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DotComGuy Survives His Year 66

Posted by timothy from the i-coulda-done-*that*! dept.
blurzero writes: "Remember DotComGuy? The Texan who decided to prove that people could buy everything they needed through e-commerce by locking himself in his home for an entire year, and Webcasting the entire thing? Well, DCG made it through all 366 days! F*ckedCompany.com, however, is reporting that DCG's sponsors have all dried up, and he will be receiving none of the $100,000 he was supposed to be paid. There's no word on the DCG homepage." This guy would have been a lot braver to try this 10 years ago. Seems like the only real problem for the modern online hermit expecting $100,000 is enough room to exercise.
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DotComGuy Survives His Year More

DotComGuy Survives His Year

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  • if he didn't have a contract for payment. If he did, then it's breach of contract if he's not paid. But if it was just a "Gentlemen's Agreement", then he's out the bucks.

    At least he has a marketable skill now. He can teach other shut-ins and agoraphobics how to survive off of the 'Net...

    Kierthos

  • me too! (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @12:36AM (#537764)
    damn, I spent the last 366 days in my house too...but I used another revolutionary tool to get all my food/clothes...I love you mom!
  • Seems like the only real problem for the modern online hermit expecting 100,000 dollars is enough room to exercise.
    No one that spends that much online exercises, for God's sake. The most physically stressful thing I've done in the past month is masturbate.


    See you in hell,
    Bill Fuckin' Gates®.
  • I have a feeling this guy was sponsored by the .coms that were booming when he started his little experiment. Things a slightly different now.....

  • I guess he won't having been doing much of that though being on a web cam the whole time... Then again, I've seen a few sites like that.
  • ...or else everyone would be doing this. = Live in an Internet-supplied hermitage and get paid for it!?
  • My father is a member of the media, and I got to, on several occasions, go to the DotCompound, as they called it. It was a fairly interesting gimmick at first, but eventually it got really damned boring. It became like a lame version of the Truman Show, and the main character was not terrible interesting. DotComGuy got the royal treatment from various online retailers trying to go for cheap advertising, but bored internet surfers can only watch the infomercials that were produced for so long. I can see why his "ratings" went down. I must say, however, that they did have one sweet setup in the house next door, where they did the editing of the footage that they got. At that point in my life, that was the most electronic equipment I had seen in one room, and their A/V equipment looked like it belonged in a television station.
  • I kinda doubt that the sponsors have dried up. Take a look at this page:

    http://www.dotcomguy.com/whopartners.html

    Seems that he has plenty of sponsors.

    --
  • Okay, well, Mr.DotComGuy, congradulations. Thanks for proving nothing to us. Only to see that F'edupCompany gave you the most points and severity level....great work!!!

    I hope that for your sake though, you did sign some sort of agreement, so that you can take those wonderful sponsors to court. But heck, they'll probably just claim bankruptcy, and you're even more screwed, with the lawyer fees and everything.

    --I have to leave my house, its called university...crap!

  • I can just imagine it... (Score:3)

    by OakLEE ( 91103 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @12:56AM (#537772)
    After spending 366 days online (most of it in IRC I imagine), I can just imagine how his speech patterns have changed:

    Reporter: DotComGuy, how do you feel finally being out after 12 months locked in your house?
    DCG: 1t f33lz 1337. tH1s r0x0rS!

    Reporter: And what do you have to say to the people who may contemplate emulating you in the coming months.
    DCG: d0n't 3v3n t|2y d00dz. 1'm 1337, 1 w1ll 0wn j00!! 1'll h4x0r j00r b0xes!!

    Reporter: "Haxor", "elite"? Sir what do you mean by this?
    DCG: 1'm 1337, 1 d0wnl04d3d 13 g1gz 0f w4r3z 0ff my 1337 c4bl3 c0nexi0n!

    Reporter: Right...

    ____________________________

  • what about SlashDotGuy instead? (Score:3)

    by poopie ( 35416 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @12:58AM (#537773) Journal
    How about this: guy volunteers to stay inside and read and post on slashdot for an entire year and not get paid (oh wait, we're already all doing this...) ;)

    Here's a few other interesting ideas for *Guy projects that people could try out and see if they can get a sponsor.

    SpendMoneyGuy - guy shops for one year straight and spends lots of money. Follow his shopping adventures online and view his credit card bills online. Review his bank account balances and credit rating.

