5 D-Bags Of The Early 2000s (Where Are They Now?)
If there is one thing there was no shortage of in the early parts of the millennium, it was complete and utter famous douchebags traversing around douche-baggedly to figure out the douche-baggiest things they could accomplish. But just because the tabloids stop reporting on their exploits does not mean these d-bags have disappeared from our lives. We are just not forced to hear about them anymore, which may lead you to wonder, just what have these d-bags been up to?
Fred Durst - Awful In A New Medium
Fred Durst is the lead singer screamer of edgy, '90s staple Limp Bizkit. As far as douchebags go, Fred would make sure he was at the top tier. Aside from writing songs that glorify "breaking stuff" and then acting surprised when fans at Woodstock '99 went ahead and broke stuff ...
... Fred Durst would find a way to fight with pretty much every one of his music industry peers. This came in the form of diss tracks and shade-throwing at the likes of Slipknot, Eminem, and even Creed (who we'll talk about later.) All this, while simultaneously dealing with getting bullied by a crowd so badly that he was forced to walk off stage.
Despite being a larger-than-life, chart-topping musician, the news outlets in the early 2000s seemed to enjoy focusing on his non-musical ambitions more, such as claiming relationships with Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, hosting parties at the Playboy Mansion, and his alleged sex-tape leak co-starring Kid Rock. Admittedly, the news has mostly stopped reporting on Fred's "bad boy" activities as of late which may make you wonder who else he's been making suffer the past decade and a half?
Where are they now?
To put things bluntly, Durst has spent most of the recent years making terrible movies and TV commercials. When he's not trying to move to Russia and writing sappy love letters to Vladimir Putin, Durst has found time to ruin whatever remaining shreds of respect we all had for John Travolta with his stalker movie The Fanatic in 2019.
Beware the 'Tra-Bowl-ta' haircut.
Before that, he could boast a resume of equally forgettable refuse not of the caliber we would expect from the guy who got famous singing about buttholes. Plus, Durst was in Zoolander, proving he's capable of touching something without turning it into complete trash.
Aside from a film career that would make Ed Wood blush, Durst and Limp Bizkit are still making music, with their current album sitting in development hell until they can finally unleash it on the masses, turning the rest of the world into regular hell in the process.
Soulja Boy - Entrepreneur With An Empire Of Trash
Soulja Boy, sometimes Soulja Boy Tell 'Em, always known as "Turn that shit off," is a guy you know about because his hit song, "Crank That," mentions his name no less than three dozen times throughout its four-minute playtime.
Soulja was one of the early artists to rise via self-published internet content and has admitted to uploading his own tracks to file-sharing program LimeWire under more famous musicians' names to boost his own career. If you grew up downloading music on a slow connection, you know what a messed-up crime that is in and of itself.
Soulja Boy had a rocky career, being accused of ruining hip-hop by Ice-T, feuding with several artists, and even managing to piss off the US Military!
Where are they now?
You will be happy to know that the Soulja Boy of 2021 is still the same Soulja Boy we know and despise. Still actively feuding with anyone who will give him the time of day, Soulja has beefed with fellow musical douchebags Chris Brown and Tyga while also openly challenging YouTube douchebag Jake Paul to a boxing match.
But getting into arguments with bigger celebrities isn't all Soulja has going on these days. If music wasn't enough for him to ruin, the rapper also released his own branded video game system aptly named SouljaGame for $100 - $150 bucks a pop. The console was a DBA situation (Dead before arrival), mostly due to threats of infringement by Nintendo.
Nintendo
To fill out the remainder of your "D-Bag Bingo" cards, he's also been accused of sexual assault by people who have worked for him, was the titular character in a failed cartoon show, and, thanks to an incredibly insane Breakfast Club interview, can be found in some of your favorite memes.
If you feel you missed out on all the best Soulja Boy antics of the past decade, don't fret! There are still plenty more failures to come! Mr. Boy has been teasing another video game console and for all you coin-heads out there, make sure you get in on the ground floor of his branded cryptocurrency, SouljaCoin.
Tucker Max - Grew Up, Calmed Down
If you look up "toxic garbagefolk" in the dictionary, you'll often find a photo of Tucker Max's smug mug. He is credited with being on the forefront of "fratire," a long-since-gone genre of internet comedy about drinking, partying, and being the biggest turd in life's punchbowl as you can possibly be. Think of the worst dudes from your high school and college, but then imagine they never grew out of that lifestyle. It is in that small demographic where the Tucker Max's of the world decided to thrive.
