Dear people of the internet. We need to have a little heart to heart chat, just you and I.

It’s about a little 9-lettered word that gets dropped more than names at a débutante ball: douchebag. Everyone’s using it, from John Mayer, to Hot Chicks with Douchebags, to everyone on Youtube. I don’t have a problem with popularization, it’s not like I usually enjoy a good restaurant any less if more people start coming to it, so I stake no holier-than-thou I was there first claim on the word. I’m not mad if people know what a cougar is now. My problem is the meaning has become diluted, so in the internet DIY tradition I’m going to put in my two cents whether you’re interested or not.

A douchebag is saccharin-sweet, pretentious asshole. The symptoms of douchebaggery include: one-upmanship, flamboyance, sarcasm, and making an effort at setting yourself apart from a crowd. Oh and there’s one more, and this one is important: the use of the word douchebag. It was primarily a word sneering, smirking hipsters used to describe other sneering, smirking hipsters they didn’t like. The battle to become more indie-than-thou was fierce and the battlefield was littered with shredded, bloody Sonic Youth tees and Chucks.

And that was fine, in those days, you knew what a douchebag was. But now in the days of the New Media everyone’s trying to tell us who and what is a douchebag. Take this for instance: 11 Signs You Might Be A Douchebag. These Oompa-Loompa Jersey Trash clowns, popped collar (pre)fratboys, and car-modding Neon drivers who populate the internet with photos that make us laugh are not douchebags. Look, I’m not saying we don’t have the right to laugh at whatever degenerate subculture these poor, shameless cretins belong to. Rather I’m saying we should reserve this term for the people who clearly deserve it *ahem Mr. Mayer.*

To all you internet hardcunts tossing around the term like the fuckin’ culture police, if you work real hard you might just become a douchebag one day, because from what I see you look like a bunch of posers trying to sound hip.

To all you “brahs” out there who use the word as a substitute for any other obscenity out there, you can keep the word. After al, I can call “douchebags” sugar-coated, pretentious pricks and reserve terms like collar-popping drones for you.

To all you sugar-coated, pretentious pricks on the internet, like the author of Stuff White People Like, I hope your permanent sneer turns into lockjaw. (Hey I’m a hipster making fun of hipsters, that’s so ironic right?)

I hereby officially boycott the word douchebag. Please join me!