Drew Carey bids big for personal Twitter name
Drew Olanoff has drawn a short straw. But he wants to make it into a long one.
He started raising money by launching Blame Drew's Cancer, which lets you accuse his pesky Hodgkin's Lymphoma of being the cause of everything that is wrong in your life.
His latest charitable poke in the eye to life's vicissitudes is to auction his Twitter name. You see, Olanoff was clever enough to declare himself to be @drew in the microblogging macroworld.
And there can be few places in the world more replete with munificent egos than Twitter.
So it is heartening that Drew Carey, a very funny man who, in real life, doesn't look like Drew Carey (he was a fellow pupil at a screenwriting course in Vegas a few years ago), has already put some large chips on Orlanoff's craps table.
He has bid $25,000 to upgrade himself from the somewhat shameful address of DrewFromTV to the rarefied air of just Drew. The Twitter Drew.
Carey, the genial host of "The Price Is Right" has, however, vowed to up the ante. He will offer $100,000 (the money all goes to Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong Foundation) if he has more than 100,000 followers by November 9, the closing day of the auction.
At the time of writing, Carey has 24,000 followers, which is some 11,000 more than when he made his initial offer.
So which other twittering Drews might give Carey a bike ride for his money? Sports agent Drew Rosenhaus has at least as much money as ego, so surely he might bid. He already has 30,000 followers. Yes, more than Carey.
Then there's New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees. He has almost 24,000 followers and, so my very fine spies in Brees's home town of Austin, Texas tell me, he is a very fine, upstanding chap.
And what about Drew Barrymore, she of only 18,000 followers? Surely she might look toward Carey, throw a little Hollywoodian tantrum, gird her finest theatrical loins and declare: "But, soft, my liege. I am the true Drew." (I always thought Barrymore should do a little Shakespeare.)
Should you be a very rich Drew, or just want to inflate the bidding, please use the #drewbid Twitter hashtag.
May the finest and most generous ego win. And may Drew Olanoff's cancer go right back to the creepy dark hole it came from.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
Thank you. Still jetlagged. Have amended the post.
Chris
If I had the money to bid for @drew, I think I would just pay the bid, but it would feel weird taking over the name.
Fan to Drew *Someone*: Wow, you've been on Twitter a long time to get "@drew".
Drew *Someone* to Fan: Um, actually I bought it from a kid with cancer.
Fan: cricket cricket...
Maybe I've just made a more personal connection with twitter names. Something that only happens with local business names, but not big chains.
And was it really "clever" for Drew O to use the name @Drew? Did he plan to auction it off from the very beginning? Such as buying the domain www.pizza.com when the internet was very new?
As a side note : I don't think Drew Barrymore has a Twitter account. She's been on the record as saying she doesn't know how to use the site and doesn't have the desire to learn.
- by NeonDaydream October 6, 2009 2:30 PM PDT
- Second article in a row with "she of" used in it. It reads awkward, find a new explanation to beat to death.
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