Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly

Subject: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Jan 26 - 04:39 PM

Scott Adams, creator of the popular and long running cartoon about the business world, Dilbert, passed away yesterday just before his live podcast "Coffee With Scott Adams".
His friends, followers and a few would-be 'inheritors of the mantle', are attempting to continue celebrating the 'Simultaneous Sip.'at the usual time.

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jan 26 - 05:01 PM

My Hubby & I were always big fans of Dilbert and his creator Scott Adams, but then we became bewildered by accusations of racism and bigotry.

I don't remember seeing any hints of that in the old cartoons or the two books I own, so now I am left wondering whether he turned towards a different view on life at a later time than that.

It puts me into a personal internal conflict because his early work was funny, clever, insightful, creative - the whole works, especially in his view of managers and I could see reflections of his insights in some of the managers I had the displeasure of working with over time.

I will celebrate the good things and try not to dwell on the bad.

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 Jan 26 - 05:40 PM

The racism apparently came up in podcasts three or four years ago, and was so startling that he was dropped from some networks, etc. Dilbert calendars decked many a desk in my library workplace, and every so often a particularly good one would be pulled and stuck to the wall. A colleague explained one time why he liked Adams' philosophy on things, that he was conservatively pragmatic. He was a supporter of the current administration, as far as I can tell (I didn't spend much time listening to him, but since I manage social media accounts set up by that colleague, I tended to see his stuff periodically).

He did some good. He helped some people. His last remarks posted here on X offer his summing up to be posted after his death.

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Jan 26 - 06:37 PM

I'll put a wire coat hanger in my tie to make it bend like Dilbert's

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: Helen
Date: 14 Jan 26 - 08:51 PM

I'm wondering whether Scott Adams was caught up in the Trump/MAGA windstorm later in life. That might explain his turning opinions and beliefs.

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jan 26 - 11:47 AM

I think that is it exactly, Helen.

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 17 Jan 26 - 01:22 PM

*Agree*. It's known that Adams entered the orbit of Positive Thinking, as espoused by Norman Vincent Peale.* One of the books by Adams (which I can't find atm) is basically a Positive Thinking screed peppered with cartoons.

* As did both Fred Trump and his favourite son.

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: Helen
Date: 17 Jan 26 - 02:22 PM

The two books I have are The Dilbert Principle, and The Dilbert Future.

A few years ago I had a passing conversation with a young man who was leaving his current low-level job to study management at university. As I have also done that I recommended the Dilbert cartoons to him and brought a book in to show him. Now I am second-guessing myself. Maybe he now thinks I am a racist white-supremacist, which couldn't be further from the truth.

[Note: I am one of the very, very few people who also make crocheted war remembrance poppies in the colours of the Australian First Nations flag: black over red with a yellow circle in the middle. In fact, I have never seen any other war poppies in those colours. First Nations soldiers are very rarely commemorated or celebrated and on returning home from war they were still discriminated against.]

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 18 Jan 26 - 06:44 AM

Dat's der bunnies, Helen; it's The Dilbert Future that I was thinking of. Now I've found them, it was Appendix A ("Affirmation techniques") that reads as pure Norman Vincent Peale.

I admit I gave up reading Dilbert cartoons when I realised they were too much like real life for comfort. Sadly, the author of User Friendly (that of which Dilbert is the dark side) seemed to have a crisis of faith or something in the early noughties, and the site has now closed down completely; but that's a separate matter.

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 18 Jan 26 - 10:43 AM

MaJoC, you can look in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine and see if they caught any of the pages to show us what it looks like. (I see several books with the title, and two of them at least are cartoons. Is Frazer the author you're thinking of? "User Friendly reads like Dilbert for the open-source community."

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: Helen
Date: 18 Jan 26 - 11:26 PM

Hubby told me yesterday about "Douglas" Adams relying on an untested weight loss drug to treat his prostate cancer.

I said to Hubby today that I thought Douglas Adams, creator of Hitchhiker's Guide series of books etc, was more intelligent than that. Correction: Hubby meant to say Scott Adams. The drug was Ivermectin.

"‘Dilbert’ creator says his prostate cancer has spread and ‘it’s all bad news’

"Scott Adams previously asked President Donald Trump to intervene with his insurer over delayed cancer treatment

Article in The Independent by Erin Keller In Ohio Erin Keller In Ohio Friday 02 January 2026 21:59 GMT

...

"Dilbert was removed from most newspapers and dropped by its syndicator, Andrews McMeel, in March 2023 after Adams’ racist rant on [podcast] 'Coffee,' in which he labeled Black people a 'hate group' and appeared to endorse segregation.

"His controversial political statements continued to attract attention, including his support for Trump and warnings of violence if Biden won the 2024 presidential election. "

...

[IMHO, Karma is a b1tch!]

"Adams said his outspoken support for Trump has hurt his career, claiming it cut his income by about 40 percent and his social circle by 75 percent."

Subject: RE: Obit: Scott Adams - Dilbert and Win Bigly
From: Helen
Date: 18 Jan 26 - 11:36 PM

Corrections: medication was Pluvicto not Ivermectin, and also not a weight loss drug. I think Hubby read something on Farcebook which said it was a weight loss drug. Never believe anything you read on FB!

Other correction: sorry about the repetition on the journalist's name and place info.