of them if it amuses you. They are unwelcome intruders, annoying ten thousand people to get one sale. Fuck 'em. Keep up the good work, Bloggess.

Also, on a pure marketing level — if you were the manager for a celebrity, or an event, or a product brand, and were shopping for a public relations and marketing firm, wouldn't you want to know that this is what the people at Brandlink Communications think is good marketing?

Edited to add: On Twitter, Jose is saying that he was "defending" Wil Wheaton. That's his story. That's his crisis management. He gets paid to do that.

Edited again to add: Consider this post by a PR blogger to demonstrate that not all PR people support spamming — though from the comments to that post, you can see that other PR people still think that there's something wrong with calling spammers out. In a similar vein, consider Scott's encounters with PR entitlement syndrome here and here.

Also, Brandlink's Facebook page now says this:

Earlier in the evening I wrote an email to the Bloggess. She was the wronged party and it is up to her to decide if she wants to post the contents of my email. An apology was included, as were my thoughts on profanity and spamming. A mistake was made, but we will respect the privacy of those involved and deal with it, and the consequences, internally. I have chosen not to remove or block the posts. I do ask that you refrain from obscenities as it wasn't right today, and it isn't necessary now. I hope you will continue to follow us and that we will have the opportunity to earn the respect of those of you who were introduced to us through this situation. Sincerely, Carol Bell- Partner

That's somewhat better. Though "mistake was made" made me guffaw.

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