Reader Mail
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Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Reader Mail: The Unifying Principle
Reader Charles Douchewin writes in with an academic biology perspective:
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DB1,
I’m finishing my PhD in evolutionary biology, a process from which I find occasional escape at HCwDB.com. During quiet moments here in my academic ivory tower, and by ivory tower I mean roach-infested storage closet of an office, I casually ponder both pear and the evolutionary dynamics of douchebaggery.
The hallmarks of baggery are easily recognized (Louis 2008) and may be influenced by elements such as product branding or sexual selection (John-from-Vegas 2009; Sir-Hate-A-Douche 2010).
However I suspect the origins of douchebaggery, as you have suggested (Louis 2007), lie within a more unifying principle.
Recently, a reader at HCwDB.com asked a particularly insightful question “Does a Douchebag know he is a Douchebag?” (Jamie 2011).
I propose the answer is No, and it’s here that a unifying principle may be found. Self-deception, particularly as articulated in Robert Trivers’s evolutionary theory of self-deception (Trivers 2000; Trivers 2002) could explain the douchadox, and become a central element supporting a Douchebag theory.
Trivers proposes; “For a solitary organism, the prospects seem difficult, if not hopeless. In trying to deal effectively with a complex, changing world, where is the benefit in misrepresenting reality to oneself? Only in interactions with other organisms, especially con-specifics, would several benefits seem to arise. Because deception is easily selected between individuals, it may also generate self-deception, the better to hide ongoing deception from detection by others. In this view, the conscious mind is, in part, a social front, maintained to deceive others — who more readily attend to its manifestations than to those of the actor’s unconscious mind.” (Trivers 2002)
In essence, the douchbag or baguette is so deeply unaware of their own douchieness that potential mates interpret the douche’s projections of self importance as honest signals of fitness. Such a Douchebag theory appears consistent with a multi-stage progression of douchebaggery and of course, the existence of oldbags.
If indeed douchebags are victims of their own mind – they deserve our sympathy. And by sympathy I mean mock-induced cognitive dissonance. So in a world without a total perspective vortex device (Adams 1980), which may or may not be helpful anyway (depending on your perspective) I encourage the mock, at least from an escapable distance.
— Charles Douchwin
References:
Adams, D. (1980). The hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy. New York, Harmony Books.
Jamie. (2011). “Ask DB1: The chicken or the bag?” Hot Chicks with Douchebags.com
John-from-Vegas. (2009). “Ask DB1: Blaming the Bleeth?” Hot Chicks with Douchebags.com
Louis, J. (2007). “Rodin’s The Doucher Revisited.” Hot Chicks with Douchebags.com
Louis, J. (2008). Hot Chicks with Douchebags, Simon Spotlight Entertainment.
Trivers, R. (2000). “The Elements of a Scientific Theory of Self-Deception.” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 907(1): 114-131.
Trivers, R. (2002). The Elements of a Scientific Theory of Self-Deception. Natural selection and social theory : selected papers of Robert L. Trivers. New York, Oxford University Press: 271-293.
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Monday, May 2, 2011Thug Island and the Elf Hott
The Scrote Sleuth writes in with the tag:
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This husky vixen cannot resist the brutally sculpted biceps and imposing pecs of this alpha gorilla wannabe. Best case scenario that tat reads “Thug Island”, which ironically is where this throwback would be exiled if crimes against taste ever entered the criminal code. Closer inspection reveals the road in the background is slick with water: rain + shirt off + sunglasses leaves this unfortunate specimen in dangerously douchy territory. Bonus douche points for subtly flexing your triceps while posing.
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Reader Mail: European Dancebaggery
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Subject: Euro douche/hott manifesto
Dear DB1,
I am a big Euro Dance music fan for years now and I came across this music video clip. For me it signifies the ultimate Euro-douche-II virus expanding in the European continent, carrying lots of hotts along with it.
This is pretty much how modern European youth looks like. It’s a shame isnt it?
Best & thanks again for your struggle against douches all over the planet,
-Douchifer
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It does exemplify the mutating eurovirus, Douchifer, but I am troubled by your prior history as a Euro Dance music fan.
Modern cultural historians generally classify European Dance Music by articulating two distinct historical periods, B.A. and A.A. (Before Abba and After Abba). And both are considered equally douchey.
Modern douche variations cannot contain the long, bleak history of eurobaggery in dance music.
Thursday, April 14, 2011Quartasian Maggie Seeks Legal Representation
Yesterday’s celebrated and curvacious Quartasian Hottie, Maggie, writes in with a takedown request:
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request to remove unauthorized photo
I absolutely do not approve of you using this photograph. I demand you take it down immediately or I will seek legal representation! I DO NOT give you my permission to use my picture. Take it down Immediately.
This is the photo from this morning that I demand be removed:
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Skinny D and Maggie the Quartasian Hottie
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Words spelled correctly. Impressive. Most impressive. But you are not a hottie yet.
While it saddens me to say goodbye to such quartasian hottness, we must bid adieu to mammtastic mammories. But we’ll always have our… mammories.
Thursday, April 14, 2011Reader Mail: Heather Dumps Mr. Lazy
Reader Heather writes in from Singapore:
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Subject: ya gotta go…
this complete fing douchbag wore this god damn shirt atleast 2x week while we were dating….it was either kill myself or break up…..I DECIDED TO MOVE TO SINGAPORE!