    UpdateLinuxGuy - guy spends one year constantly updating sponsor's linux distribution with latest source from freshmeat. Go online and view the output of 'ls -lR /'

    ReinstallWindowsGuy - goy spends one year constantly reinstalling windows and all of the required apps on the computers of various users

    WriteCodeGuy - guy spends one year writing code for sponsor's company. Sponsor provides an 8'x8' cubicle and computer and a fridge full of cola.

    PumpGasGuy - guy spends one year pumping gas at a gas station. you can go online and chat with him while he's not pumping gas.

    WatchTVGuy - guy watches TV for one year. visit the website and watch him watch TV! Site has logs of all the TV shows he watches. Sponsor sells info to networks so they can determine what programs are popular.
  • You forgot to make it all interactive.

    For instance in the case of the SpendMoneyGuy the viewers should be encouraged to phone in and tell him what items he should buy next time.

  • What the hell? I mean, I spent the past year living in my room with my only contact thru the rest of the world thru my internet connectin. All my friends are in chatrooms, I get my books and music thru Amazon, and God bless Kozmo for its food delivery.

    Yet no one wants to give me a website or anything. Heh.

  • Duh! (Score:3)

    by AlXtreme ( 223728 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @01:10AM (#537776) Homepage Journal
    Now i know who hacked Diablo 2! This DotComGuy had spare time, and wanted to get some xtra bucks on ebay! I call 4 revenge! Lets DOS his connection, and starve tha bugger out! Wha! That'll teach him!
  • Supprisingly, this guy had some big named sponsors.. From Pepsi, to ThinkGeek, to Walmart, and even Amazon.com.

    It looks like these people are just back-turning on him. I cannot imagine that these big named companies are going to go back on their word after a year of a man's life. I can see if maybe a DotCom Startup (TM) went bankrupt, but this is just rediculous.

  • I find it odd slashdot would post this if the only information on this subject is ONE paragraph on fuckedcompany.com . There is nothing on dotcom guy's web page supporting this. I looked in google and could find nothing there either.

    If this is true why haven't any other large media sources reported on this like cnn.com or zdnet etc. The Media is loving every minute of the dotcom failures so I can't imagine it not reporting on a story like this. Someone earlier pointed out that there are plenty of his supporters left and I would have to agree.

    I think Slashdot should have waited for more official documentation and/or resources that can be confirmed before posting this. I have a feeling they may end up retracting it. If anyone has any evidence to support this report could you please post it?
  • I'd suppose that there's no camera in his bathroom. He could probably sneak in there for a quickie. BTW, does this mean that he didn't get laid for a whole year ???

  • "
    Stupid f'ckhead "Dotcomguy"
    "

    That's what I like to see, straight and too the point.

    FP.
    -- Real Men Don't Use Porn. -- Morality In Media Billboards
  • one cannot repeat this experiment in Cyprus ;)
    No matter who your sponsors are...

    Noone has a website, noone knows what Internet is, noone wants to work, noone delivers pizza, while it is warm at least ;) ...and Internet costs a lot of money still... for a slow connection... which does not give you a chance of watching TV or listening to radio yet... ;)

    If you have any chance not to come here - use it :)

  • This reminds me of one particular dumbass that I saw while flipping through the Guiness Book of Records 2000.

    Some weird guy spend 20 years typing the numbers 1 to some large value on his typewriter.

    Kinda hard to insure that sorta thing against fire ;-)

    Why doesn't someone just do NOTHING for a year instead hmm?

    Geoff


    ________________________________________________ __ __________ darkmoon - "My sister is pretty good"

  • It could've been worse for the guy had they bombarded him for 366 days of William Shatner singing those annoying ass songs of his.

    What he should've done is enrolled in one of those collegegirlsellingherassonacam.com and enjoyed those wasted days with better company.

    SourceForge Spoof [antioffline.com]

  • Man why in the all holiest of fuckswould I want to watch some computer geek fatten and buy shit over the internet? Now if it was JenniCam or CoEdCam I might give a shit. I think to make it interesting they should have him fight it out with people dressed up as Santa Claus at the end of the day. Living off what is basically catalog ordering is as easy as getting your company's stock on AMEX. This doesn't even deserve news for nerds. Letsmake a Beowulf cluster out of DotComGuy.
  • Someone was complaining that the posting on Slashdot was unfounded because the website didn't say anything about it; here's the link [dotcomguy.com] (entitled "Buh-Bye!", and the pasted text):

    >It's been a great year everyone. Now it is
    >time for DotComGuy to re-enter society. Can
    >society handle it???

