How Guyism bid a lot of money for Justin Bieber’s hair and lost
Chris Spags 
The story began simply enough…Ellen DeGeneres invited Justin Bieber onto her show to promote Bieber’s 3D movie “Never Say Never”. On the show, Bieber sheered his famous locks and gave them to Ellen as a gift. She turned around and put them up on eBay to raise money for animal charity The Gentle Barn on February 23rd. And this was the day we decided that the Bieber hair must be ours.
Granted, we’re not necessarily big fans of the Bieb’s musical endeavors (though we certainly could understand the appeal) or his Canadian doe eyes (ditto). But when the opportunity arises to purchase something so ridiculous yet so precious to a significant portion of society, you have to take it.
It began with a joking conversation between myself and Guyism co-founder Cass Anderson. What began as, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we bought Bieber’s hair?” quickly transformed like a robot of the same name into “Well, if we pay $20,000 for it, that’s not SO unreasonable, right?”
The auction included a lock of Justin Bieber’s hair in a plexiglass case autographed by the Biebman himself along with a certified and signed Letter of Authenticity from Ellen herself.
But first, we had to be pre-approved.
The auction company managing the effort on Team Ellen’s behalf, Kompolt, requires an application for bids in excess of $10,000 to A) Show you’re legitimate and B) Not going to use it to abduct small children.
Our email to Kompolt read:
Hi Ellen TV people,
We wish to be an authorized bidder for this item. We run a men’s interest Web site (about 2.5M readers a month) and, though we understand the benefits of buying the hair for publicity reasons, the primary reason we wish to buy it is to make an entertaining video series about our interactions with the Bieber hair.
Also, candidly, we love animals (I have a puppy and a cat myself, both rescues), so the fact that it’d be going to a good cause makes it even better.
Please let me know if there is any other information we can provide or proof of income. We have a set cap for the bids that we hope will be enough and have no interest in bidding just to drive up the price.
Thanks,
Chris Spags
Founder – Guyism, LLC
I’m professional!
A day later, we were approved and ready to rock. I figured I’d use my vast array of eBay knowledge (this is a lie) to see if anyone had autobid set up on February 24th.
Lo and behold, a user (all names are anonymized to protect the bidders) outbid us immediately, meaning that they had a bid cap higher than $6,800.
It became a waiting game. We knew the time to drive up the price wasn’t right. So we waited.
I’d be dishonest if I said I didn’t check the listing more times than any man should check in on anything Bieber-related over the next couple days. The price slowly rose.
On February 28th, Guyism reentered the bidding with a price of $12,200.
We had the lead.
Now I’m not foolish enough to think that would be the final price for the hair. But it felt good to be in first place. That feeling lasted all of two hours.
Not only did we lose the leadership position in the Great Teenage Pop Star Hair Race, there were a couple people slinging cash above us, moving the price higher and higher.
So we waited for things to die down again and struck once more.
Only to fall once more later that evening.
The problem with these eBay bids is that, for people who don’t view it as a career (there is a cottage industry of people who make livings off of buying and reselling items on eBay), there becomes a bit of a “mano a mano” quality to the exchanges. You’re bidding against other people. The will to win takes over. Logic is cast aside even though all you’re bidding on is hair from a teenage boy in an autographed plexiglass case.
With visions of hair stroked by Selena Gomez dancing in my head (and partially emboldened by a night of drinking), I came back home determined to retake the lead.
But it was not to be.
Until I raised it again.
With the lead in my hands, I felt victory swirling in my mouth like a fine brandy. This is our moment. What we do with the hair was irrelevant right now. I just wanted to win.
Shit.
I woke up to find the price had continued rising over night. Despite the threshold for raising a bid being only $100, some nefarious Biebliebers had unscrupulously jumped the price almost $1,000.
The price was getting close to our maximum. It was then I decided to let the market set the price and hopefully swoop in at the last minute, with Guyism tens of thousands of dollars poorer, but emotionally rich.
As I sat down to write this piece at 12:36PM Eastern, this is where the bids stood.
As I got to this point in the story at 1:18PM Eastern, a mere 15 minutes before the auction ends, the bids stand here.
…and now we move to a live blog.
Nine minutes out, the price is still at $17,800. I just announced on my Twitter and Guyism’s that we are going to win Justin Bieber’s hair.
Just saw on Ellen’s Twitter that the winner gets to meet the Biebs. We are in this to win this, now. There is no turning back.
Four minutes remain. I’m lurking like a shark underwater waiting for a chance to strike. At thirty seconds left, we bid.
Three minutes. No new bids. Logic and/or limits on parents’ allowances seem to have prevailed.
Two minutes and forty seconds. Another bid enters. The price is now $18,000 flat.
One minute left. The price stays at $18,000. At this price point, I’m going to demand to sniff his fingers when we meet him at Ellen.
Thirty seconds left. The price moves to $18,300. This a***0 dude wants it.
I adjust strategy. We’re going to bid at 10 seconds and hopefully leave them no time to react.
Just as I go to enter our bid of $19,001, the price soars to $25,000. Then to the completely arbitrary price of $40,568.
The spinner lands on $40,668. That price, and the lustful Bieber fan a***0 wins.
Here’s how the final few minutes went down.
When I say that I feel legitimate pangs of sadness over this, I mean that genuinely. We had such great plans for this. A publicity biltz. A series of videos for Guyism, too.
-We were going to unbox the hair when it arrives like many technology fans do with exciting new products.
-We were going to take the hair out to Times Square and introduce it to teenage girls (probably with bodyguards).
-We were going to put the hair on my puppy, Penny, to show our love for the work the people at The Gentle Barn do.
-We were going to wear the lock of hair out to a bar and try to talk to women.
We had so many grand plans. All for naught.
Oh yeah, and we were going to destroy it. That was always the plan. We weren’t sure if it was going to be by throwing it off a tall NYC building, lighting it on fire, or perhaps even dipping it into hydrochloric acid (everything was in play). We could have been Internet folk heroes like Charlie Sheen.
But alas, I sit here now with a heavy heart. The Guyism financial cupboard has not been bared, but my soul has. Will there ever be a moment to capture pure pop culture lightning in a bottle like this? Who knows. All I know is that I’ll have to get my teenage boy hairs the old fashioned way from now on…through kidnapping and selective usage of candy.
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