The story
After Velveeta, a brand of processed cheese (itself from velvet), perhaps likening its spreadability to the spreading of a post across newsgroups. Coined by Usenet user Charles Daniels in 1995. Compare spam (“junk e-mail”) (named after SPAM, brand of processed meat).
First known use, by meaning
- from 1995 The crossposting of a message to an unreasonably large number of newsgroups.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.