There
IS a difference between an asshole and a douchebag behavior wise. We all can have our own moments depending on
our ability to emotionally take responsibility for the processing of our own negative
emotions. I believe that when we are
unable to find healthy ways to express anger or frustration in our lives without fucking up the lives of others around us, done over a long period of time, some people allow their own personalities
to justify bad behaviors that become part of their identity. This is how douchbags and assholes are born.
When
it comes to trying to define in certain terms others that you may be forced to
deal with on a daily basis, in your family, either in your career, personally or just as you go along
your daily life’s routine, I found this article to be funny and very helpful.
The motivation for writing this is simple. The difference
between Douchebags and Assholes can get muddled at times; often the two terms
are used interchangeably. But Assholes and Douchebags, as you’ll see after
considerable analysis, are quite different. First of all, let’s look at the relevant base definitions
for the two. I will exclude definitions that don’t apply to persons, since that
is the context in which we were working today, and also any that don’t help my
argument, to be totally honest with you.
Asshole:
M-W.com: a stupid, incompetent, or detestable person; urbandictionary.com:
Someone being arrogant, rude, obnoxious, or just a total dickhead....
Douchebag:
M-W.com: an unattractive or offensive person; urbandictionary.com: A douchebag
usually assumes the form of a hair-gelling pretty-boy but can also be described
as an overzealous, pompous, or vexatious asshole that most people wish were
killed with a Mortal Kombat fatality.
You can already see their differences beginning to emerge
just from the definitions which I’ve selected, although, as you'll see, I
disagree with the term "vexatious asshole" in the Douchebag
definition. But before I continue with my completely unscientific analysis, I
must note that for the sake of clarity and simplicity, I will only be using the
male pronouns and possessives, because 1) 99% of the time when you’re calling
somebody an asshole or douchebag the person is male and 2) Constantly typing
“he or she” and “his or her” annoys the piss out of me. Also, I doubt any women
will complain that I’m excluding them from this anyway. If you want to create a
“Bitches vs. Cunts” node then by all means, but I want no part of it.
First, just because I think it would be interesting,
let’s look at the etymology of the two terms. According to etymonline.com,
"asshole" was first used as a nautical slang for backside around 1860
and was popular to use by 1930, the ass part a variant of arse, the “r” dropped
in America as with many other words (“arse” and “arsehole” chiefly used in
Great Britain). As for douchebag, well it came from the bag women used to
douche and somebody at some point decided it would be a perfect term to use for
insulting purposes. The use of the term might originate with an early-80’s
Saturday Night Live skit, but who knows, really?
I think that the difference between the two terms can be
summed up thusly (and quite vaguely): An asshole may not necessarily be a
douchebag, and a douchebag may not necessarily be an asshole. In other words,
they are not interchangeable, so stop using them interchangeably. Lets look at
it more in-depth:
I remember one morning years ago, maybe it was late-2003
or early-2004, I saw a man driving his little crappy hatchback zoom into a
lane, cut off a school bus, turned into a QuikTrip, park right in a handicapped
spot, and disembark the car, clearly showing no signs of any type of
disability. That, as I had pointed out in a writeup that was eaten, was Asshole
In Its Purest Form. As for douchebag, I don’t have a personal experience that
defines this term with such clarity, but I do recall a recollection by a radio
DJ with a perfect example of one: a middle-aged gentleman (using the term
loosely here) at a restaurant, smathered with cologne, adorned in jewelry,
sporting an overdone tan, wearing sunglasses and a silk shirt unbuttoned enough
to reveal a significant amount of chest hair. And he was talking on his
cellular phone very loudly as if the business he was conducting was so
important that everybody else had to hear about it.
Let’s use these examples as a starting point to pick apart
the two guys and compare and contrast using three categories: Actions, Self
Worth, Dress.
