Tag Archives: Schadenfreude

The Five Flavors of Motherfucker

16 Dec

Indulge your synesthesia. We’re categorizing the most unpalatable people.

An industrial-size salty motherfucker

Salty Motherfuckers
Let me take you back to the diving board at your local swimming pool. You’d jump, swim to the ladder or the edge, climb out, and then get in line, jump, swim, climb, repeat. There’d be a pretty regular line that formed. But then once, you’d do the sweetest cannonbellywatermelopener dive known to mankind — maybe you’d take a little longer getting out of the water, or you’d stop to bask in compliments from your mom. This is when the Motherfucker would strike. You’d just be getting out of the water when out of the corner of your eye you’d see the kid that jumped in after you swimming to the edge with the urgency of the Space Race, yanking himself out of the water, and powerwalking (or even running, the bastard!) with one greedy eye on YOUR SPOT in line, and the other greedy eye checking back to see if you were gonna try and polite-fight him for it.

As if that weren’t bad enough, if he stole your spot, he’d get on the board and spend ten minutes debating what kind of jump to do with his friends (who were probably hanging on the lane line), while inside you’re screaming, “Accept that any way you flip is going to end up as a belly flop, before I come up there and push you off!” At Northwestern, you can identify these bitchwaffles pulling the same maneuver in the stir-fry or hot cookie bar line. This is why they are Salty Motherfuckers: pouring salt onto a wound is not really dangerous in the long term, but it’s pretty damn agonizing at the time. It makes you want to throw that aforementioned metaphorical salt back into their beady eyes, because it is as harmlessly obnoxious as the Salty Motherfucker.

Even her hair-tests came back positive for motherfucker

Savory Motherfuckers
Hey, remember when Oprah Winfrey had a hissy fit because a closed store wouldn’t reopen for her? Remember when Oprah Winfrey took credit for giving away shit that wasn’t hers? Remember when Oprah Winfrey existed? Yeah. Believe it or not, there are people so pampered that they will throw a tantrum when the Pier1 cashier can’t cater to their every whim by returning an item without a receipt or after 90 days. These are the snarky suburban moms who turn PTA meetings into Attack of the Martyrs Episode III because Little Johnny Do-No-Wrong has excessive allergies, and therefore clearly nobody’s parents should be allowed to bring in homemade birthday cakes. Note to readers: if you are someone who complains about the preparation of truffle shrooms at five-star restaurants or demands compensation for the terrible injuries caused by eating subpar lobster, please put yourself down, because you are irreparably broken and probably in constant pain from your delicate sensitivities. I’d suggest that we make astronomically high maintenance a crime, but then we’d have to arrest them and listen to them complain that their cell wasn’t padded enough.

Proceed with caution, as it can be very difficult to discern the difference between motherfuckers and simple guidos

Sour Motherfuckers
They’re assholes and they know it. Anyone who is inexplicably, selfishly, mercilessly malicious should have both their tongues and their genitals removed without anesthesia. Humans have hearts. If you suck as a human being, you do not deserve to contribute to the gene pool for fear that your children will grow up to be the kind of Motherfucker that does terrible things to people without even having to rationalize them. Examples of Sour Motherfucking include using someone who cares about you, sabotaging someone’s lab, lying about an STD, ruining others’ reputations, and touching children where they should not be touched. To be clear: Tucker Max’s shocking shenanigans usually fall under the category of harmlessly unpleasant Salty Motherfucker. The despicable bitch that somehow wound up in your sorority who ran for Recruitment Chair so she could put the freshmen down is a Sour Motherfucker. It’s all about the motives.

Ross Packingham's image of the perfect woman

Sweet Motherfuckers
These are the breed of superhumans whose perfection we will never attain and therefore must criticize. They are effortlessly attractive, intelligent, accomplished, athletic, stylish, polished, and well-spoken. They do not trip over their words. They do not trip over anything. They are the parents who jog with strollers containing the adorably well-trained future polite society of Icelandic Snow Owl benefits. And you know they’re probably good in bed. Arguably the worst Motherfucker, these cuntmuffins won’t even give you the decency of visibly fucking you over so you can hate them. If you express your certainty that there is something “off” about them (the possibility that they are actually a robot), you will almost certainly be met with shock from the believers in the tenured reputation of the android, who will shun you as either insane or jealous. Sweet Motherfuckers are more like aspartame than sugar: fake, carcinogenic, and typically lacking in caloric content. Breathe, fellow fuckups of the world: at least we’re more idiosyncratic.