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Well, that’s one solution. The other would’ve been to write the word “eye” with a black magic marker under “Mr. Lazy” on his shirt.
Still, he’s only barely a stage-1 doucher, Heather, and if repeated shirt wearing was a ‘bag signifier, my repeated socks wearing would definitely get me in trouble.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011Reader Mail: Douchebags in the Midwest
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Dear DB1,
Why do normal midwest girls think douchy dudes are hot?
I myself hate em. but my friends (not I) run to them like a flock of seagulls. I dont understand please please help.
I have included two photos of my BFF and her stupid new boy.
enjoy
– Angie
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Ah. The cosmic question.
The answer to the hottie/douchey coupling, young Angie, lies not in the seeking of conclusions or concrete end points, but as a path of sequential investigations leading to a higher truth through process.
As the great Talmudic scholar Rashi once taught us, “God knew where he was, but he asked so as to start a conversation with Adam and avoid startling him too much to reply.”
The conversation, as the Tanach teaches us, not the answers, is wherein we find the revelations of the God shards. Follow these questions like Adam and God, as dialectic, as what Derrida calls the metaphysics of subjectivity and the incongruences of the text, and the process of interrogation, in and of itself, will lead to revelation.
For all will ultimately be revealed in the glorious and holy mathematical curve we call pear.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011Reader Mail: Tony Turns in his Brother for a Douche Violation
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DB1,
I’m a huge fan. Loyal from Day 1.
So here’s a pic of my younger brother and his girlfriend. He thinks he’s so cool with his shiny suit. Just plain old douche to me. This pic is loaded. Does it make the cut.
Oh, and I don’t need the world knowing it was me who submitted it. I’m not Fredo.
-Tony
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And then, after my appeal to take credit for the hard work of a familial douche intervention:
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Ok. Run it. I’ll alert the local HCwDB fanbase.
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Run it I shall. For your bro needs to have his silk jacket and pointy pose mocked for all eternity. And Bouncy Sandrina needs to show more cleve.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011Reader Mail: Willem’s Rappercrud Tag
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Subject: Utter D-Bag
This photo is of a cute friend and her utter d-bag boyfriend. He is such a d-bag it is almost is if he is trying to make an ironic statement about douchebaggery but unfortunately for her he is way too dumb for that.
The best part is that he thinks he’s rapper.
– Willem
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That “video” may be the more reprehensible slice of humanity fail I’ve seen since the Criss Angel music career crisis of the late 2009s.
The Wankstabag category continues to be the most infuriating and perplexing, as hiphop wigga suburban shitestains long ago crossed into pathetic self parody and part time employment at Carl’s Jr. Tasty Barely Legal Belinda deserves far better. I scornfully reproach the failure of her parents as she complains about her struggling career as a custom jewelry designer, then stare at her pokey sideboob when she’s busy removing the swizzle stick from her appletini.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011Reader Mail: Frank Tags Some Funnelbags
Eagle-eyed Frank writes in:
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Subject: tri-bags and funnel flakes
this is actually a picture i found on facebook of a girl i (apparently, “used to” is appropriate here) know.
At first, i thought this seemed pretty run of the mill. chodes hanging off of little-miss about-to-be-violated, the disproportionate torsos. hell, leftie is even wearing affliction. this was too easy.
and then i saw the funnel. next to the off-brand frosted flakes. both of which are near the crumbling staircase. and suddenly this picture screams “frat boys” louder than an ecstatic bleethy cougar that’s “mistakenly” stumbled upon greek row after her personal record of jagerbombs.
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Good catch, Frank. While you had me at “off-brand frosted flakes,” the funnel is an excellent frat tag giveaway.
Friday, March 18, 2011Reader Mail: Jaundice Kyle
Reader Jacques Doucheteau writes in with a Facebook tag:
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I came across this somewhat surreal looking photo on Facebook, of whom no one in the picture I personally know which makes it okay for me to submit for mocking without remorse.
Some friend of my friend knows who they are apparently, as they all go to raves together, which is pretty douchey to begin with. The guy with the arsenic blue lips is obviously trying desperately to get in on the nuzzle hot action, but is being largely ignored as he snaps away for his profile pics.
The party lighting and his duck lips pose further accentuate his already gaunt and sickly appearance as he stands on his tipee toes for the camera. He only wishes it was his hand clutching Erin’s perky swollen mammary cannons, and almost looked like it at first glance, but instead they are roughly clutched in bi-curious Nessy’s disturbingly manly hands. I’m guessing that’s why he chose this as his GODDAMN PROFILE PICTURE!
Oh, Erin. Your boobies inspire monks to utter blasphemic curses at orphans and stomp on baby ducklings in the vain hope to gain audience with the homeless veteran who begs for change a block down from the flower shop where that lily in your hair was purchased. I personally would canter gleefully through a field strewn with razor wire and irate badgers, pausing occasionally to induce vomiting with a swig of vinegar and goat abscess pus, for the mere possibility that I could uncomfortably snuffle through your mom’s recycling until she chases me off her property with a broom.
I dub him, Jaundice Kyle. For his purple lips, bruised beanpole arms, and yellow complexion in the presence of refreshing sweet hottsicles doth offend me. Or to put it another way, f#ck you buddy.
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Well argued, J.D., and your ode to Erin’s mammages is both poetic and astute. A perfect tag/writeup for a lazy Friday. I toast you with a HoHo.
