Professor Dumpster Is Everywhere

Remember the days before anyone had heard of Benedict Cumberbatch? He was in the world, Cumberbatching, but nobody had figured out he was there — and then, BAM!, he was suddenly starring in every movie and TV show ever.

I’m starting to feel that way about Professor Dumpster.

When we last left our intrepid Dumpster hero, he was the subject of an Atlantic feature article that began “Tucked behind the women’s residence halls in a back corner of Huston-Tillotson University’s campus in Austin, Texas, sits a green dumpster…”

Well, this morning there’s a new Salon feature, “My Boyfriend Lives in a Dumpster.” Guess who the piece is about.

(It’s worth noting that Professor Dumpster does not mention his girlfriend once in the Atlantic profile, and yet his girlfriend Clara Bensen’s Salon article is entirely about him. But we’ll leave that discussion to the comments.)

But wait, there’s more. There’s so much more.

There’s a feature film.

As Variety notes: “New Line is moving ahead with a movie version of “The Craziest OkCupid Date Ever,” hiring Adam Brooks to adapt Clara Bensen’s tale of a three-week date.”

The story of how people become who they are is always interesting to me, especially when it involves “how they make money.” That’s really why I’m so fascinated by the Professor Dumpster story. He came out of nowhere, and now his name is everywhere and his girlfriend has a movie deal and there’s going to be a rom-com about his life (but not even the part of his life that includes the dumpster).

We are watching the evolution of a self-made man, and we also get to laugh a little because said self-made man lives in a dumpster.

And I can’t look away.

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