Douchetardity: A Field Manual

Of all the things I love about reality television, it's the insight into average quotidian stupidity that really resonates above all others.

Now I don't tout myself as a genius or anything. Often, when people around me are discussing philosophers, I fall back on the two-sentence summaries of their works lodged successfully in my brain by a variety of half-remembered UCLA lecturers. ("Oh, yes, Hegel...Well, he discussed synthesizing things. Fascinating stuff, really...")

But I possess at least, let's say, somewhat-above-average intelligence. I did well on my SAT, I occasionally read long books for no compelling reason other than personal pleasure, and I made it to the second round out of three on "Win Ben Stein's Money." So as a person of somewhat-above-average intelligence, it's physically impossible for me to involve myself in a conversation between stupid idiots. I can't do it. If I'm there, at least one person of somewhat-above-average intelligence is participating. So I don't know how idiots really interact with one another when no one else is around, and that's what a show like "House of Carters" provides in spades.

Anyway, tonight I had a rare opportunity to get some anthropological research in at the supermarket. I was waiting in a rather extraordinarily long line to pay for my groceries and a drunk couple got in line right behind me.

The dude was a fairly standard-issue ex-fratboy douchetard, wearing a collared shirt and sport coat with all the sleeves rolled up. Like he was just coming from the trading floor or something. I noticed right away that he was using the word "whatever" far too frequently, and that he was referring to his date on more than one occasion as "bro." His date was a moderately attractive blonde wearing far too much eyeshadow and one of those tiny nose studs, where you can't tell for a second if the girl is wearing jewelry in her nose or if a shard of glass has somehow become painlessly lodged in there, undiscovered, for the past several days. Both were around, I'd estimate, their early mid-30's.

Okay, so, here's their conversation as accurately, and without embellishment, as I can reconstruct it. First, the girl picks up a magazine featuring Christina Aguilera and starts talking about how she's a whore and totally ugly and how this girl can't understand why anyone likes her. More vicious circa-2003 anti-celebrity tirades followed suit, against every woman featured on the newsstand. Did you guys know that Jessica Simpson is a bimbo? Or had you, perhaps, heard that Lindsay Lohan is a crazy party girl?

(I was a bit taken aback when this girl said that she hated Kate Winslet, because every time the actress appears on TV, "it looks like she hasnt' showered." Kate Winslet's always lookeds spic-and-span to me. There's that whole scene in Heavenly Creatures in which she's in the tub!)

After the Joan Rivers impression, these two worked their way into an equally fascinating and celebrity-themed topic - which famous people they feel that they resemble. The girl said she looks like the blonde girl from "Scrubs," formerly the replacement Becky on TV's "Roseanne." (How lame is it that I know the girl's name to be Sarah Chalke without looking it up?)

The guy then, quite hilariously, pulled out a totally lame, canned routine that he obviously has stored up for just such an occasion. See, he drops "off-handedly" that people have told him he looks like Johnny Knoxville. But the trick is, he pretends to find this insulting. "People think I look like a jackass!," was his line. The genius of this scheme is that a dim-witted but sensitive female, trying only to comfort a guy who feels slighted, will find herself in the odd position of complimenting him on looking like a really attractive guy.

This dude knows chicks dig Johnny Knoxville. But by pretending to not know this, he gets girls to say, "No, Johnny Knoxville's hot," having already made the connection between himself and Mr. Knoxville. It might actually be clever if it weren't so totally hacky. I think this guy just has really terrible delivery and can't sell the routine. In the right hands, it could be golden.

Anyway, after stroking their egos a bit in a humiliating display of vanity, the duo turned their attention (naturally) to their favorite TV shows. "Roseanne" was an early favorite, but I swear the girl actually said the following:

"That show was alright, but my favorite was always 'Home Improvement.' You wouldn't think so, but Tim Allen is hilarious."

Gentle reader, I began looking around for the camera, certain that I was being filmed for Jamie Kennedy's next miserable disgusting failure of a prank show.

So, okay...Typical mindless, shallow LA posers...Buying booze for the second half of their date...Comparing the relative comic abilities of Tim Allen, Christopher Hewitt and John Stamos...Obsessively rattling on about their favorite brands for everything (including gum!)...

What do you think these two people were purchasing? Think hard now...













If you guessed vodka and Red Bull, congratulations! You are familiar with douchetardism in its rarest and most beautiful form.