Hundred Dollar Bill.
It seemed certain to me that the self-promotional possibilities inherent to the Internet must mean it is positively crawling with people calling themselves “Hundred Dollar Bill” — used car salesmen, event promoters, smalltime playboys, aging radio DJs, corrupt government functionaries, anyone named “William” whose career or lifestyle might be burnished by associating themselves with the idea of having immediate access to $100.
Who were these men? I wanted to find out.
I thought a Google search for “faces” with a “pink” dominant color choice would turn up rows and rows of portraits of smiling Bills, all winking or giving a thumbs-up sign or holding up etchings of Benjamin Franklin and seeming to say, “You bet I’ve got a hundred dollars, son. That’s why they call me Hundred Dollar Bill.”
Like forgotten 1990s alternative rock bands, however, Hundred Dollar Bills belong to those class of people whose chosen names render them invisible to the all-seeing eye of Google. Because I didn’t turn up a single one. There’s lots of free photo clipart of guys holding up hundred-dollar bills and winking and snorting and guffawing, but they don’t seem to directly represent people who’ve chosen to call themselves “Hundred Dollar Bill.” There’s also lots of people whose work involves hundred dollar bills in one capacity or another, but none choosing the exact sobriquet I was looking for. The closest I found is “Dollar Bill” Lawson, an Alabama radio DJ. But nicknaming yourself after a dollar is different than nicknaming yourself after a hundred.
I hoped to look closely at these men and the name they’ve chosen for themselves. What makes a man call himself “Hundred Dollar Bill”? How has it helped his career? How has it hindered it? In one of those painful ironies of the electronic age, though, the name they chose to make them stand out from the rest of their field has rendered them completely undetectable. The hungry young entrepreneurs that have been snapping at Hundred Dollar Bill’s heels for the past decade or so know that you’ve got to find a personal brand that lands you at the top of the Google Search food chain. His young competitors know that driving in those web hits is the way to rise to the top of the field. Barely anything else matters. The only thing that matters is being easy to find on Google.
Hundred Dollar Bill is still living in a world where good word-of-mouth and a corny, winking gimmick were all you needed to make a name for yourself.
Hundred Dollar Bill is getting tired. Hundred Dollar Bill is getting really tired. After all, what does a hundred dollars even get you in this day and age?