    >From all of us here at DotComGuy Inc., and
    >from DotComGuy himself, thanks to all of you
    >for your support and appreciation these past
    >366 days.

    >Be on the lookout though...you never know
    >what might happen next, or where DotComGuy
    >will pop up!


    --

  • DCG's sponsors all dried up? Hmmmm....

    Serves him right for trying such a crackpot sceme I think. Living using only the internet isn't difficult at all, if given unlimited funds, he was just the first moron with the idea to make a contest out of it, and change his name to something stupid.

    It also serves the dried up dotcoms right for collapsing after making such horrible investments as DCG.

  • Yeah, we all know how government is sensitive to the plight of the little guy, right?


    See you in hell,
    Bill Fuckin' Gates®.
  • After 366 days of sitting on a computer and never going outside, his Diablo character got deleted. Frustrated he got up and left...
  • This guy would have been a lot braver to try this 10 years ago.

    Nah. He would have been seen as an idiot. And he'd have been like the Biosphere guys.

    Seems like the only real problem for the modern online hermit expecting 100,000 dollars is enough room to exercise.

    I don't think he did a lot of exercise. Look at some of the banners of himself. He's pretty skinny. Then look at the latest little blurb picture of him on the front page. He's quite decidedly chunkier. All those Dominos pizzas no doubt.

    There's things about this type of experiment that really bug me though. I mean, it's like someone's trying to find out exactly how far we can be pushed to become ultimate consumers (people who really produce nothing).

    As nice as it may seem for various "hermits", who, besides rampant paranoiacs, REALLY want to lock themselves in their house for years at a time?

    I can see it now.

    25 million individual web hosts. And I've seen them all....Several times!
    --DotComGuy.



    Chas - The one, the only.
    THANK GOD!!!

  • Becuase when you do nothing, all you have to do is look at yourself/your life. Most people find this unappetizing and as such find other things, however meaningless, to occupy their time. If Buddha were alive today in America he'd be a gas station attendant (just a really, really enlightened one ;-) ). I think Mohammed and Christ would be video store clerks.


    --

  • He doesn't mean that there's no confirmation that he's leaving, he means there is no confirmation that he won't get paid his 100,000 dollars, which is not mentioned at all on DCG's site.



    ---There is no spoon....---
  • The media probably havent replied because through their own censorship, they cant report on anything like fuckedcompany.com. Besides, they still havent done the recount on the investors. :-)
  • Some guy on a thread on shugashack just responded to me saying that .com guy did get payed and he saw it on Tech TV.
    anyone?
  • Huh?

    Slashdot never retracts anything. The most you could hope for is an [update] tacked on at the end.


    Refrag
  • The story seems to be reporting that he survived the year, not that the project was a failure. The fact that he may not get paid seems to be more of a sidenote.
  • Hmmm...Maybe this years contest should be this:

    "Starting Jan 1,2001 -- new dot com company starts, this company will have 365 days to turn a profit."

    By the looks of things -- this will be more challenging right?
  • These kind of clerks [viewaskew.com]?

  • Obviously, (Score:3)

    by zantispam ( 78764 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @05:03AM (#537798)
    you don't live in Dallas.

    DotComGuy had his compound there (Richardson, IIRC). He's been plastered all over the tv news ever since it was discovered he was broke. I'll vouch for the veracity of this (I, in case you couldn't tell, live in Dallas).

    The funny thing is that he won't speak on camera any more. I saw three different local news stations shoving cameras into his face, and whereas he was all over interviews when this started, now he just laughs bitterly and shakes his head whenever asked anything.

    Funnier still is the fact that he's getting married to a woman he met online, but has never seen IRL. Yeah, this is going to work.

    Also, maybe he should have ordered some workout equipment during the year. He looks really unhealthy. Maybe it's just the stress of being so broke and not being the media's darling anymore - in any event, he looks like hell.

    Happy New Year, from a Dallasite.

