I’m Gary Dunn of Columbus, Georgia
a.k.a “Bobblehead Gary”
I’m one of the earliest fans and longtime member of the myspace cast pages of the stars of The Office on NBC. I’ve been participating in fan activities for years, and have invented and created many of my own activities that the fans themselves have participated. I’ve invented Office words as well. I create spoof photogags, make blogs, create contests and games, videos, myspace office layouts, web object themes, etc. about the show. I was priviledged to meet many of my blogging friends and blog visitors, as well as many cast members of the show. Much of the cast and I have communicated many times over the last few years…right from the beginning on a regular basis …..and still do. (why?…..welll, they knew me from the beginning). When I finally met the cast members in-person, I was so shocked and delighted that they recognized me before I even got to give my introductions.
NBC UNIVERSAL honored me by asking for use of my material for officially licensed Office Souvenir products. They, as well as others have ask me for use of my word creations and images designed for the Office fan community. Dunderspeak, if you will.
Since late 2005 early 2006, I have participated in fan blogs and groups that celebrated the show, or discussed activities of the cast. One of the earliest was the “Fans of Angela Kinsey” in a very early unofficial (now defunct) Angela Kinsey Fan Club web group that linked off from the myspace office fan blogs founded by blogger: “Lisa The Office Maniac”. In those early groups we Office fans referred to ourselves by many different confusing names. We knew that we all had something in common. But we had no identity. No name of our own like TV fans of Star Trek (The Trekkies), or fans of the Grateful Dead (The Deadheads). So after many different tries using my invented names for ourselves like “Officianados, OfficeCrazies, OfficeFreaks, Officenuts etc. It finally hit me one day like a ton of bricks while I was doing odd tasks around the house. I was thinking to myself what an odd name Dunder Mifflin was. “Dunderheads” I exclaimed! “We’re DUNDERHEADS”! And the name was born! Well sorta. First of all, “Dunderhead” was already a word in the dictionary….meaning “dunce”…or “idiot”! Second, as much as I loved it, people in my blog groups seemed to be insulted when I referred to them as a “Dunderhead”. Understandable.
But with perseverance and faith, I succeeded in getting a few of my friends to start using it. Some people downright hated it. Many were really starting to like it.
The name quickly jumped from the fan club blogs to the myspace Office fan community. I used the term everytime I greeted anyone on myspace’s Office fan community. Pretty bold considering I was deleted a few times by insulted people. The Office fan community on myspace has it’s nucleus in Jenna Fischer’s own original myspace page. She got most of her Office castmates to start a myspace page of their own while doing it within character. What other show does that? They really love their fans and it shows. Which is how the fan community grew so quickly and stayed so loyal. From there, the myspace Office community branches out into many separate friend groups, interests, and leads into members who are leaders of there own blogs. Some minor blogs, some very very major. The Office cyber fans also split themselves at times into different categories..(e.g. those who are “Jammers” – Jim and Pam fans….Dwangela groups….Karen lovers….Karen haters….etc…)
Anyway, no matter what an Office fan’s particular favorite interest is, I still consider them all as being “Dunderheads”. In a loving way.
That’s a compliment meaning: A true Office fan! My Original blogging friends like Lisa The Office Maniac, and a delightful young lady and photoshopper named “Claire” from Wisconson helped to widely promote my word “Dunderhead” because they as Office fans understood and enjoyed the self deprecating humor it evoked about ourselves. Only a fan of THE OFFICE would understand and appreciate lovingly mocking themselves in this self deprecating way.
They, as well as I, flooded myspace Office fans and myspace Office celeb pages (Especially Angela Kinsey and Jenna Fischer’s) with photoshopped gags and comments referring to ourselves as “Dunderheads”. At first, many didn’t know what to make of it. We kept it up in every comment, blog, message, invite, or friend welcome we sent out. Around this time, Angela Kinsey and I would communicate along with blogger Lisa The Office Maniac via the fan group, and Angela used to share and save my photogags at that time. So she paid close attention to fan activity during the early stages of the show’s broadcasts. The Office was pratically a little known show at the time.
It was also about this time that Angela adopted my term “Dunderhead” for regular use from that moment on. I’m not sure if she saw mine or my buddies Dunderhead comments first…but no matter.
After Angela began blogging with the term: “Hello Dunderheads!”
It became official!
Hundreds of new myspacers I’d never heard of immediately started adopting the term and taking it into their own new directions! People adopted mine and Claire’s Dunderhead pics and plopped them onto their myspace pages…declaring to the world that You have entered the page of a “Dunderhead”! Fans created Dunderhead related fan blogs, fan created apparel, and even adopted Dunderhead myspace communities. Office fans have gone in different directions with many identities …they even created many Office fan terms for webspeak. I as founder of the Dunderheads created many terms, as well as my close myspace friends. We spoke in Dunderterms so often that it became noticed and adopted by many. Combining past Office fan terminology with our groups Dunderspeak really got the attention of NBC UNIVERSAL. They were interested in fan feedback. What fans wanted to see on TV. And what fans might like to purchase from a souvenir shop. Instead of Aunt Joan and Uncle Jim buying a shirt for cousin Billy at Universal Studios for a souvenir that simply said “The Office” with a snapshot of the DVD box cover, true fans like the Dunderheads would rather see popular catch phrases like: “That’s what she said”, or popular Office fan language like: “JAMMER’s like Italian food”, or “I’m a DUNDERHEAD” on products. Souvenir hunters who aren’t fans won’t get it. But Dunderheads crave it!
When NBC’s merchandising and marketing asked to use my term Dunderhead, I explained they needed no permission because it was already an existing term in the dictionary. But what they wanted was not the existing term meaning DUNCE, but rather my new term meaning “Office fan”. So the spelling wasn’t as important as the creation of a new meaning, and a term for Office fan.
Well, these days, everyone knows that Dunderhead is now the well accepted offical term for Office fan. Fans easily recognize that I derived it from Dunder Mifflin, it just came to me as it would’ve eventually come to anyone if given the time. Because now it seems so obvious. But back then I had to fight to get people to accept it.
Now you see and hear Dunderhead mentioned everywhere when referring to us Office fans. From Newspapers, to Entertainment Blogs, Magazines, Morning News Shows, Web Entertainment Videos, Mall Banners and Kiosks, Department Store Displays, T-Shirts, Coffee Mugs,
Bumper Stickers, Radio Contests…..Convention gatherings…etc. Dunderheads are everywhere! Now there are Celebrity Dunderheads who love THE OFFICE!
It’s a beautiful thing!
So yeah, I’m an Office fan!
That’s a little about me. How about you?
bobbleheadgary
