8 Types Of Selfies That Make You Look Like A Douche

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My friends, I stand here before you naked—literally, although in the newfound humility I’ve acquired via extensive yoga training and rigorous bonsai gardening, I will not snap a selfie of it—because I must confess that I am not immune from the seductive lure of taking selfies. In fact, I may have helped pioneer the trend back when cellphone cameras first became widely available—not only of male facial selfies, but also male topless selfies and, yes, that unfortunate perpetual stain upon humanity’s dignity that I will politely term “penile self-portraiture.”

Therefore, it is not my place to judge, because I have no moral leg upon which to stand here. Morally, I am legless. But I am here to share. To counsel. To advise. If you take any of the following sort of selfies and post them publicly, you run the risk of people either silently thinking you’re a douche or openly declaring in front of the entire World Digital Court that you are a douche. And since I am not a sexist, my definition of a “douche” includes women, because it’s unfair to exclude the group who actually does almost all of the douching from being douches.

1. The Male Vanity Selfie

As I’ve already made quite clear in my opening tear-jerker of a confession, I am guilty of this crime. Embarrassingly guilty. Feloniously guilty. When women take selfies, it’s an entirely different thing. We expect our womenfolk to be obsessed with their looks—and for all the pressure that men supposedly put on women to look good, my experience is that women are far more pressured by themselves and other women. But male narcissism is seen as exponentially more nauseating, which is why if men are going to post pictures of themselves online, it’s only fair to force your girlfriend to take the picture.

2. The Pregnant Selfie

Yes, the entire planet is very happy for you that he squirted his load inside you and fertilized your egg, but most of us want to see that thing growing roughly as much as we want to watch a tumor growing.

3. Selfies With The Homeless

I have been inconsiderate with the homeless on-camera before—if you must know, I got a homeless woman to pose naked in exchange for $3—but in my half-assed defense I will point out that it was on videotape. The moral point I’m trying to make is that I doubt most people who pose for selfies with the homeless are as financially charitable as I am.

4. Savagely Vain Displays of Heroism

This is a picture of Josh Romney—one of former presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s 200+ sons—posing in front a car crash. He helped pry the victims from the car. This is not technically a selfie because someone else took the picture, but young Mr. Romney was vain enough not only to have someone take a picture of him grinning at the car scene, but to post it online. Total douche move.

5. The Wacky Funeral Selfie

You can mock the dead all you want, but as you get older, you will start hearing their voices whispering again and again that they can’t wait until you die, because they are going to beat the shit out of you.

6. Atrocity Selfies

This young bunny rabbit and her female friend commemorated their trip to the Auschwitz death camp by taking a tasteful photo of their faces. Similar selfies would include grinning in front of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant and giving the “peace” sign with a wry smirk as a Death Row inmate in the background is dying via lethal injection.

7. Toilet Selfies

I once knew a guy named William who went by the handle “Snake.” He told me that when he first would start seeing a girl, he’d make a point of bursting into the bathroom while she was taking a dump and insisting that he be allowed to stand there watching while she completed the act. He told me that this would humiliate them, destroy their spirit, and render them docile and compliant for the remainder of their relationship. The same happens whenever you post a picture of yourself on the toilet—you allow the world to destroy your spirit.

8. Selfies While Suicides Are In Progress

A woman standing in front of the Brooklyn Bridge faced a venomous online backlash last year after taking a selfie while a man she’d been watching for 25 minutes or so was threatening to kill himself. The photo below depicts a grinning gaggle of California douchebags who were stranded in traffic because the man on the bridge behind them was threatening suicide. This is the photographic equivalent of yelling “JUMP!” and is obviously unacceptable behavior, at least if you’re the person committing suicide.