Why do people always confuse Socialism with State "Socialism?"?

It's an utter joke. I keep getting emails, reading essays, etc. that always ume that socialism is "worship of the state." What no one ever seems to realize is that socialism originated with people like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, which focused on abolition of the state. Since then, more and more anti-statist methods have been produced, and yet socialism is still confused with statism, by both capitalists and socialists alike. Why is this happening?