Where Has This Pioneer Gone?

Caricature art © O. Douglas Jennings

The above caricature is of the former Tomer Krissi, the first person to legally change his last name to ".com" (2001). I mean he had a judge rule on it and everything! What a seeming coup of publicity acquisition!

It was big news at that time, as you can see. It still occupies (as of this writing) space on that BBC website (linked above). I'm pretty sure that photo of him on the BBC page was my only reference. I hope his likeness is evident. I like to think it is.

AP photo from BBC news archived report

The story captivated my imagination! I felt it marked some kind of step toward some great advancement to our species! Could he have been a proto Mark Zuckerberg? Oh those days of post Y2K mania!

Imagine how my excitement was prolonged when, shortly after I first posted this art, Tomer.com thanked me. And I seem to recall that he used the illustration on his website for a while. Could that be a false memory? All I know is that currently his URL tomer.com is, for all intents and purposes, un-viewable on either Firefox or Safari browsers. Here's what I get when I type it in:

Since I that last contact (real or dreamed) from Tomer, it's as if he's fallen off the face of the earth! I haven't been able to find much of a presence of him on the web, ironically. Maybe he became entirely digitized and exists only on the web -- or in a Tron-like computerized dimension!

This guy is not the first, nor will he be the last, to be a minor blip on the collective consciousness that is the internet. But while many strive to grab the brass ring of fame and the leverage it will bring, that implicit lure of global connectivity is ever-so elusive. 

Maybe someone should create a stub Wikipedia entry for tomer.com.

As if there are not more pressing concerns making demands on our time. Right?