Kanye West vs. John Mayer: Who’s The Bigger Douchebag? An Intellectual Study

Some call them modern-day prophets. Artists. Powerful voices of the generation. And when I say “some,” I mean 13-year-old fans, and themselves. The truth is, Kanye West and John Mayer, have been hugely popular modern-day musicians and public personalities… but are now revealing the magnitude of their douchbaggery. Not satisfied to merely happily take their celebrity, success,  — 90 percent of which is probably undeserved — say “thank you” and shut up, Kanye and John reached new heights of douchiness this year: Kanye, when he interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at the MTV video awards to say she should not have won the award, and John Mayer, in a recent article full of ridiculous stream-of-consciousness-no-internal-filter-most-likely-weed-induced quotations in the most recent issue of Rolling Stone.

And yet, with these two gigantic, enormous examples of douchebags, it begs the question: Who’s the bigger douche? In order to determine the winner, let’s dissect their past statements, philosophical musings, and actions, to settle this once and for all. I now give you….

KANYE vs. JOHN MAYER

ON THEIR MUSIC

Kanye

• “My music isn’t just music- it’s medicine.”
• “I’m going to go down as a legend whether you like me or not. I am the new Jim Morrison. I am the new Kurt Cobain.”
• “I realize that my place in history is that I will go down as the voice of this generation, of this decade.”
• “The bible has 20, 30, 40, 50 people in it. You don’t think that I would be one of the characters of the modern bible?”

John Mayer

• “I don’t know if you know, but I’m not exactly Bob Dylan – I’m already a pop musician…I want to reach as many people as possible…I don’t mind compromising.”

Who’s the bigger douchebag?: TIE

Why? : Is it better to (incorrectly) think you’re music is the greatest thing since the invention of the wheel, or the polio vaccine, or the theory of relativity (which it’s not: Jay-Z and Mos Def and Talib Kwali kick Kanye’s ass, imho), or to be a knowing, deliberate, sell-out fame-whore? I still can’t tell. I’m actually inclined to think Kanye is the lesser of two evils, but I can’t say for sure because of the torrent of self-congratulatory douchiness he spews from his mouth… and that quote about the bible.

ON WOMEN

John Mayer

• “Aren’t we talking about a matrix of a couple of different things here? Like, you need to have them be able to go toe-to-toe with you intellectually. But don’t they also have to have a vagina you could pitch a tent on and just camp out on for, like, a weekend? Doesn’t that have to be there, too? The Joshua Tree of vaginas? …I’ll be happy when I close out this life-partner thing. Think of how much mental capacity I’m using to meet the right person so I can stop giving a fuck about it.”
• “All I want to do now is f**k the girls I’ve already f**ked, because I can’t fathom explaining myself to somebody who can’t believe I’d be interested in them,  and they’re going, ‘But you’re John Mayer!’ So I’m going backwards to move forward. I’m too freaked out to be with anyone else.”
• “I met a girl one time in Vegas. Her name was Dimples, and the ‘s’ in Dimples was a dollar sign. I have this weird feeling, a pride thing, for the people I’ve had relationships with. I still feel like I’m with them, in the sense that if I f**ked Dimples, what does that say about someone like Jen? I feel like it’s all connected. How could I ever cosmically relate these two people? What would I be saying to Jen, who I think is f**king fantastic, if I said to her, ‘I don’t dislike you. In fact, I like you extremely well. But I have to back out of this because it doesn’t arc over the horizon. This is not where I see myself for the rest of my life, this is not my ideal destiny,’ and then I see myself f**king Dimples? What does that say for my case?”
• Regarding Jennifer Aniston: “Breaking up with her was one of the worst times of my life. The way people were talking about it, you’d think I’d just burned the American flag. Like, no offense, but you don’t exactly have the Joshua Tree of vaginas.”
• On his inexplicable recent rejection by women: “Blowing me off is the new sucking me off.”

Kanye

• “I have liked big t*ts ever since I was a kid. I was breastfed for too long I think. It messed me up.”
• “I like sex but I like fashion too. How many girls have a hot body and great fashion sense too? The pursuit of p**** can see you in scary situations. A girl might say, ‘Oh he raped me.’ Then you’d have to fight to get your name back.”
• “Can’t we give Chris Brown a break? I knows I makes mistakes in life.”

