UPDATE (April 4): Doug appears safe and hopes to get things back to normal soon.
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It has been two weeks since Doug Mataconis posted here at OTB or on his Twitter or Facebook pages. Readers are starting to wonder if and when he’s coming back. The short answer is that I don’t know.
His most recent post here was published at 6:10pm Eastern on Monday, March 11. It was his fifth post of the day. His most recent Facebook post, a link to said OTB post, was a minute later. His most recent self-generated Twitter comment was at 7:34pm the same day (everything since has been auto-posting of OTB content). He had tweeted quite a bit during the day. And, then, Poof.
Given how prolific he normally is on those platforms, I noticed his absence almost immediately but figured he had just gotten busy at work. Steven Taylor texted me the afternoon of Thursday, March 14 inquiring as to Doug’s status. I immediately sent him a direct message on Twitter, to which I still haven’t received a response. I sent out an APB on Twitter a while later and also DM’d Jazz Shaw, who had a closer personal relationship with Doug than I did, to see if he’d heard anything. He said that Doug had mentioned some sort of family emergency but he hadn’t heard anything in a couple of days. After Doug didn’t respond to various text messages and phone calls, Jazz went through inordinate lengths over a period of several days to make sure he wasn’t dead or unconscious somewhere.
Long story short: Doug is alive, or at least was when police talked to him on Sunday, March 17. He has thus far not reached out to Jazz, me, or, so far as we knew on the 17th, any of his friends or relatives. We have no idea why, given that Doug was seemingly carrying on normally right up to the moment of his disappearance from the Internet.
Obviously, he’s going through something pretty significant. I have no idea what that might be and it’s not really any of my business unless or until Doug wants to make it otherwise. We wish him the best and hope to see him around when he’s ready.