Actions
Asshole: He
is liable to do things that are in near or total disregard for the welfare
and/or happiness of others. We are all selfish to a certain extent of course
but an Asshole ramps that up a few notches. He may not perpetrate truly evil
acts, such as homicide or a planned brutal assault (however, he might), but he
definitely would cut you off in traffic – on purpose – if it suits him. He will
butt in lines, tailgate, scream at servers who don’t bring him the dish exactly
how he wants it regardless of if he’d actually requested said differences or
not, lie without any sort of noble intentions, steal, cheat, stand you up with
no good excuse, promise to call in the morning but never does, and a myriad
other things that have a tendency to piss people off. To disassociate them from
individuals who are scatter-brained, an Asshole’s non-consideration for others
is mostly conscious. They just don’t give a shit about you. He rarely, if ever,
will do a favor for somebody without getting something out of it for himself.
Douchebag: A
“DB” (as sometimes abbreviated) may not cut you off necessarily in traffic, but
he might drive slow in the fast lane whilst talking on his phone. (In this case
“slow” might actually be the speed limit. But still.) A DB will talk loudly on
the cell phone in public places even though no discernable circumstances
necessitate doing so, he might be dining with a trophy girlfriend or wife and ignore
her the entire time whilst talking loudly on the previously mentioned phone,
attempt to cut in line whilst semi-politely giving some reason (usually having
something to do with how important he is), will order something off the menu
but request so many changes from the waitress that by the time he gets the dish
it is almost entirely different than the default, and a myriad other things
that give you the sense that he feels he is special and that the rules do not
apply to him.
Self
Worth
Assholes: An
Asshole’s self worth can vary widely. He may think he is the center of the
universe, or he may have no discernable sense of self worth at all. But he will
treat you as if you matter less than he does, no matter how much he values
himself. Somebody who is picked on or mistreated in some other way by an
asshole can turn into an asshole himself, mistreating others even lower on the
social ladder to make himself feel better.
Douchebags: No
scale here. A Douchebag has a high sense of self-worth, feeling superior to any
and all around. Which is why a Douchebag conducts himself in inappropriate ways
that will embarrass himself more than others and he is often blissfully unaware
of this fact. Mostly he is irritating, perhaps because others around him might
be envious that he is such a galactic dork but he is somehow getting away with
it. But sometimes he can entertain. A Douchebag can be a living, breathing
comic strip character unable to break the fourth wall, unaware that he is being
laughed at (silently most of the time) by onlookers, too distracted by phone,
sunglasses, big head, and totally awesome flipped-up shirt collar to notice it.
Dress
Assholes: The
frustrating thing about assholes is that it is usually tough to spot them until
they engage in observable acts of assholery. Basically what that means is an
asshole can be dressed in just about anything. You can encounter an asshole
wearing torn up denim shorts with a faded old Metallica concert tee shirt or
you can encounter one in a full business suit. However there are certain things
that assholes tend to wear that can sometimes announce themselves. First,
shirts that say “Lead, follow, or get out of the way” or something else of that
ilk is a sure sign that it is draped around the torso of an asshole. But the
most frequent, and commonly known, type of wardrobe that is almost universally
the fashion item of an asshole is the classic Wifebeater.
This can be a tee shirt of any color or design but the
characteristic every Wifebeater must have is that it is sleeveless – either it
came without them or they’ve been cut or ripped off to show off the upper arms.
The only time a Wifebeater will have sleeves is if they are rolled up so to
form a convenient carrier for a pack of smokes. The Wifebeater is so-named
because of the propensity of men who were these to beat their wives on a
semiregular or regular basis. This type of dress is usually grouped with a
white trash lifestyle, a trailer park staple. But Wifebeaters have been spotted
on men of various socioeconomic classes.
Douchebags: DBs
are almost universally wearing clothing that is in good shape, even though they
are often out of style or are of poor taste to some degree. But out of style or
not, a Douchebag will proudly wear his outfits as if they are the most stylin’
duds available. He will even sometimes flip the collar up, and even though he
doesn’t necessarily have to do that to be a DB, it is almost a scientific law
that every man spotted wearing his collar up is a Grade A Douchebag… and proud of
it. But at any rate, this collar-flipping will invariably be accompanied by the
first three or so buttons undone at the top of the shirt, exposing not only a
bunch of gold jewelry and other bling, but copious amounts of chest hair as
well.
