Duclod Man

The Duclod Man was the title given to a man, identified as Robert W. McEwen, who over two decades generated mystery and speculation by sending out dozens of unusual anonymous letters to college students and posting writings on internet pages. The letters, internet writings, and library bathroom graffiti included the word "duclod" (ostensibly a portmanteau of dual and closeted, or a bisexual person who hides his or her sexuality from both gay and straight people.)  The activity occurred over three decades until his identity was discovered in 2007 by Sarah Aswell, a journalist writing for The Advocate. In her investigative articles, she calls the duclod man "Richard".

Graffiti
Graffiti incorporating the word "duclod" and obscure jokes concerning "two closets" have been seen at Grinnell College since at least the mid-1970s, often in Burling Library bathrooms.
In the 1980s, the following peculiar graffiti message could be found in one Whately, Massachusetts restaurant's men's toilet:

Q: What is the difference between?

A: A duclod.

Q: The same as the difference between?

A: Two closets.

Letters
As early as 1992, students at multiple colleges received duclod letters, but most prominently, they were directed towards seniors at Grinnell College and the University of Kansas. The letters were sent in groups, during school breaks, from different and seemingly-random parts of the country. The letters were sometimes sent to a student's home address, leading to speculation that the sender intended to "out" the recipient to his or her parents. Because of the nature of the content, it was widely speculated that the sender was targeting students based on their sexual orientation, although apparently straight students received letters as well. The envelopes contained letters folded up to resemble a homemade greeting card, with childish drawings (men crawling on the ground, toilets, trash cans, and twin closet doors) and strange jokes or messages ("Q: What would a duclod like about the land of the giants? A: Standing in two closets without touching either knob.", "If you like shaving cats, try shaving crayons. It's a good a way as any to practice shaving.", "It takes two hands to handle a duclod", "Actual tombstone inscription: DUCLODS DIE TWICE"). The letters sometimes defined the duclod as "bisexual, homophobic, heterophobic, confused."

Internet
Several homemade websites hosted on free services such as Geocities, AOL, or Angelfire contained content that appeared similar to Duclod Man's letters. The websites contained original writings – usually musings about the environment, technology, politics, conspiracy theories, or numerology. They also contained jokes, drawings similar to those found in the duclod letters, information about organic gardening, or homemade programs written in Visual Basic. Visiting his pages would often invoke the mailto: protocol to open the visitor's email client, automatically filling it in with dozens of addresses and nonsensical subjects such as "I used to be the Dancing Bear on Captain Kangaroo", "Don't you EVER tinkle in a glass again", or "You want a slap in the face?" Additionally, the author of these websites exhibited prolific activity on a large variety of message boards and guest books, with postings similar to that, found on his websites.  His AOL homepage members.aol.com/shavescats/ is defunct but can be found using the wayback machine from the Internet Archive.

Internet pseudonyms
Richard used the following pseudonyms on his webpages and forum postings:
Red Kuller
Pilldown Man
Chilee Umgum
Proctor Zhloip
Chamo Howards
D. Trapper
Gordon Craft

Recurring themes
Richard expressed particular interest in the following subjects:
Organic gardening
Technology
Time travel
Nazism
New World Order theory
Hollow Earth theory
Nazi concentration camps
Polar shift theory
Christianity
Transmutations of humans into dogs and half-human half-dog creatures called "garbmuts"
Bears and dogs
Same-sex marriage / Bisexuality
Politics
Domestic violence, especially battered husbands
Numerology
Nostradamus
Fads
Bodily functions
Nursery rhymes
Terrorism

Discovery
In March 2007, writing for The Advocate, Sarah Aswell wrote that she had received a duclod letter years ago, and had tracked Richard down through his series of web pages and forums to a homepage containing an old résumé. Ms. Aswell wrote that she repackaged the duclod letter she had received, along with the message "stop sending letters, Richard." She wrote a follow-up article in the May 2007 issue of The Advocate, claiming that Richard had not stopped sending letters or posting duclod jokes in Internet forums. She wrote in the second article that she decided to find and contact his family, who confronted him and asked him to take down his webpages, which he did.

Aftermath
It was discovered in the second article that Richard was suspected by his family of having autism:

He was also quite reclusive and in failing health. Although Ms.  changed the real name of the Duclod Man to the pseudonym "Richard", she left enough correct information in her articles for interested readers to find his correct information, including his name, picture, telephone number, and living address, which were posted on Digg and Metafilter. Shortly thereafter, messages such as the following were posted in his website guestbook:

"I am aware of your location ... I am coming for you"
"Thousands of people who sort of hate you know exactly where you live ... I hope someone does something with that address "
"Consider yourself dead, my friend"
"You will have much time to explore the male part of your bisexuality in prison."
"Don't forget to bring some chalk to your trial -- so you can mark off the days until you're paroled."

When Richard removed his webpages, he posted an apology, which read, in part:

References

External links
Richard's Pages:
Richard's Dreambook Guestbook
Richard's Apology
The Craft is a Time machine
Brave New Fads Forum
Pin the Tail on the Garbmut
Wireless Networks--How Far Can They Go?
Welcome to Desolation
Chilee Umgum's Homepage
Organic Gardening and Farming
The Advocate:
Chasing the Duclod Man, part 1
Finding the Duclod Man, part 2

Category:Possibly living people
Category:Sexual orientation and society
Category:Conspiracy theorists
Category:Internet trolls