THE TRON GUY SOLDIERS ON

The Internet is good for a lot of things - particularly turning nerdy social outsiders with niche hobbies and people who make fools of themselves on the Home Shopping Network into household names. Everyone's spent enough hours watching people fall off ladders such that some of these cretins have more YouTube views than I have cells in my body. One of my favorites of this elite list of Internet stars is Tron Guy. For those of you who are new to the Internet (and I'm guessing by extension, Western Civilization), Jay Maynard, Tron Guy, attained his moniker by making a battery-powered,

Tron

-themed unitard costume for a science fiction convention. Partly because of its intricate design and partly because of his portly stature and Midwestern-computer-technician mustache, the Internet quickly got excited and told all its friends and moms about Tron Guy. Not before long, he was a regular visitor to

Jimmy Kimmel Live

and nearly had a girlfriend*. With internet meme convention

ROFLcon

starting tomorrow in Cambridge, I decided to catch up with one of my all-time favorite web guy-things. I just simply don't want his fifteen minutes of fame to ever end.

Vice: Can you take me through how you became Tron Guy? Tron Guy:

Well, when I went to my first sci-fi convention in 2003, I saw a costume contest and I thought it'd be fun. Since the con that I went to was a combination sci-fi and computing convention, Tron seemed like a natural fit. I figured maybe 300 people would see it, tops. I took pictures along the process and made a website because I thought that maybe someone else would want to do it. While I was at the convention, one of the guests of honor was one of the two guys who run Slashdot. Sunday was the contest, and at about 3:00pm Sunday afternoon, my costume was on the Slashdot front page. From there pictures of me immediately spread across the net. It hit Fark.com within minutes and started drawing hundreds of very negative comments.

How negative were they?

They were mostly along the lines of "Ahhhh – fat guy in spandex!" For the next week, it became the type of thing that people would send in mass emails and started coming to the attention of folks in the media. An email wound up with one of the writers for Jimmy Kimmel Live, which is how I got on that show. I was on Jimmy Kimmel pretty regularly for the rest of 2004.

And how has your celebrity status been since?

Well, it started to fade after I stopped appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live. I am still considered a web-celebrity by anyone who studies the phenomenon, though. What's really interesting to me is that people seem to refer to me as the elder statesman of web fame. When you look at the notion of Internet celebrity, it doesn't go much further back than 2004. There were a few early ones, but not many. I guess I was one of the first to take it and turn it into something in the real world. There have been others since then, and traditional media has been more open to the idea, but I think I… well, I wouldn't say that I started that trend, but I would definitely say that I was one of the first.

Do you ever hang out with other web notables?

Well, I know a few others. Eric Raymond--the well-known open-source advocate who was responsible for making Netscape open source--he and I go back about 20 years.

Urr, I mean more like the Star Wars kid or Tay Zonday.

I've met

Leslie Hall

a few times--the gem sweater lady. I met several of them at ROFLcon two years ago. That's really what ROFL con is intended to be. There's a whole list of Internet celebrities who will be going this year. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to get to ROFLcon because it's on the same weekend as Penguicon, the convention that I originally made the Tron suit for.

Of the internet celebrities that you've met, have you noticed any that have let the fame get to their head or are just generally not enjoyable people?

I can't say that I've really met anyone like that. The thing about the internet is that it's a great bullshit detector. The people who try to exploit their Internet fame beyond the initial run tend to fail miserably. The best example that I can think of is the "Numa Numa" kid Gary Brolsma. He was invited to the first ROFLcon, but by that point, he had an agent who was intent on making sure that he got paid for doing anything, so he didn't go because the people from ROFLcon wouldn't pay the fee he asked.

Wow. What a jerk.

Yeah. I've been told that since then, he's gotten away from that guy.

I take it that you're still wearing your suit to events right?

Yes, but it's beginning to show its age. I really need to replace it.

Are you going to make another one?

Definitely. I have several more of the unitards, I just need to sit down and paint them up. I really only wear it when I am doing an interview or something about it.

What's your unitard size? Actually, how do unitard sizes even work? I'm completely foreign to that world.

Well, it really varies from one maker to the next, but it's basically just the standard small, medium, large, extra-large system. I'm a large.

Who do you think makes the best unitards from your experience?

Well, I have mine custom-made from a company called Renaissance Dancewear. They were able to dye it the exact color that I needed, and their construction is such that it holds up really well.

Are you a spokesperson for their company now? I feel like someone should have capitalized on your popularity at this point.

Maybe someone will try to pull you in for the new Tron movie. Speaking of, what are your thoughts on the new Tron movie? From what I've seen of it, I think it's going to be really good. My main concern with a Tron sequel or a Tron remake is that they would try to update the look to go along with the appearance of computer games these days. To me, this would destroy the feel of the world inside the computer that made it so successful in the first place. Fortunately I think they've avoided that. The trailers that I've seen look very true to the look of the original.

It sounds like you'll have to make a new one very soon. By the way, how do you put on the Tron suit?

Well, it goes on like a pair of overalls and all the arm pieces just go on over top of it.

So what you're suggesting is that although you may be Tron Guy, you still put your Tron suit on one leg at a time like everyone else?

Yep.

Cool. I just wanted to use that as a sort of pithy outro for the interview.

Ok. INTERVIEW BY BEN MAJOY *One of the Kimmel Segments was a series of blind dates with Tron Guy. Kimmel's the asshole in this equation, not me.