The Canadian traded the paperclip for a house. Exchange a paper clip for an apartment? Easily! Learning from Yulia Topolnitskaya

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How to exchange a paper clip for a house?

Is it possible to exchange an ordinary paper clip for a house? As it turns out, you can. This was done by 26-year-old Canadian Kyle McDonald in 2006. Thanks to his Internet diary, he traded an ordinary paper clip for a real house worth $80,000 in one year and 14 moves.

During his life, Kyle delivered pizza, was a sales agent, and also advertised goods. His cherished dream was his own house, which he could not afford with such a job. And then an original idea came to him.

On July 15, 2005, Kyle posted on his blog that he and his girlfriend needed a home and he intended to get it through a series of exchanges. In this case, monetary settlements were excluded, only pure exchange. He decided to start the exchange with an ordinary red paper clip.

The rumor about a funny promotion spread around the Internet, and the game turned into a real deal.

Two girls from Vancouver agreed to give a fish-shaped ballpoint pen they found during their trip in exchange for a paperclip.

Kyle traded this handle from an artist friend for a homemade clay doorknob.

The doorknob caught the eye of a certain Sean Sparks, who was moving to another city and therefore changed it to an old barbecue gas stove. He still had two of them, and he willingly parted with one of them.

McDonald traded the stove for a 1000-watt electric generator from one of his acquaintances.

The generator was traded for an empty beer keg, a neon "Budweiser" sign, and a promise to fill the keg with beer.

Impressed by the story of such a wonderful chain of exchanges, a DJ from Montreal exchanged all this stuff for a snowmobile.

After receiving the snowmobile, Kyle McDonald's first fame came. His blog on the Internet caught the interest of Canadian television, and he was immediately called to shoot. There he was asked what he wants to change the snowmobile for. Without thinking twice, he replied: on a trip to Yak (a Canadian mountain resort). Soon he received such an offer from one of the snowmobile magazines. So Kyle got an expensive trip for two to Yak.

Bruno Taillefer, a manager from the Chintas company, which produces uniforms for airport employees, wanted to get this ticket. In return, he gave away his old 1995 truck, which he had been planning to sell for a long time.

An old truck covered in Chintas stickers was bought by a musician from Toronto to transport bulky equipment, having given him a contract with his recording studio.

Kyle gave the contract to an aspiring singer from Phoenix, Jody Grant, and in return received the right to free living in the second apartment of her house for a year.

This news immediately hit the papers. It would seem that Kyle Macdonald got his way, but he did not stop. He gave up a year of free living in an apartment for one evening of communication with the famous rock musician Alice Cooper.

Blog readers, having learned about this, tore their hair out, they say, it was necessary to sell so cheap! But the souvenir turned out to be quite rare and therefore highly valued by the band's fans and collectors. Hollywood director Corbin Bernsen wanted to purchase the ball for his collection. For him, he gave a paid and approved role with dialogues in his film Donna on Demand.

And the role has already been traded for a real house with three bedrooms, which is located in the Canadian city of Kipling. This exchange was offered to Kyle by Kipling City Hall. City Hall held a citywide casting and gave the role to Kipling's resident Nolan Hubbard.

In the house traded for a paper clip, Kyle MacDonald settled with his beloved Dominique Dupuis. He invited everyone who participated in the exchanges to the housewarming party. Of the 14 people, 12 came to the party. In front of all these people, he solemnly got engaged to his girlfriend, putting on her finger a ring made of a small red paper clip.

Many have tried and are trying to repeat the Canadian record. True, not many people are lucky, but some people are. For example, the American Andrew Rendazzo managed to exchange a yellow paper clip in six moves for a Pontiac in four months. So keep it up and you can do it too!

Kyle MacDonald was born on October 3, 1979 in Burnaby, Canada. Grew up in Belcarra. Graduated in Geography from the University of British Columbia. He is known for his non-trivial projects: he delivered about 1,000 pizzas all over Australia on a scooter, once planted 100,000 trees himself, sent several hundred postcards to the Galapagos Islands, etc. The most famous project is the exchange of an ordinary red paper clip for a house. He entered the Guinness Book of Records as the person who made the most successful transaction on the Internet. He is currently involved in several Internet projects, including whoaretheseguys.com and ledhulahoops.com.