The next item will only draw the ire of sports fans, but
a Douchebag will almost always, when attending a hockey game, whereupon wearing
a home team jersey, tuck it into his pants. This may be difficult to understand
to non-hockey fans, as it is common to tuck in baseball shirts, but this is
just wrong WRONG WRONG. Hockey jerseys must NEVER be tucked in, under any
circumstances, unless you are a douchebag and not a real fan of the game or the
team and are just attending because your coworkers got tickets and had enough disposable
income to purchase a jersey even if it’s for one of the only hockey games
you’ll ever attend in your life. I think maybe this rule applies to the NBA as
well as the NHL but I wouldn’t know and I never will because I couldn’t care
less about the NBA.
Comparing/Contrasting
As far as Actions go, the biggest difference you can see
is that an Asshole’s disregard for the welfare and/or happiness of others
around him is largely willful and hurtful. A Douchebag’s disregard for others
is not so much willful as it is ignorance. And a Douchebag’s disregard for
others hurts himself more than anybody else, for it is an ignorance of others’
feelings about him. A DB’s actions are not likely to ever land him in jail, and
if a DB ever does end up in prison, look out, because it would be mean streets
for a DB in the pokey. It would just take one time for a DB to wear his collar
up on the orange jumpsuit (if any of them have collars) and it would result in
a ride down Asskick Boulevard. Assholes, however, end up in prison often, and
it is one place where being an Asshole can certainly be an advantage, preying
upon those that are weaker for survival. The point is, an Asshole engages in
acts that are immoral and often illegal, whereas a Douchebag’s actions are
generally harmless and if anything bad does happen as a result of a DB’s
actions it would only be an indirect consequence (like a person driving in a
rage around a Douchebag driving slow in a fast lane and the rager causes an
accident).
In terms of Self Worth, as already stated, an Asshole’s self-worth
varies whereas a Douchebag always thinks very highly of himself, which is often
in conflict with what others think of him. A DB is generally happy but an
Asshole can be absolutely miserable which is often a motive for his
mean-spirited actions, i.e. if he is miserable it’s only fair if everybody
around him is as well.
As far as Dress goes, an Asshole will wear just about
anything that suits him and generally does not care what others think. He might
even show up to a wedding in cut-off jean shorts and a tee shirt that says
“Fuck Off.” A Douchebag cares very highly about what others think, it’s just
that he is often wrong as to what it is that they think. Even if a Douchebag
might be cognizant that the outfit he’s wearing is morbidly outdated, he thinks
that if he wears it, because he’s so cool, that he’ll bring it back into style
instantly. He’s just waiting for that call to his cell phone from MTV’s House
of Style. And he gets away with wearing it, and thinking wrongly about what the
other patrons in the restaurant think of his glittery shirt, gold necklaces,
proud display of his chest hair, and parachute pants, because most people are
nice and don’t have the balls to tell him what he or she really thinks.
Except maybe an Asshole. In fact, one of the only worthy
contributions an Asshole can make to society is to go up to a Douchebag and
inform him of how much of a Douchebag he is and to button his shirt up, change
pants, put down that phone and shut the hell up. It is probably the only time
an Asshole will receive, and be worthy of, a standing ovation.
The
Fabled Asshole/Douchebag Combo
Sometimes, if you don’t mind the Ghostbusters analogy,
the beams can cross, and, although it is extremely rare, an Asshole/Douchebag combo
can be born. But such a combination is only possible where it is a person who
is an Asshole first and Douchebag second, not the other way around. And if you
disagree with me you are WRONG. And if you think you know a major douche who
can be an asshole at times, you’re looking at an Asshole, because it takes an
Asshole to do Asshole things, which can include wearing those gold necklaces or
parachute pants. There is no conclusive evidence that the
Douchebag-First/Asshole-Second combination exists and such a creature is
relegated only to myth and legend, liken to Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, or
the Jersey Devil. All claims of sightings of these people are unsubstantiated.
