"Isn't it great, Voltaire? There's so much more we can freely do as immortals now!"

"And yet I still can't do most of the things I want to do most of the time."

"Really? Like what?"

"..."

"Like, uh... Like what?"

"..."

"I'm gonna go now."

Well done

Seriously, this guy deserves some credit for how he (relatively) kept his cool under pressure. He pretty much got the best outcome he could've.

Was he mistaken for spam?

Going by Merriam-Webster, yes, he was mistaken for spam. This is because the definition requires the unsolicited message to either be sent to a large number of recipients or posted in a large number of places.

Informally, however, I can see someone referring to Voltaire calling someone to trick them as "spam," and I wouldn't feel any impulse to correct them. I'd only say anything if they were writing for something that called for greater precision and formality.

Incidentally, I genuinely didn't have an answer to this when I wrote the question in this commentary. I looked it up after.

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- Thursday EGSNP