Gawker Flies Its Freakademic Flag, Tries to Summarize ‘Douchebag’
Some pseudo-intellectual warghlebarghle ‘culture’ critic named Michael Mark Cohen over at Gawker has attempted to write the history of ‘douchebag’ in popular use.
His conclusion? The term ‘douchebag’ has become a variation of a socially acceptable ethnic insult. To call someone a douchebag is, according to this pop culture Nostradamus, a coded way to racialize whiteness.
Allow me to retort.
A douchebag says no.
Critiquing the term douchebag on ethnic terms ignores the far more obvious and self-evident gender binary taking place. The perjorative context of ‘douchebag’ lies entirely in its critique of masculine ego by referencing a feminine hygiene product. To try to relocate this obvious gender interplay as a template for racial power embedded in media artifacts is to overdetermine meaning based on pre-established crotch fondle.
Let me repeat. No.
Douchebag is not a code for whiteness. It has never been used that way. If you want to project some idiotic screed on racial hierarchies and linguistic subtext onto a concept you don’t understand, I suggest entering the rarified air of Lena Dunham think pieces and Miley Cyrus twerking deconstructions. I hear Commentary and Dissent have merged to form low paying clickbait troll spew.
Ascribing douchemock to race to heat up the outrage machine and you’re just phishing for pixel chum. And no, I’m not referring to a 1990s noodle jazz fusion band that never should have left Vermont. I’m referring to an outdated mode of ethnicity studies that can’t account for convergence culture.
How do I know what ‘douchebag’ means? Because I’m the guy that redefined it back in 2006. Back then it meant either a feminine hygiene product or a rarely used insult akin to asshole. In its redefinition, douchebaggery became a term used to describe a certain type of preening hyper-masculinity. The point at which human males (and certain females) transformed into Michaelbay-ian cyborgian explosions of cartoonish idiocy and narrative incoherence. All in an effort to get the ladies by turning their bodies into neon day-glo advertisements and pop culture tinsel.
I needed a word to describe male spectacle in the age of over-saturated media stimulation. And I found it.
But there was barely a tip of the hat to the importance of HCwDB in Gawker’s rambling unthinkpiece. If you’re gonna break down the ‘bag and you don’t credit Hot Chicks with Douchebags, you’re talking out of your proverbial Foucauldian peeper steeper.
The facts is the facts. The HCwDB community is what introduced ‘douche’ analysis to contemporary discourse. Not just me. All the regs in the comments threads over the years. We parsed douchebaggery in all its hottie/douchey dialectical formulations.
Heck, I even wrote a book on the subject. So I know of what I speak. At least when it comes to frivolous colloquialisms written as satirical mock.
So put down that Fanon and Chomsky, digi-media whore, and come back to the realities of the pop culture pizza. Sometimes a slice of mushroom and roasted red peppers is just a slice of mushroom and roasted red peppers. Especially when it tans and shaves and rubs its pecs with various sundry bodylotions in the hope of attracting a party chick woo hottie.
Them’s the post-structural Derridian deconstruction. Put that in Freud’s cigar and smoke it.
So let it be written. So let it be done.
TL;DR EDIT: For those of you coming to Hot Chicks with Douchebags for the first time via that Gawker article, Gawker is the sucky. You can read the real history of the sordid, complex introduction of douchebaggery as mock in the history of Hot Chicks with Douchebags, my last daily post on this site, written last February.
Well said! What’s Gawker? meh, nevermind.
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Nice pic too
The Gawker is guilty of pretend journalism, but not Truth-In-Advertising:
Noun: Gawk (gôk) – To stare or gape stupidly.
Noun: Gawker (gôkər) – An awkward, loutish person; an oaf.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/gawker
Gawker: A spectator who stares stupidly without intelligent awareness.
http://www.wordwebonline.com/en/GAWKER
Gawker: A shitty collection of websites.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=gawker
I appreciate the Gawker’s attempts to ascribe meaning to things in the world, but they should look closer to home.
For example, they could re-title their site: “The Farter” or “The Sharter”, to better speak to their content.
hmmmmm sounding like a bit of a bag here bro
whats the breakdown of racial representation here on the site
just
ballpark
@Nick
The racial rep is very diverse, I myself am 1/2 Eskimo & 1/2 Cyborg.
Well I’m half slitheen and half
sycorax so I guess that makes me a mutant.
I think the article needs to be retitled “I Woke Up This Morning As a Giant Throbbing Pussy That Felt the Need to be Offended by Something In Order to Sound Smart to the Captive Audience I ‘Teach'”.
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And this ladies and germs was exactly why I stuck to science. Assigning meaning to the meaningless just annoys me.
I will not read the above until I’m stoned cause that’s when I meld with the mind of DB1. Give em hell Boss. And Happy New Year to you and your two Jews.
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Son
What Dr. B said @ 4:30.
While most of us have gotten over the whole race thing fifty years ago, those who feel they have much to gain politically look at everything through the prism of race.
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It was hilarious to watch all the (mostly white) racist sportswriters and pundits clamoring all over each other to be the one MOST offended by Donald Sterling.
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BTW we’re Pacific Islanders on this site except for Reverend Chad who digs the mulatto chicks and shit.
Must be a slow “news” day at Gawker. Aren’t their any hacked nudes of self absorbed borderline decently looking “celebrities” to report on?
