Have you ever heard of Dean Cameron?
I know, neither had I. Then someone pointed me to a site he runs; spamscamscam.com. When I hit the site I was kind of shocked, since the design and layout is lifted – exactly – from a version of datapimp site that was up for about five years.
I’m not sure why I was shocked to see it. Honestly, everyone steals from everyone on the internet, design-wise. I didn’t invent tables or green and yellow. The design (such as it was) was simple, but I think that was its strength. It isn’t easy to be simple. If you don’t believe me, go try to do something simple.
So yeah, I kind of said, “What?!” when I saw that.
But the funny thing is, even the premise of the site is a rip-off of other, better, Nigerian scam-baiting sites, like the classic 419 Eater, and many others.
So it made me wonder – you know, like Robert Plant in Stairway to Heaven – who the fuck is this guy, and why is his name all over his rip-off on top of a rip-off site? So I looked him up and it all became clear.
An ac-tor!
A marginal kind of, “Sure! I’ll wash the director’s car, and okay I’ll also let him polish my balls – if it gets me the part, why not?” sitcom bit part actor (starting with The Facts of Life in 1984 and going downhill from there). Now that doesn’t necessarily mean he is desperate, but he seems pretty desperate. Why do I say that? Well, this excerpt from his wikipedia entry for a start:
Since late 1999, has made a living as voice over talent for radio and television commercials, and recently decided to stop auditioning for roles in feature films and television shows, preferring to create projects with respected friends and others outside of the “sinking ship” of the entertainment industry.
Yeah, he decided to stop auditioning because the entire entertainment industry is so corrupt that they don’t deserve him! Not because he’s now too sad and pathetic to get even bit parts anymore.
If someone other than Dean Cameron wrote that, I’ll eat his computer and your computer and all the computers in your local library. Yes, those filthy library computers. I will eat them. That’s how sure I am that he has sculpted his own monument to himself on wikipedia. Which is very sad.
So, okay, la dee dah, who gives a shit. Really, when I thought about it today, I didn’t. But when I look at the sites side by side there’s still something in me that says, “Fuck you and the dainty unicorn you rode in on, Dean Cameron!”