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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
"F'd Companies," Philip Kaplan's obituary for online flameouts, is more pathetic than the companies it skewers.
Apr 10, 2002 | "F'd Companies" will soon be just that: FUCKED. Never mind that author Philip Kaplan (AKA "Pud") refers to his dick more often than Ron Jeremy; forget that his writing style and insight never surpass the eighth grade level. Books -- like the dot-coms that Kaplan likes to skewer -- are ultimately businesses. All authors, especially ASSMONKEY, MONEY HUNGRY AUTHORS LIKE KAPLAN, aim to attract customers, dollars or both. And in this case, Kaplan's enterprise will undoubtedly fail, flame out, go belly up, eat its own ass. Whatever you want to call it, "F'd Companies" will soon disappear.
Maybe I'm just another idiot, like Kaplan himself claims to be (he also seems to be a chronic masturbator, judging from the numerous references to spanking the monkey), but I just don't see how this book will ever become anything but yet another dot-com joke.
Here's why:
1) Price: Kaplan's $18 book is nothing more than a compendium of 150 or so companies: their names, how much they got in venture funding and why they failed. But here's a news flash: All of the information is available elsewhere for free. Not only can readers go to one of Kaplan's 17 sources, which he lists at the end of the book, but they can also go to his own site. There, they'll find everything that's in the book, almost all of it for free.
In fact, those with half a brain will go to the site and discover that there's even MORE (AND FREE) dot-com information online than there is in the book. Go on, go to the site, search for Pets.com, the first flameout detailed in the book, and you'll find nine official "fucks," 211 comments and 44 rumors. The description of Pets.com's original failure is similar to the book's version, except for one major difference. Kaplan's original take is actually funny, which is more than can be said for the print version.
But wait, there's more. Not only is Kaplan charging for free content; not only are his regurgitated comments even more bland than the originals, but Kaplan even dares to condemn another dot-com (Steve Brill's Contentville) for doing EXACTLY WHAT THIS BOOK TRIES TO DO -- sell content that's already available elsewhere for free. Brill's venture failed, Kaplan writes, because "that pissed off users."
My point exactly.
2) Competition: "Dot-Con," "dot.bomb," "Dot-Com and Beyond," "Business @ the Speed of the Stupid" -- these are just a few of the books that have appeared on bookstore shelves over the past few months. All of them attempt to explain why the dot-coms failed. All of them purport to be insightful and sometimes humorous takes on the economic fuckfest called the high-tech bubble. In other words, they all tread over Kaplan's ground. In such a crowded field, "F'd Companies" has about as much chance of standing out as a San Francisco dot-com party circa 1999. The boom for books on the dot-com bust is over; "F'd Companies" will be just another casualty.
3) Quality: Let's face it -- the book sucks. I am fully and completely within Kaplan's target audience. I'm a 27-year-old male who enjoys heavy metal. I work for a dot-com that has been featured on Kaplan's site. I like dirty humor. I even, occasionally, find masturbation jokes funny.
But I'm not amused by Kaplan's attempted literary antics. It's not just that he's misogynistic and a terrible writer. It's also that Kaplan's jokes are about as flaccid as an old man's penis, while his big insight -- hey, these guys spent too much money, too fast! -- seems to be, uh, SCREAMINGLY OBVIOUS. Even worse, he has the audacity to dedicate his book to laid-off dot-commers -- his "extended family" -- even as he is attempting to "monetize," as dot-commers used to say, their failures. Does he really think that no one will notice the hypocrisy? Does he really think that his attempt to become a money-sucking parasite distinguishes him from any of the losers whose tales of woe he chronicles?
11 comments in the Happy Fun Slander Corner
HarryParatestes: Whatever. Damien Cave's just jealous because Kaplan is making more money than he is and got a publishing deal. Salon is more fucked than this book will ever be. Go suck some hog, Cave.
DickBeNimbleDickBeQuick: No way, Pud's time has come and gone. I'm tired of his shtick, his whole "if I'm self-deprecating, no one will notice that I'm an asshole" game. He's made a career out of chronicling others' failures while exhibiting the exact characteristics he claims to be fighting against. Try to find a dot-com CEO who's more arrogant and sure of his overimportance; I dare ya. You won't be able to do it.
