I don't know if this shows my age, but I find myself yelling at the TV a lot more than I used to. My latest outburst occurred after I saw a commercial for a haircut place called Lady Jane's. If you haven't seen the commercial or heard of the place, I'll give you a quick rundown: basically, Lady Jane's is a "man-themed" salon. The commercial advertises that hot chicks will cut your hair and then try to restrain themselves from blowing you afterward.
Okay, the last part may be a little exaggerated, but that's kind of the way it comes across. The reason this commercial made me so angry is that I'm tired of everything "man-themed" also being "douchebag-themed." If an alien came here from another planet, with no knowledge of men, and walked into a "man-themed" establishment, it would think that the only things men like to do are watch sports and jerk off. It would probably assume we're all douchebags and dip the fuck out. Then we would miss out on all the technological and medical advances it was going tell us about. All because "man-themed" things are overdone and make us look bad.
From sports-themed haircut places, to restaurants and TV shows that exploit douchery, this perceived image of what guys like is ridiculously exaggerated. Home makeover shows are an excellent example of how disastrous it can be to beat something into the ground. They always redo the kids' rooms with some sort of theme. You've seen it a million times: some well-groomed, young builder comes on TV wearing a tool belt, perfect hair, and $300 jeans saying, "Well young Billy likes sailboats, so we're going to make his whole room sailboat-themed." They then proceed to make everything in the room into a sailboat. Sailboat bed, captain's wheel by the window, oars on the wall, and fishing net curtains. As you watch, you can't help but think, "Damn, that Billy sure likes sailboats."
But what if he only kind of likes sailboats?
Sure, he seems to like his new room on the show, but what can Billy do but be excited? He's on TV, his whole neighborhood is outside cheering, and he has a brand new room. Billy feels awesome. He seems excited. But is he really happy with it? Does he really like sailboats that much?
Then I start to feel bad for the kid and make up a story about him.
I bet he had a good time on a sailboat once and his mom remembered that. She told the show that Billy is really into sailboats and they decided to take the sailboat theme and run with it. Now he has to stare at sailboats every day. He really tries to like them, but he can't. No matter how hard he tries, he only kind of likes them.
Being a sailboat fan doesn't affect his life right away, because no one cares how much you like sailboats when you're a little kid. But what happens to him in a few years when he's 13 or 14? Suddenly he's in middle school and goes by "Bill." He takes up new hobbies and listens to all new music, but his room is still draped in these damn sailboats. Bill decides to invite one of his new middle school friends to his house for the first time. His friend, Kyle, is shocked to find out his new friend is such a sailboat enthusiast. He spends a couple of minutes looking around the room thinking, "Damn, Bill sure likes sailboats, they're everywhere." Kyle can't just let that shit slide.
"So… sailboats, huh?" Kyle finally says.
"Oh. Yeah. My family was on a home makeover show, and they did my room in sailboats. I used to think they were kind of cool. I don't know anymore."
After a weird pause, Kyle says, "Yeah, I gotta go."
The next day everyone at school starts calling him "Captain Bill" and he feels alienated from his peers. He realizes he has to change his room to avoid further persecution. He decides he has no choice but to break the news to his parents. He marches into their room, full of determination, proclaiming to his father that he doesn't like sailboats that much anymore and demands a change. His father, who has been working overtime the last couple months so he could buy Bill a sailboat trip for his 14th birthday, is heartbroken.
Bill's father feels like he doesn't know his son anymore. If Bill doesn't like sailboats, what does Bill like? Who is this young man he used to call his son? After five years of sobriety, Bill's father is once again driven to the bottle. Later that week, he shows up to work drunk and loses his job. Bill's parents are no longer in a financial position to change his room. Bill is forced to get a job at the movie theater so he can buy posters. One of the guys at his new job introduces him to cigarettes and the next thing you know, Bill is 19 years old and strung out on heroin. He pushes the plunger on the intentionally overfull syringe and the last thing his eyes rest on before glazing over is a sailboat. He still only kind of likes it. Bill dies at the age of 19.
Like Captain Billy in my completely made-up story, men everywhere are being killed by excessive themes. There are just too many "man-themed" things that suck. I don't know which guys these places are supposed to cater to, but I honestly don't want anything to do with them. From sports-themed haircut places, to restaurants and TV shows that highlight and exploit douchery, this perceived image of what guys like is ridiculously exaggerated. I am a young, straight male who loves sports and women; one would assume these things would appeal to me, but they don't. Take it down a couple notches.
Sport Clips (yeah, I go there, fuck you) is supposed to be extremely man-friendly, but it's just lame. They dress up their haircut girls in referee outfits. Nobody likes referees. Who do you yell at more during a game than referees? They also try and show "sports" on the TV. This basically means they put the TVs on ESPN. I am a HUGE sports fan and I can tell you that, aside from sporting events or SportsCenter, ESPN is UNWATCHABLE. Sitting around waiting for a haircut while reading closed captions to First Take or Around The Horn, where a couple of guys dispute for an hour whether baseball players are distracted, is miserable.
Hooters also sucks dicks. My biggest gripe is the shorts those chicks wear. Who gets turned on by chicks wearing orange soccer shorts pulled up to their belly button? Hooters was only cool when you were 15 and still trying to figure out your boner. Also, if someone tries to say they go to Hooters for wings, they're full of shit. Hooters wings taste like dicks marinated in hot sauce. If you're a female reading this and don't believe me about the wings, I have a bottle of hot sauce in and a boner I've figured out for comparison.
Spike TV makes us look like fucking idiots too. Have you ever watched Spike TV original programming? It's the worst. I am quite certain that the great philosophers of the past who spent their entire lives trying to answer man's toughest questions would punch us in the neck if they saw the questions on Manswers. I'm also pretty sure Hulk Hogan is in some way involved in 90% of their shows.
Men are being destroyed by overdone themes. People take a few things we like and proceed to beat them so far into the ground that it makes us feel like douches for liking them. Suddenly we're beer-guzzling, tit-ogling, farting, belching morons. I imagine women can relate too. I'm sure you ladies get kind of pissed off when you see the hundredth Lifetime original movie this year about date rape. But imagine if you went to a "woman-themed" restaurant and it was covered in Twilight and Mario Lopez posters, and they only served white wine and showed re-runs of Project Runway on every TV. Yeah, that's the level we're at now.