Douchebag: An Essay

Cultural designations are pretty inexplicable. At a certain point a particular set of behaviors and features coalesce into a stereotype that the masses accept without question or further examination. New words or new meanings for old words just pop up, seemingly out of nowhere, to become a part of the cultural vocabulary as if they were always there. The social taxon that I still haven't been able to get a firm handle on is "douchebag". Like former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart and his understanding of pornography, I think I know a douchebag when I see one, but what exactly makes these people what they are? Let's examine it, shall we?

What we have here are two young men who are unquestionably douchebags of the highest order. Technically people refer to this particular variety of d-bag as a "guido" but I'm not comfortable assigning that term, both because it's inherently racist toward Italians and it's generally inaccurate. You don't have to be of Italian descent to look and act stupid in this particular way, so why live on the assumption? Back to the question at hand: What makes these guys douchebags? Well, there are two layers to it as far as I can tell.

Layer 1: Both of these idiots have embraced an unbelievable density of bad decisions for their fashion and their lifestyle. They are tanned beyond any logical extent, have hair styles that would make a cartoon character cringe and they are loaded with terrible, terrible jewelry. Also, they're obviously the kind of people who aren't ashamed to hang out at the types of establishments that serve $20 drinks in plastic cups.

Layer 2: The young men in this picture have an inverted sense of shame. While any one of their observable qualities would embarrass a normal person, these guys think that the sum of their awfulness makes them too cool for whatever school kicked them out for playing senior pranks in their sophomore year.

So, to recap, douchebags are uniformly ridiculous in their appearance and behavior but they think they're awesome for the exact same reasons.

This brings me to the most difficult question concerning what is and is not a proper douchebag: the word itself. Insults don't always have to make sense, but the ones that stick and become accepted slang usually have some kind of meaningful origin. The term "douchebag" seems a bit non-sequitur, but I think I've got a bead on its potential connection to morons like those in the above picture. In modern American English, douche is a feminine hygiene product that, to not be too crude, requires a bag and a liberal use of differential pressure to apply. That in itself doesn't really correlate to an insult. What does is that most credible medical sources say that the intended use of douche is not only unnecessary, it's actually potentially harmful.

Given this information, the colloquial use starts to make sense. Douche is something inspired by filth that is entirely unnecessary and usually just makes things worse. So, a douchebag is a device with no other purpose but to deliver filth-inspired, potentially harmful uselessness. So, if a douchebag shows up to your party, chances are you are to blame for some kind of cultural filth and now the douchebag is just going to make things worse. This in mind, I think the designation is fitting.

It's important for us to understand just what makes the people around us what they are. Given the severity of the full meaning of "douchebag" I would be hesitant to apply it to an undeserving target. I mean, that's only something a douchebag would do.