I'm gonna go home and put my head in the oven

Humorous Assholes and Clever Bitches
Jerk and insult humor can go a long way when it's done well. It's the perfect hybrid of the highest and lowest character denominators - reveling in the muck of nastiness but witnessing it delivered in a high-minded, intellectual manner. Pure entertainment gold. (And if said gold happens to be delivered in Logan Echolls-looking packaging, even the more better. Okay, last prepubescent VM shout out for the rest of the year, I swear.)

So the problem: too many people believe they can do it. The issue arises when people start acting like bitches for the sake of being bitchy because being nice just seems too dull. It no longer becomes about the issue at hand but more just letting everyone within your communication radius know exactly what trivial event of the hour absolutely deserves a verbal beat down because it irritates YOU and it must be known.

And more often than not - the delivery isn't even entertaining, clever, or humorous. Not just on a personal subjective taste level, but more in the smallness of what exactly is so bothersome and the sweeping, VERY non-intellectual assumptions made.

Sure, the line of humorous/offensive is very blurry, but I guess the whole point I'm aiming towards is that not every person is Gregory House and it's become increasingly more common to witness people believing they are, to very unpleasant results. What we get are hyper-critics who deliver mean-spirited, generic insults on unsuspecting individuals, all the while believing they're particularly unique, funny, and interesting for doing so. Basically, reveling in the lowest common-denominator but deluding themselves into thinking that they're in the highest.

Disclaimer time: I've SO done this. Several, several times. Hell, the case can be made that I'm doing it now. I still cringe remembering when I use to think I was so hilar-lar in taking such a strong stance against overweight people because no one else had the guts to be outrageous enough to say the mean comments out loud. My biggest regrets in life aren't about what choices I made or didn't make, but what behavior I allowed myself to not only exhibit, but think more highly of myself for doing so. I can only to look back in hindsight and realize what a huge insecure douchebag I was and hope I have enough foresight that I don't have another ego-trip relapse.

Summary: It's very easy to be mean. It's easy to garner attention and feel validated by being outrageously cruel. It's not easy delivering legitimately clever insults on a regular basis (especially without a team of writers mulling weeks over the perfect opening and rejoinder). And it's especially difficult to be okay enough with yourself to just be nice and expect nothing in return.