This Evanston Councilman hasn't smiled in over 17 years

Bitter Motherfuckers
The Evanston City Council says one of their most frequently asked questions is: “What’s up your ass?” Since they cannot diagnose it themselves, Sherman Avenue will: They are Bitter Motherfuckers, the species of Motherfucker so filled with regret that the only thing left for them to do is to ensure that everyone else ends up unhappier than Edward Scissorhands trying to masturbate; that is to say, as unhappy as they are. But it’s not limited to the former premed/prelaw students who resent that their focus and initiative (translation: staunch denial of their own humanity) during their college days allowed them a very comfortable life in WASP’s nests. Other Bitter Motherfuckers include Denny’s waiters, certain unsuccessful starving artists, and (understandably) anyone working in retail on Black Friday. The best way to deal with these Motherfuckers is to maintain high levels of happiness in spite of their best efforts. Yes, it’s hard to do when they’re busy removing kids’ rights to trick-or-treat, cohabitate like sardines, or party like it’s Y2K. But there is no better revenge than the confidence of knowing you have a hopeful future and a pleasant present. Schadenfreude, bitches.

Ask not what heinousness can do for you. Ask what you can do for your heinousness.

10 Things You Should Appreciate More Than You Do Right Now

5 Dec

As a nonsarcastic person who is truly grateful for all that is sacred and pure in the world, I have compiled an anthology of joyous occurrences in our day-to-day lives for which we should occasionally praise the Gods Of Modern Innovation. Remember: your life could always be worse.

Unfortunately, walking through a cloud of febreeze is not an adequate substitute for doing one's laundry

1. Antibacterials
Judging from the state of your bedroom/bathroom/kitchen, you should be making blood sacrifices to Alexander Fleming’s ghost in thanks for saving your life from everything that’s been lurking in the dark crevices of your home since three months after the last time you cleaned it (whenever that was). If it wasn’t for Penicillin and Febreeze, 1 out of every 3 Northwestern students would have died after moving out of the dorms.* So as long as your housemates don’t find out that the lovestains on the couch probably pose more of a public health threat than Miley Cyrus’s bubonic-plague-infected pubic lice, you’re in the clear to keep up the sanitation substitution.

2. Drunk Sex
Not only are you getting some (however mediocre it may be), you have an excuse for absolutely anything that goes wrong: STDs, ugly partners, impotence, birth control malfunction, commitment, name amnesia, or being a shitty lay.

3. You’re Not a Music Major
Do you want fries with that?

4. Man Nipples
They’re useless and goofy-looking, but amusing all the same. Kind of like Furby.

A Motherfucker

5. Motherfuckers
If it weren’t for people unjustly treating you like shit, you’d have nothing to complain about. How could you play the martyr if that douchetard hadn’t cut you in line at Starbucks this morning? It took a whole extra five minutes to order your lowfat caramel soy frappalatte, and by the time you got home you’d missed the first five minutes of Gossip Girl, and everyone knows if you miss the first five minutes you might as well have missed the whole goddamn show.

6. Motherfuckers Who Have to Wait on You
Next time the almost-middle-aged hippie taking your order at BK starts snarking, put on your best holier-than-thou attitude and consider yourself well off. Nothing will make you appreciate life more than knowing that an asshole observably nearby is significantly unhappier than you, and there’s only a 1 in 17 chance of improving their pathetic present situation.** They will be dealing with drunk Evanston kids at 2 AM for the rest of their lives. Schadenfreude, bitches.

7. Prostitutes
You’ll never be that slutty. See previous sentence.

8. Lady Gaga
Most of the time, she’s doing her best to make you feel normal. But then there was the night you needed fashion inspiration for your pre-Rocky Horror shopping trip, and Johnny Depp wasn’t going to cut it.

9. You’re Not Anne Frank.

Finish your hot cookie bar! There are starving children in Somalia.

10. The Freshman Fifteen
To you, “Ethiopian cuisine” means skipping the dining hall buffets for Addis Ababa, not half an ounce of stale flatbread and a leaf of rotten cabbage with the occasional Vitamin Beetle protein supplement. Struggling with your muffin top is infinitely better than struggling out of the dumpster behind your local Denny’s. Then again, your weight problems could also be correlated to your NU-student-loan-related inability to afford anything but the McDonald’s dollar menu, in which case, there’s always prostitution. See #7.

Now zip up your pants, you goddamn ego masturbator, and get back to your finals. They’re the only thing you have left to bitch about.

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*2010 study by John Michael Bailey.
**2011 study by John Michael Bailey.