Take It Outside

OUCHE ¥ WITH SO MANY MEN BEHAVING DOUCHILY, PRESENT THE DEFINITIVE FIELD GUIDE TO MODERN AMERICAN 2014 FORGET THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. There's an even more terrifying menace assaulting our species—and it's real. Witness the ascen­dance of the modern Ameri­can douchebag. In finance, politics, tech and media, on TV, in movies and especially on the internet, armies of half-men prove that preening self-promotion and unsports­manlike conduct are the order of the day. Discretion, dignity, decorum and brotherhood are still admirable qualities, but in our society the domi­nant message is that these are best left to Grandpa. If you want to get ahead, you have to rock out with your cock out, dick-slapping the rest of humanity in the process. But what specific qualities define the mod­ern douche? Is a social-media manager in Portland who dresses like a Men- nonite, proclaims himself a feminist and makes his own pickles as douchey as Chris Brown? Of course not. But on close examination, they have a number of traits in common: a desperate need for valida­tion, a peacockish urge to stand out, a smug sense that they're above their fellow man and a tendency to post on Instagram. There used to be a raft of terms to describe a guy who rubbed most other men the wrong way—the lines separating a dick, a prick and a cocksucker, delineated for us in the schoolyard by our elders—but today there's only one. For now, it is douche, and it will have to do. The New Oxford Ameri­can Dictionary, which dates the word's slang use to the 1960s, defines douchebag as a "loathsome or contemptible person," which really doesn't help much. You recognize a douche when you see one. We all do. But just in case, here's a working taxonomy. Know thine enemy. DICKS • As every woman who has ever lived can attest, men are a bunch of dicks. Not all guys, and not all the time, but enough that we have a rep. Dicks are selfish, insensi­tive, arrogant and aggressive. They're quick to assert their dominance and slow to apologize. They see life as a battle for scarce resources, with losers on one side and rich, happy dicks with gorgeous wives, giant houses and fulfilling careers on the other. And as much as we scorn them, dicks tend to get things done. Thomas Edison was a giant dick, for example, but you'd be reading this in the dark if he hadn't been. Until quite r ecently, if you worked hard and strived for great­ness, occasional acts of dickishness were, like heart disease, to be expected. Dicks don't try to hide their dickishness. Douches do. Con­sider the following. FOX HOST TECH VISIONARY ANGRY LIBERAL MASTER OF CEREMONIES LATE-NIGHT HOST THE DOMINANT DOUCHE ARCHETYPES The GUIDOUCHE A.K.A. THE PAULY D-BAG DOUCHEY DOMAIN Your local gym, grunt­ing by the free weights DOUCHE-MOBILE Dented yellow Hummer 113 with pissing Calvin deral and'IrurkXuty BROWSER HISTORY Avicii's latest club mix on SoundCloud, Shemale Strokers.com DOUCHE TOOLS Hair-trigger tern per, menacing dance-floor fist pump DOUCHEY DREAM To get his GED and become a cop so he can "stop cracking heads for free" DOUCHEY DOWNFALL A creeping molly addic­tion, serious bacne HOLLYWOOD DQUCHEL- GANGER Mike "the Situation" Sorrentino as himself - of'the- 33 A.D. Judas Iscariot betrays his buddy Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. 1959 The world's first self-tanner, Man-Tan, hits shelves, making douches look like tangerines. THE URBAN DOUCHEOIS A.k.a. the Arlisanal Douche DOUCHEY Ktlmir ncigh-borhoods with good housing stock and room for bike lanes DOUCHE-MOBILE Boxy Euro­pean smoker from the 1980s, but he's saving for a hybrid BROWSER HISTORY Ads lor Asian submissives on Craigslist, painstak­ingly curated Instagram feed DOUCHEU Women's studies D-BAG DIET $12 cold-pressed juices and locally sourced, farm-to-table weed DOUCHEY DREAM To Kick-start the small-batch vermouth company he's been talking about since 2008 DOUCHEY DOWNFALL Lack of mar­ketable skills and talent HOLLYWOOD DQUCHEL- GANGER Michael Cera in anything DOUCHEY <-DOMAIN The middle echelons of American finance DOUCHE-MOBILE Leased black-on-black Range Rover with optional "sport" package BROWSER HISTORY High-end hooker reviews on Eros, vintage Panerai list­ings on eBay. post about hi^ frat's latest pledge fatal­ity on IvyGate D-BAG DIET Sugar-free Red Bull, blue-fin sashimi, Adderall XR, protein shakes DOUCHEY DREAM 'I<> invent the next mortgage-backed security, to make the wife of his best friend "airtight" next time he's out of town DOUCHEY DOWNFALL Charging strip­pers on his cor­porate AmEx, failing to securely delete his hard drive HOLLYWOOD DOUCHELGANGER Bud Fox in Wall Street The 1% DOUCHE A.K.A. THE WOLF OF D STREET 1982 A friend of his older brother calls Elliott a "douche" in E.T. It's one of the first times the word is used on-screen. 1988 Parisian nightclub Les Bains Douches invents the concept of bottle service. (True story.) 1992 The Real World premieres on MTV. By the end of the decade, 94 percent of all douchebags will have appeared \ on reality television. 2002 Dr. Phil gets his own TV show. yourself in front of a camera, chances are you're a douche. Here are four types to defensively disdain in between taking selfies. / THE CELEBRITY M.D. V sperate fatties; the other addicts on display like zoo als. Both give us that not-so- THE BORN-AGAIN P-BAG The Apprentice, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?) recently told Forbes he has embraced Christ. THE SVENGAU DOUCHE One discovered Bieber; the other bred a superstrain of money-and-fame-hungry douchettes. It's mostly their fault we're in this mess. THE POUCHETUBER t batch of undertalented, ¦exposed "like" junkies puts i in digital. DOUCHEY DOMAIN Suburban office parks, luxury condo develop­ments and indoor driv­ing ranges DOUCHE-MOBILE Black con­vertible with vanity plates and Ron Paul bumper sticker BROWSER HISTORY Post about Obama's Al Qaeda ties on Breitbart, his profile on Seeking Arrangement (user name: Cum2-Daddy) DOUCHE TOOLS Powei Point presentations, the latest corporate jargon, "man­aging up" DOUCHEY DREAM Ib make VI' by 45, to see Nickel-back live at Hedonism II DOUCHEY DOWNFALL (iiving his wife clilamydia, crushing alimony payments HOLLYWOOD DQUCHEL- GANGER Bill Lumbergh in Office Space THE PETIT DOUCHEOIS m. the I)-HagMext Door 2003 Dane Cook releases his first CD, Harmful If Swallowed, which goes platinum. 2004 Britney Spears marries her backup dancer, a deadbeat dad with corn-rows. The line between decency and douchery is briefly known as the Feder Line. 2004 Later that year, early adopter Jon Stewart names conservative columnist Robert Novak the Douche-bag of Liberty. 2006 HotChicksWith L Douchebags.com launches. 2006 Jack Dorsey sends the world's [~ first tweet. ^ THE DOUCHE MATRIX 2007 Jon & Kate Plus 8 debuts on the Discovery Health Channel, introducing America to Jon Gosselin's collection of Ed Hardy T-shirts. The show remains on the air for seven seasons. 2008 Gawker claims "douchebag" is over and calls for a replacement. The site's readers nomi­nate "asshat." It does not catch on. 2009 Kanye West interrupts 19-year-old Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards. 2013 ^^ Dennis Rodman par­ties with Kim Jong-un in North Korea. Twice. On the second visit, he is kicked out of his hotel foi deucing in the hallway. i 2014 A 200-year-old douche is discov­ered under City Hall in New York.