I’m as white as my taint and I do not see any colour other than Mulatoo, and shit.
Unfortunately, I read the article.
Yeah, I think every black kid in college wants an African American Studies professor named , “Cohen”
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This guy must get paid by the word although I’d had enough of his verbose meanderings by the third paragraph.
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I can just see Db1 seething as Cohen droned on and on about everything not pertaining to to true ‘baggery trying to make a scientific explanation.
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It’s this easy, “If a douchebag is a douchebag, you’ll know.” For proof click on : He Just Bangs Bitches and Drinks
Whats this shiznit written in Gawker. Read this site, learn thy book, remember thy history – whatever shall be, shall be.
Douchebags require, nay, demand mock. The women attracted to douchebags deserve thy hose.
None of the above means that douchebags are by any means statistically significantly white. The d-bags on this here site are of a rainbow, genuflecting before their altar of roids, rash, and rash. Theirs is but a kind not seen in most parts, but if those parts do show an infection then by all means blast ’em.
P.S. The way this blondie’s neck is chokehugged and her bleethed-out ‘help me daddy’ pseudo-scream mean it’s gonna be a long [read: short] tug tonight mateys! Extra Bacardi for thy coka-cola.
“Michael Mark Cohen works as a professor of American Studies and African American Studies at UC Berkeley. He lives in the East Bay with his family, his garden, and his bee hives.”
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Bee hives? What a douchebag…
@DW
What a Jabrone! did I use that term correctly?
Let’s see:
Asian: 4-Prong
African American: Brotha’ Bag Leon & Brothabag Edgar
Reptile: The Gator
Pacific Islander: There was one just can’t think of his name,
Wigger: Sleepy Jerkenstein
Latino: Paco McScribble
I thought Gawker was the site for douchebags. Their modus operandi is clickbait: creating controversal (or sometimes extremely cute or infotainment) articles to bring in readers. This led in large part to the current brouhaha with GamerGate.
The author of the article seems to be a douchebag himself, since he claims the word “haole” is used by international students. The word is Hawaiian, so I guess he’s of the mindset Hawaii should secede from the Union.
(P.S. The term Deutschebag should be reserved for Germans. It’s just too perfect.)
I miss you guys.
Nice to see you back, chief. We gonna get more crushing of douchebags on the reg?
[sings…] Where have you gone, douchbag Stacky, a nation wants to take a crap on you, woo woo woo….
[reviews Hall of Hott for old times sake…]
Apropos of nothing, Porn Goddess Kayden Kross in Blowjobs are F****** Great
This reminds me of a classic joke I laughed at every damn time in the comments over the years- I think it was DW:
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If there’s two things I hate, it’s racists and Mexicans.
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Or something like that.
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Just last night I had a nice non-racialist moment. I was espousing the wonders of the new fried chicken purveyor that opened down the street from me. This place is as good as it gets. And I so very nearly tried to validate the deliciousness by offering an anecdote that my two black friends that stayed with me the week before LOVED it, and went twice during the three days they were here. But in the ends, I just said “my friends” instead of “black friends”.
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So the racialism is certainly fading. *patting self on back*
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I will always remember a D-sock comment of 2 hottie asians and a white d-bag: it was true all along, 2 wongs do make a white
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Or something like that…
Damn racebags. Isn’t it enough to hate the French?
http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/oct/22/douchebag-from-useless-contraceptive-to-universal-putdown
Universal contraceptive should be in the Jersey Shore water…
Jonezy, tell me you aren’t talking bout Parsons Chicken & Fish.
Cuz that place is filled with hipster d-bags of the worst kind.
Gawker: a sad, sad gossip blog that trumps itself up as a “legitimate” news site while it’s really just an means by which rumors on 4chan and reddit can legitimize themselves by being presented in a slick, marketing-style facade. It’s actually pretty fucking pathetic.
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But what the fuck ever. Who gives a shit. Gunther isn’t Justin Bieber, bitch.
“So fucking hot”
Mr. Cohen sounds like he was born from the choad of pink lips here.
I loved when reddit did “The Fappening”. Seeing Jennifer Lawrence’s girlie bits and Victoria Justice pinch her little nips was fappalicious.
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Also, Boston pitcher Clay Buchhol’z wife’s flat toned tummy and perfect breasts was a treat. I’m usually satisfied just looking at her text all night behind home plate ignoring the game from the best seat in the house on the NESN home games. Her body is insane
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Although I could have gone without seeing Napoli’s sauseeej
Reverend Chad stands as sentinel for the sentinel (respect) to prevent the Islamic douchebags from infecting the beloved Prime Minister and shit.
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17
Hark! Oh Ye Perverts!
Trundle thine self on back
To 2005:
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http://hotchickswithdouchebags.com/blog/2005/03/friday-haiku-march-21-2005/
The Rev and Lenny will quash the jihadist mooslims and protect their home and native land from evil and shit.
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14 sons
Enter the wayback machine to March 22nd, 2005 and despair:
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http://hotchickswithdouchebags.com/blog/2005/03/pre-emptive-fraiku/
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14. Sons.
John Oliver knocks another one out of the park , this time the Miss America Pageant and it’s ilk
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HERE
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“Donald Trump, a clown made of mummified foreskin and cotton candy”
The first time I ever heard the term “Douchebag” was by Sean Astin’s character Billy Tepper in “Toy Soldiers” in 1991. Pretty ahead of his time i would say…