Author of the I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, a bestselling book and worst-selling movie, Max's writing style involved outrageous stories of his womanizing, drug and alcohol abuse, and all the general douchebaggedness one would expect from someone whose name doubles as an implication of a Tucker set to Maximum setting.
His exploits of doxing previous romantic partners, being protested by anti-hate groups, and sleazy publicity stunts have forever earned Max a spot on the "Biggest Douche o' the Decade" awards, which is held just after the Oscars and often includes many of the same nominees. So just how has life been for ol' Tuck?
Where are they now?
In a surprising twist that would make pre-Lady In The Water Shyamalan blush, Tucker has actually put the work in to clean up his act. He has publicly renounced the actions and lifestyle of his 20's and is instead working on writing for others while maintaining his new lifestyle of "family man."
Though you wouldn't know it unless you asked, Tucker was actually the ghostwriter for Tiffany Haddish's biography The Last Black Unicorn in 2017. In addition to that, Tucker started Scribe Media, which allows other writers to break into the industry by offering similar writing positions to freelancers. As far as D-Bags go, Tucker seems to have let the D out of the bag. It goes to show, you should not judge a book by its cover, author, the first paragraph, or the first 20 chapters or so. Maybe judge it by the epilogue in some cases is what we're trying to say.
Carlos Mencia - Survival Of The Shittiest
If there is one name that has become synonymous with 'stealing jokes,' it's, as we all know, Ned Holness.
Also known as Carlos Mencia. Mencia had the rare honor of being a successful celebrity while simultaneously being despised by just about everyone. Comedians and audiences alike reviled Mencia for his unfunny original content (often leaning heavily on racism) and his loud, abrasive style that left almost no room for comedic timing. Also, most famously, dude loved to steal other comedian's jokes.
Note: history would later place "Did a bad thing to Bill Cosby" in the "Good" column ...
Carlos Mencia had carved out a decent little career for himself in the early days of the 2000s. In addition to several television show guest spots, his show, Mind of Mencia, ran for four seasons on Comedy Central until 2008. Then the plagiarism train rolled into town with Joe Rogan right up in the engineer's seat.
Note: history would later place "Joe Rogan actually confronts a shady person on their garbage behavior" in the "Finally" column ...
Mencia was accused of not only stealing jokes but often repeating them back verbatim without any credit to the original writer. In comedy circles, plagiarism is pretty much the final nail in the coffin of your career. And it seems like Mencia was no exception.
Where are they now?
Though the comedy world has seemed to move on without him, Carlos is still active. Here's a 2018 bit from a Laugh Factory set ...
... proving that there are still venues that will let him perform. Additionally, Mencia has found time to dip his toes into the legal sphere with his show Judge Carlos, currently in post-production for the better part of three years.
You can also find Mencia on his Instagram page these days, putting out short little videos called Mencia Minutes, each of which are several minutes long. We don't know if these videos are stolen from other comedian's Instagram pages, as we have steadfastly refused to watch any of them.
Scott Stapp - Got Professional Help
It seems just hearing the word Creed is enough to give you douche-chills and send your mind into a nostalgic, existential nightmare of early 2000s post-grunge. Back then, if you were online and you weren't making fun of Creed, odds are you were not very popular on your message board of choice. And commanding that Douche Canoe, absorbing all the hate, is the one and only Scott Stapp.
Stapp had a very public, very rocky relationship with life at the turn of the century. You couldn't go a few weeks without reading about the lead singer of Creed threatening his family, fighting with other bands, or … holy shit even threatening to kill President Obama? And when you pair his public image with that of the most dunked-on band at the time, you could imagine just how long Stapp held onto that 'Biggest Douchebag In The World' scepter. Then one day, as if everyone's thoughts had manifested into reality, Scott Stapp seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. We bet this article is the first time you have even thought about Stapp in at least two years.
Unless you're a Miami Marlins fan, in which case, he lingered in your nightmares.
Where are they now?
Stapp has since revealed that a lot of the troubling behavior he exhibited in the past was, regrettably, directly related to undiagnosed mental issues. After a video went viral in 2014 that showed Stapp as "broke" and "living in a Holiday Inn," he sought professional help to identify his issues. In a People magazine interview, the singer revealed he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after a psychotic break and had been in programs meant to help him overcome these troubles.
Since then, Stapp has been working through a 12-Step program, became the lead singer in Art of Anarchy (after the death of Scott Weiland), and there are even talks of a Creed reunion somewhere down the line. So rarely do unfortunate stories like this give us a hopeful ending, so we'll place this one in the win column.
Erik Germ is on Twitter sometimes and PlanetScum.Live other times.
Top image: U.S. Air Force/Wikimedia Commons, Interscope Records
