If You Can't Do Something Right...

Warning: This blog entry contains adult language and mature subject matter. If you think you might be offended by something I may say, please try something a little more suited to your tastes instead.

Before we start this off today, I am going to go ahead and do the full-disclosure thing and let you all know that this is a rather pointed entry, but it's something that needs to be discussed anyway.

Is it just me, or is the collective insult vernacular of the Internet almost exclusively reserved to things like "asshat," "fucktard," and "douchebag?" Those aren't witty, and they certainly don't do you any favors. It's like a man with glasses calling a monocled chap "Two Eyes." The secret to insulting someone is not to appear a total moron. You want to seem smarter than they are.

At the very least, make up your own insults. Really. What you've got out there just doesn't insult me. Douchebag? I'm pretty sure that went out of style in the early '90's. And perhaps it is not wise to point out that one who is a douchebag is still going to get a lot closer to a vagina than you ever will in your lifetime.

Asshat? Am I missing some sort of meaning to it, or does it really just mean a hat which rests upon one's behind? Condoms are kind of hats, I guess, but again... we don't want to remind your opponent that you've only read about sex on the Internet. So, is an asshat like a butt condom or something? Or maybe it's a pair of underpants. With skidmarks? Trust me, there are far better insults involving skidmarks than "asshat."

Fucktard. That oh-so-witty combination of "fucking" and "retard." Beautiful. Let's take two offensive words, keep the stressed syllables, and create a new wondrous word of insult. Sorry, guys. It's not that witty. Witty can never be confined to one word. It requires intelligence to produce wit - something I fear is quite lacking on the Internet, these days. It doesn't require intelligence to call someone else a dirty name; it doesn't even show intelligence.

If you really want to insult someone, then you've got to know how. The great art of insulting is a beautiful thing; something that can be appreciated long after the original cause is lost. Check out some of these quotes from Oscar Wilde. They were so insulting that they were remembered over 100 years after they were said.

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

"I am not young enough to know everything."

"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."

"Whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong."

You see? Not a single "asshat" or "douchebag" in the bunch. and these are biting insults of the highest caliber. They write books about a quality insult. I'm not talking about those books that you buy at the Book Fair in Middle School which proclaims "You look like a million bucks! All green and wrinkled!" to be the zenith of contemporary wit. I'm talking about those nice leather-bound books that speech writers like to cling to as if they were their only child.

So, before you decide to write off that e-mail or Facebook post proclaiming me to be an "asshat" or a "pompous know-it-all," just remember that you aren't impressing me. Seriously, after about a dozen or so of them all strung together that feature practically the same words, you aren't even standing out in a crowd. One guy said "Trollololol." This means he sought out to make me angry, for at least part of my day. Not quite... I can't get angry over something so damned pathetic. Pity is the only emotion that he was able to eke out of me.

Put your backs into it, now! Use some wit. Impress me. Make me feel worse! Don't contribute to me feeling superior! Don't prove me right! Come on. Be original. I'm sure it's possible. I wouldn't want to live in a world where it wasn't, because if there's one thing this world doesn't need, it's another asshole of limited intelligence.