How to buy a house if you don't even have a job? One day a resourceful Canadian Kyle MacDonald it dawned on him: he remembered how in childhood he enjoyed playing one game: "Let's swing without looking." Its meaning was to exchange one trinket for another, each time trying to get a bigger and better thing. Kyle thought: why not trade the house in this way? And then his eyes fell on the red paper clip that connected the pages of his resume, ready to go to potential employers. At first, this idea seemed crazy to the guy, but then the thought flashed: “Why not?” ... The little red paper clip was destined to be the beginning of a grand adventure that the whole world is talking about.

I'm 29 years old, says Kyle. - I am a writer. In the summer of 2007, my book One Red Paperclip: How a Small Stationery Turned into a Big Adventure came out. It has 295 pages. A kind of story of a red paper clip and its transformation into a house. The book is selling well, translated into 12 languages, it seems that a Russian edition is being prepared or has already been published.

All this speaks, probably, about success, fame. Yes, indeed, I am quite famous, because my experience, which is described in my only book so far, is widely known. True, at times I also write short stories that have nothing to do with the exchange that took place. Perhaps in time I will be more popular thanks to them. Who knows…

The story of the Canadian MacDonald is very reminiscent of the Russian fairy tale about the lucky slacker. Without leaving the spot and doing practically nothing, in just a year he turned an ordinary paper clip into a house. No magic or deceit - he just used the Internet. And not so much went to achieve his goal, how many indulged. Worked in amateur marketing.

Tell us how did you do it all?

Three years ago, I, the man who had a red paper clip, decided to trade it for something bigger, prettier, better. And the process started. At first, I even managed to stay in the same product segment. But then everything changed, and these giant scissors formed between the paper clip and the house, which lead everyone to such amazement. Although I always ask you to remember that exchanges would

Lo only 14.

The transaction scheme looked quite simple: a blog on oneredpaperclip.com, an announcement about the exchange - and now, instead of a paper clip, Kyle already has a ballpoint pen (time). And then he took his excitement ... Kyle exchanged the handle for a doorknob (two). A doorknob for a camp stove (three), a stove for an electric generator that was confiscated by New York firefighters but then returned (four), after which McDonald exchanged it for a beer barrel with a neon Budweiser sign (five). This barrel attracted Canadian DJ Michael Barret, and he traded a snowmobile for it (six). (Perhaps it was because McDonald marketed the barrel on the Internet as a DIY party kit.) There were people who traded a tour package to the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia for a snowmobile (seven), and McDonald exchanged a tour package for a minibus (eight). Meanwhile, Kyle's activities were followed closely by the public both on his blog and in the barter section of craigslist.org, offering advice and leaving admiring comments: "Wow, the paperclip owner became the owner of the van!"

But the exchange has not yet been completed. A weirdo showed up who liked Kyle's van so much that he offered McDonald a record deal in return (nine). Looks like this guy was a joker and a cynic. He knew that a minibus was a useful thing to drive, but what a fool who can't sing would do with the Aspiring Star Kit (30 hours of recording in the studio; 50 hours of mixing; transportation to the Canadian city of Toronto from anywhere in the world and back; living in Toronto, as well as giving the recorded album to people from Sony-BMG and XM radio)? McDonald was vain but not stupid enough to make himself look ridiculous in front of the pros at Sony-BMG and posted another trade ad. A certain young American singer, who looks like she will never be known, traded her celebrity contract for a year's residence in her Arizona home - great news (ten)!

