Market for Despair

Feeling disaffected? Downtrodden? Duped by the dot-com sirens? Go to www.despair.com, a site that peddles de-motivation paraphernalia.

Started in 1998 by a trio of ex-dot-com drones in Austin, Texas, as an inside joke and a spoof on the ubiquitous inspirational plaques that decorate boardrooms, the site quickly caught on as start-ups began to fail in droves and major tech companies announced massive layoffs. The site now sells posters, mugs, decals and note cards that blare mottos such as “Dare to Slack,” “Think Same,” and “Regret.”

For the special laid-off person in your life this holiday, Despair recommends the Pessimist’s Mug, engineered by the chronically cynical workers of Despair Laboratories to show when the glass is half-empty. There are also posters on blame, bitterness and burnout. For the boss, there’s a Megalomaniacal Maxims series on arrogance, overconfidence and pretension.

There’s no need to purchase anything to get a yuk. The site is chock-full of bogus news releases and snide descriptions of the company, whose motto is “The Relentless Pursuit of Dejection.”

Despair’s fortunes took off as the tech picture became gloomier. This year, the site is expected to pull in more than $1.2 million, 25% over last year’s sales, according to Justin Sewell, who co-founded the company with his twin brother Jef Sewell and Larry Kersten after the three left a Dallas Internet start-up disillusioned and demoralized.

As a satire on the intellectual property frenzy that marked the Internet boom, Despair trademarked an emoticon, which it calls the Frownie, and vowed--in jest--to sue anyone using the emoticon in e-mails. Now that’s something to be :-( about.