  • Shouldn't he be DotOrgGuy? (Score:3)

    by JiveDonut ( 135491 ) on Tuesday January 02, 2001 @05:11AM (#537799) Homepage
    Since he didn't get paid?

    I guess that could apply to dotcoms, too, now.

  • DotComGuy had his compound there (Richardson, IIRC).

    No, it was in North Dallas, upper Greenville. 9310 Greenville Ave, to be specific.

    The media here have been all over this guy. When even KRLD [krld.com] makes it their top news story of the day, something has gone horribly wrong. I remember last night that our Fox affiliate [kdfwfox4.com] was trying to interview him at his "coming home" party, and he barely said anything.

    He met his fiancee in a chat room, by the way. For her sanity, and his I imagine, he'll be changing hs name back to Mitch Maddox (his chat room people would get mad when you said his real name in there, wonder why).

    ---

  • Escrow (Score:2)

    by RedX ( 71326 )
    Perhaps DotComGuy should've used half a brain and forced his "sponsors" to contribute monthly to an escrow account that he couldn't touch until his 365th day in the house. Most workers that I know of don't work all year and receive a lump sum at the end of the year. Professional athletes sign contracts that state an annual salary, yet they are paid several times during the year. Military personnel, who receive free room and board in most cases (very similar to DotComGuy's setup), are not paid in a yearly lump sum. Business arrangements can change in a year, especially in fast-moving industries like the Tech and DotCom industries, as evidenced by looking at NASDAQ for the past year. Had DotComGuy been at least halfway entertaining and not let himself fall apart physically, he might have been marketable and been able to cash-in through other avenues. As is stands, he'll probably get a few days worth of coverage and vanish into the ether.

  • Dotcomguy payment (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    According to the FAQ on their site he was getting paid throughout the year. In doubling incrementations, 24 dollars one month $48 the next, then $96, and in November alone, $24,576 and then finally in december the $49,152 balance. But then you could read [dotcomguy.com] it for yourself. I know a little about journalism, and I might make a suggestion that Slashdot try some basic fact checking before you run stories. For one thing it would make for better "articles" knowing how much of that money he may of actually gotten. Its obviously possible that they fled during a particular month, but to me it sounds very much like someone's trying to slander them to sensationalize the dotcom disaster.
  • It's called the real world ... that's what contracts are for.
  • There's some sort of difference between Sponsors and Partners (which are what you're linking to). I don't know what kind of support Parters were giving him, but I understand it wasn't money.

  • "ReinstallWindowsGuy"


    They already have this. Its called Desktop Support.

    sigh...
  • Ever see Seven. That movie was great, and it gave me an idea: StrapedToBegGuy. A guy is straped to a bed for a year and not allowed to move at all. He is fed exactley the minimum he needs to stay alive and given antibiotics to keep bed sores from killing him. If the man is still alive after a year, he gets free care form the HMO sponsor
  • How about SlashDotSubmit guy? [grin]

  • Due to downturn in economy, dot-com stocks, DotComGuy drops DotCom, becomes just Guy, announces new business plan: working for a living.

  • i had a job offer to work with a dotcomguy sponsor/partner about this time of year one year ago when i used to live in dallas. it was with a small isp in dallas called coollink.com that was going to take over the streaming video service from broadcast.com. the guy i was talking with at coollink wanted me to write some java webserver software to insert ads into the video stream. aside from not being interested in the technology, he told me the dotcomguy was already running up huge bandwidth bills at broadcast.com. coollink took over as the isp of dotcomguy and was going to help pay some of his bills in exchange for the publicity. it sounded like a bad idea at the time, so i'm amazed the dotcomguy is around today. who knows how much he owes now. i doubt he's going to get all the $100k.
  • This story sounds an awful like an old story by Anton Checkov called the bet, where a man is challenged to spend several years of his life in seclusion for a considerable chunck of money. When it comes time to pay the initiator of the bet is bankrupt, and even contemplates killing the man, but the betee abdicates shortly before the end date. Anyway I suggest reading it. This summary doesn't do it justice.
  • --snip--
    Is DotComGuy being paid?
    DotComGuy, Inc., pays his salary, which began at $24 a month and doubles
    each month until year's end.
    Here's the breakdown:
    Jan $24
    Feb $48
    Mar $96
    Apr $192
    May $384
    Jun $768
    Jul $1,536
    Aug $3,072
    Sep $6,144
    Oct $12,288
    Nov $24,576
    Dec $49,152
    Total $98,280
    --snip--

    I'd have bailed if I didn't receive a month's check.
  • StrapedToBegGuy

    Have you no pride? You don't bother to even LOOK at what you've typed before you post it.
    If you're a programmer, I'll bet it takes a half dozen iterations for your code to even compile.