Who’s the bigger douchebag? John Mayer

Why? : John Mayer hands down, because it seems his entire reason for living and being a musician was to screw as many women as possible, basing his inability to commit to Jen Aniston on the fact that she did not have “the Joshua Tree” of vaginas. That’s nice, insulting your ex’s vagina, one of America’s most beloved actresses, to the mass public without her being able to defend herself…. whereas Kanye isn’t interested in women so much as he is with himself. I think if Kanye could be asexual he would,  and he likes fashion a little bit too much for us to take his heterosexuality for granted. And his love for big breasts? Well, that doesn’t exactly make him unique. And being a Chris Brown apologist? Well… now he’s actually getting close to Mayer-territory here, but John  has such a higher volume of female-related douche quotes, he still wins.

ON SELF-LOVE

Kanye

• “We all self-conscious. I’m just the first to admit it.”
• “Come on now! How could you be me and want to be someone else?!”
• “I was definitely the best. I was the best new artist this year.  I don’t know if I’ll be back at this awards show next year.”
• Referring to his line of shoes: “When the red shoes hit the runway…I was forced to change my name to Martin Louis the King Jr. Address me as such.”

John Mayer

• “I have masturbated myself out of serious problems in my life. The phone doesn’t pick up because I’m masturbating. And I have excused myself at the oddest times so as to not make mistakes. If Tiger Woods only knew when to jerk off. It has a true market value, like gold bullion. First of all, I don’t jerk off because I’m horny. I’m sort of half-chick. It’s like District 9. I can fire alien weapons. I can insert a tampon. No, I do it because I want to take a brain bath. It’s like a hot whirlpool for my brain, in a brain space that is 100 percent agreeable with itself.”
• “Sometimes I wish that I was the weather, you’d bring me up in conversation forever. And when it rained, I’d be the talk of the day.”

Who’s the bigger douchebag?“: John Mayer

Why?: For admitting that “I don’t jerk off because I’m horny,” and for portraying it as some sort of intellectual exercise. And for being so desperate for attention,  he wants to be “the weather.”

ON HATERS

Kanye

• Read this.

John Mayer

• “What if I had a booth on the street and I said, ‘Attention, everybody who hates me: If you have a problem with me, I’m ready to hear your gripes! I will be outside the Barneys store on 60th Street from two to four this afternoon. [...]“How many people do you think would be standing there? I’m talking about people getting the chance to tell me directly, ‘I think you’re a douchebag.’ You know how many people would do it? Ze-ro.”

Who’s the bigger douche? Kanye.

Why? Again, the sheer volume reveals the douche-iness. John Mayer’s attempt to be “hard” is ridiculous enough, but Kanye’s caps-loc-laden rant on his own blog reveals the borderline psychotic, paranoid, dramatic idiot that he really is.

ON THE FACT THAT THEY ARE CONSIDERED DOUCHEBAGS

Kanye

• “In America, they want you to accomplish these great feats, to pull off these David Copperfield-type stunts. You want me to be great, but you don’t ever want me to say I’m great?”
• “Imagine being my publicist, how hard that’s gotta be?”

John Mayer

• “I went on the internet and I googled myself… and I kind of had to kind of put it all together at once, to realize, at the end of it all…I’m kind of a douchebag.”
• “Just read my Rolling Stone cover article. I’m still not sure if I would want to hang out with me… after 30 minutes of twirling my hair into a knot, I say “fuck it.” You can’t go wrong if you tell the truth.”

Who’s the bigger douchebag?: Kanye

Why?: At least John Mayer seems to realize the sad truth of his douchiness… though, tragically, he doesn’t seem to be able to do anything about it. Since the three years since his first admission of douchebaggery in 2007, the douchiness has only increased, many times over.

ON… HUH?

Kanye

• Michael Jackson, amazing. Michael Phelps, amazing. O.J Simpson, amazing… Is he not, what he did, was he not amazing though…

John Mayer

• “Life is like a box of crayons. Most people are the 8-color boxes, but what you’re really looking for are the 64-color boxes with the sharpeners on the back. I fancy myself to be a 64-color box, though I’ve got a few missing. It’s ok though, because I’ve got some more vibrant colors like periwinkle at my disposal. I have a bit of a problem though in that I can only meet the 8-color boxes. Does anyone else have that problem? I mean there are so many different colors of life, of feeling, of articulation.. so when I meet someone who’s an 8-color type.. I’m like, “hey girl, magenta!” and she’s like, “oh, you mean purple!” and she goes off on her purple thing, and I’m like, “no -- I want magenta!””

Who’s the bigger douchebag?: Kanye

Why?: O.J. defense beats out pretentious rambling metaphors… but just barely.

… and the winner of the biggest douchebag award is…..

Kanye by a hair! 3-2. Congrats, John Mayer, you’re only the second-biggest douchebag in pop culture. To confirm my conclusion, I give you the President of the United States to back me up: