First category: generally useless

Hah, as always, I lied when I said "tomorrow."

Anyway, the first category of twats is ... GENERAL USELESSNESS

The rules for this category are simple: the nominees cannot be professional in their uselessness, and they should not affect people apart from as a data point. For example, a movie critic saying Toy Story 3 was a bad movie would be a professional, and I would be obliged to disqualify the lying sack of shit. However, random internet people saying Toy Story 3 was a bad movie would not be professional, and would therefore qualify for this award. So without further ado, the nominees!

1. People who watch the Jersey Shore. These people are responsible not for me acknowledging the existence of these kind of useless bastards with spray tans, bad hairdos, bad clothes, no brains, and more diseases than a research lab. I knew, if only in the back of my mind, that they existed. However, now I can pick them out of a lineup, and that is just unacceptable. These people should be buried in the shittiest area of their Shore hometown. And I don't mean "bury" like a euphemism for "out of sight, out of mind." I mean "buried," like in the fucking ground. However, I blame the enablers more, because ... well, I used to be able to ignore them.
2. The person who sold their Penny Arcade stuff in some sort of shit-ass protest of this comic. Yes, rape is horrible. Yes, you should be against rape. But if you're offended at any mention of it, this comic has never been for you. Mazel tov on donating the proceeds of the auction to charity, but the eBay page (which is down, as the auction ended sometime in October or something) reeked of self-importance and enjoyment of offence. Trust me, that's something I know about - I have a tendency to hang on to something that pisses me off, because it's very good as a motivational tool. Under no circumstances, however, do I claim it gives me the high moral ground. Usually, it just makes me act like a twat.
3. People protesting governments' displeasure with Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Now, many people may disagree with me on this, and I may even disagree with myself sometimes on this. But overall, leaking the horrible things governments discuss amongst themselves to the public is a good thing. I am in favour of transparency, except when ... well, except when I'm not. It's difficult. But for the most part, current governments seem to be made up of horrible people doing horrible things, ordering other less horrible people to carry out horrible things, and not-necessarily-horrible people experiencing horrible things. The only thing these governments have stopping them getting collectively castrated is the fact they're doing this all in secret. Naturally, governments are going to be incredibly incensed they got caught with their dick in the cookie jar, and since we already know from the cables they wanted to stay secret that they're evil and corrupt, they're going to use their power to punish those who caught them with their dicks in the cookie jar. Protesting that doesn't do shit. Taking down Visa and MasterCard, that did a little bit. But guess what, guys? Those assholes are still in charge, and they're still fucking those snickerdoodles.
4. Anyone who likes Justin Beiber who is older than eleven. I have a niece who likes Justin Beiber, because she is seven. I have not made much of an effort to correct this horrible behaviour, because again, she is seven. I liked some pretty shit-awful things, people and music when I was that age. However, once you get to the point where you can get into the average summer blockbuster (technically that would be 13 in the US, but nobody cares about two years and they'll see it on video anyway), you should be able to discern utter shit from cool. There is of course another level, which you reach when you achieve full sentience in your late teens, where you realise the stuff you thought was cool at 12 was really shit, and the stuff you thought was shit then, was even more shit. I'm not concerned with that third level of shitdom, because some adults haven't even reached the middle level. I wonder if they still brush their Barbie doll's hair at the office.

ADDENDUM: Just to make something clear, the Justin Beiber fan nomination also counts for any Twilight fan beyond puberty. In fact, you could use the whole thing as is, only removing the bit about my niece.

AND THE WINNER IS:

Justin Beiber fans of a certain age. Really, all the others were kind of weak contenders, but I still wanted to bitch them out. Jersey Shore fans are nonexistent in my actual life, I disagree with the ex-Penny Arcade fan but I understand, and people will always pointlessly protest things that governments do, to little effect. People will always also like shitty teen pop music, but the day I stop fighting that is the day I cultivate a comb-over.

Golden Cock - Twat of the Year

I've been watching a lot of Top Gear lately, and they have a tradition at the end of the calendar year to award the presenter who's given a spectacular example of stupidity throughout the year with the prestigious Golden Cock award. Naturally, I think this is a fantastic idea for the rest of the world, even if I probably shouldn't use the same name.

So in an effort to get myself writing again (did anyone notice I wasn't aside from me?) I'm going to spend the next few days, and possibly well into January, picking LESTAQ Magazine's Twat of the Year (on that note, Mark Zuckerberg is disqualified, although sometime soon he ought to get a lifetime achievement award).

Obvious nominees include people I don't like, but I'll make every effort to include people whom I otherwise like but made a complete twat of themselves in the interest of fairness. This way, I won't spend the next several years awarding the thing to Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and The Collective Employee Base Of (Insert Telecom Company Here).

Tomorrow, the first nominees and why!