  • ... he did it in Mir.
  • I'm sure they laughed at Columbus, Leif Erickson(sp?), etc etc when they sailed off and found the New World, for whatever motivations they had. Even Columbus pointed out that it's always easier to do something once you've seen someone else do it.

    Hell, I give this guy full marks for bravery, for being the first.

  • First of all, to the moderator who modded the above comment down as a troll: You are an idiot. I hope I catch you in metamoderation.

    Supprisingly, this guy had some big named sponsors.. From Pepsi, to ThinkGeek, to Walmart, and even Amazon.com.
    It looks like these people are just back-turning on him. I cannot imagine that these big named companies are going to go back on their word after a year of a man's life. I can see if maybe a DotCom Startup (TM) went bankrupt, but this is just rediculous.

    It's not really much of a shock when a corporation decides to screw someone out of some money. They all do it whenever they think they can get away with it. As others have pointed out, DCG ended up a little pudgy and a lot lacking in lovable personality. If he had been Mr. Charisma, they'd have a much harder time.

  • There was an episode of the Twilight Zone that followed a similar plotline.

    A man was thought to speak too much and was challenged to spend a certain amount of time in silence, living in a little room where he could constantly be monitored. He followed through, and at the end the wagerer was bankrupt. (and also didn't expect him to be able to win)

    Of course, the Twilight Zone twist was that the man had his vocal chords removed after the bet was made.

    --
    steve
  • YEP, THATS FUNNY! YOU WIN.... "simple minds, simple pleasures.."

  • Seriously. This sort of thing ain't exactly that difficult anymore.

    "And for my next trick, I will...eat this sandwich! Followed by....some chips!"
    [audience gasps]

  • Bravery? This must be some usage of the word 'brave that I have never previously encountered.

    Bravery is sailing a few POS ships to some land across the sea that may or may not be where/what you think it is.
    Bravery is attacking a biker gang with a trout.
    Bravery is not letting Amazon, Kozmo, and Homegrocer deliver all my stuff and getting paid for it. In my world, that's called paradise.

  • Check this link on CNN [cnn.com]. Apparently the sponsors were contracted to pay for his internet purchases, which they did. In addition, he formed a company (DotComGuy, Inc.) that would pay him the $100,000. The tone of the article indicates the company was supposed to make money independent of the sponsors, but at the end of the year the company hadn't made enough to both pay his "bonus" and stay in business. Thus, he decided to keep the company afloat and forgo the $100K.

  • Of course, one wonders what exactly there is to contemplate about the life of a gas station attendant. (Hmm, did I really fill that car in the quickest possible time? No? I'll do better next time!) Seriously, the irony is that you can't reflect on your life if you haven't got one.

  • DCG (Score:1)

    by AlgUSF ( 238240 )
    DCG needs to get a life. There is no way in hell I could be basically locked in my house only able to order things off of the internet. I actually hate ordering things on the internet. I would rather give a cashier my money, and take my product home that day. Analogy (Buy TV at bestbuy.com wait 3 days, buy at Best Buy the store take it home today)

    A No Brainer

  • this was linked to at ars [arstechnicas.com] as well. my favorite is the headline:

    DotComGuy leaves house, sees shadow: Bush says six more months of market downturn to follow


    FluX
    After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
  • I censored myself as the previous reference had been censored. It's also in the Slashdot advice on posting to moderate ones language.
    I know it's cranky. I realised I was doing it, and it felt a bit weird.
    "Try not to swear on Slashdot unless really wound up", is my maxim.

    FP.

    -- Real Men Don't Use Porn. -- Morality In Media Billboards

  • As the seasons pass
    DotComGuy sits in his house...
    God, what a huge fag.

  • Sounds like someone needs to order themselves a very large hamster wheel!!

  • did he spend the entire year just sitting on his ass waiting for his "sponsor" to pay him, or did he start some shitty e-business and actually work some or all of the year??


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