The first spammer reframed himself as the father of e-marketing

Evidence

As for Thuerk, for the rest of his life he seemed to take some pride in his small moment of notoriety; he told Computerworld in 2007 that he prefers to call himself “the father of e-marketing” and also made himself available for inspirational speeches. At one point, he argued that he shouldn’t be blamed for the plague of spam. “You don’t blame the Wright Brothers for every flying problem.” — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 663

Categorization

• CANDY: A light, quotable moment: the first spammer defended himself with a Wright Brothers analogy into old age.
• XREF: connects to: The first spammer foreshadowed the troll as a fixture of attention industries — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 664