McDonald traded a year for a day, or rather, an evening, with rock star Alice Cooper (eleven). McDonald gave Cooper to someone for a shiny disco ball (twelve), and handed the ball to American soap opera star Corbin Bernsen, who collected such balls. Bernsen, an old-fashioned man, did with MacDonald the way aging filmmakers do with their young mistresses (and lovers) - he offered him a role (quite paid, by the way) in his new film (thirteen). And although there was no love between the actor and Kyle, this step is fully explained by the fact that Bernsen began to fall into childhood with his shiny balls, and the child’s gratitude for the toy is quite commensurate with gratitude for affection, if not exceeds it. It was then that MacDonald felt that he was caught: even with the most virtuoso exchange, it would be quite difficult to foist some other "young actor" on Bernsen.

instead of yourself. And he began to scatter his brains about what to do with this suddenly begun film career of his next. The idea came to the administration of the Canadian city of Kipling, about which it was known only that there was such an English writer, the author of The Jungle Book and the poem "If". The city administration decided to drive into eternity on MacDonald's film popularity, for which they offered him not the old-fashioned title of "honorary citizen of Kipling" (this could be afforded, for example, by Paris, Rome or Berlin), but much more material

new benefit - a house. A real two-story house. White with red windows. Now Kyle MacDonald is, in his own words, preparing to move to tiny (pop. 1,140) Kipling. Fourteen!

Have you owned your own home before?

I lived in Montreal, rented an apartment with my girlfriend. Now I also live in Montreal and rent an apartment with my girlfriend. It's the same girl, and we even got married in the summer, but not the same apartment.

None of your exchanges can be called equivalent, they have always been on

promotion. Have you encountered only impenetrable dullards?

I certainly think that people are basically stupid. But I believe that this is not the reason for my success. The people I dealt with were, at least in the course of the exchanges, children rather than businessmen. They wanted to play, and in the exchange there is always an element of the game. In childhood, we all exchanged toys, and it never occurred to us to evaluate which one is more expensive or which one is larger. Like it - that's all. That's what the criterion was. The same here. Someone liked the paper clip, someone liked the generator, someone else liked something else. I did not go as a traveling salesman, offering my goods. I offered only one thing and wanted to get another for it. Not any other, but the one that I like.

So you had a specific goal? This doesn't go well with childishness...

Well, you see, everyone grows up sooner or later. So I grew up at the end of 2005. After the third or, it seems, even the fourth exchange, I thought: if everything is going so well, why not aim for more, implement a seemingly crazy idea, turn a paper clip into a house? And then I felt excited.

By the way, excitement is also quite a childish state. And, as you can see, quite productive: I still managed to achieve my goal. I think that a large number of people understood that the main mechanism that led to success was the combination of perseverance, patience and intelligence.

You said your book is selling well. Do you have a lot of imitators or are they just curious?

Most are just curious. If you read the memoirs of Napoleon, this does not mean that you will rush to imitate him. But any striking example attracts attention.

How do you use the internet? In whichpurposes?

I check my mail, I go to news sites that interest me. As a rule, there is nothing unusual about them, it's like looking out the window every morning when you wake up.

You owe so much to the Internet and talk about it so simply - like a window?

If there was no Internet, but I could somehow change the paper clip for a house, I would still become a star, I would be interviewed, etc.

After all, the mechanisms of popularity have remained the same, they have not changed at all. The Internet has simply accelerated everything. And literally everything. You will be forgotten about today many times faster than it would have happened a hundred years ago, because there is so much news on the Web and they arrive at such a speed that Andy Warhol's dream of everyone's right to 15 minutes of fame is close to being realized.

But I'm not going to give up so easily. I will expand my popularity, I have conceived a big project whoaretheseguys.com for this. In addition, I have a home page where I post my stories and other prose experiences. Ultimately, I understand that the red paper clip made me a media person, but I want to be remembered not only with this paper clip.

It turns out that you invariably associate all your activities with the Internet.space?

Let's put it this way: this is my arsenal, a useful toolkit, a way to implement ideas. But I'm not immersed in the Web with my head, I'm quite happy with my real life, although I can understand people who find virtual reality much more interesting.

Why not?

Do you consider yourself a simple guy or some kind of outstanding superhero?

So what kind of superhero am I? Superheroes are the product of entire empires, the media, they invest a lot of money, they have such stunning PR, they are recognized on the street. And I'm a simple guy who came to everything on his own.

What if others want to? Was there a desire to put your success on stream,create something like an Internet resource where users could repeatyour experience and exchange all for all?