Weekly Watch

I totally heart Boston's Weekly Dig. The editor's letter is always wonderful, and it's right at the beginning, so me and the Dig get off on the right foot every time. Love the Media Farm, love the exit polls, love love love. There is one little problem, though. The Dig is in love with the term "douchebag."

I had this idea a while ago that I wanted to do a Weekly Dig "douchebag" watch, because it seemed as if every time I flipped through the free weekly's inky pages, I found gratuitous offerings of the word to describe almost anything. A quick search at weeklydig.com comes up with 38 hits for the word, and honestly I bet there are more, because the website doesn't always have all the captions that the print version does, and you know what word can really sum things up in a caption? Yup. Douchebag.

A sampling of doucheiness:
Late at night, you are roused from an uneasy sleep. You have seen The Void. 'Holy shit,' you exclaim, 'John Kerry is a douchebag!' Alan Blevins feels your pain. He too has grappled with Kerry's doucheitude, and he is here to hold your nose as you pull the lever for Kerry in November...
this paragraph actually uses the word and variations of the word a total of 5 times, even though "doucheier" is incredibly vowel-y awkward.

and

Now that summer’s here, we’re in for several weeks of unbearable heat and flaring tempers, forcing us to smile politely at every douchebag who cuts us off in traffic, just in case he’s packing.
just a minor douche offense here, but you get the point.

Apparently at Dig HQ, it has been decided that in the spirit of our times, douchebag=hilarity. So of course after getting the idea to call them out for it every week, I've been scouring the pages for the word, and come up douche-free every time. But that doesn't mean that there isn't anything else to report.

The Dig's [words] section is harmless, really. Just a listing of events on half the page and ads on the other, actually. But there is something odd in this week's paper (though not available online). They have a reading by hot author Marisha Pessl listed at the top with a pink "dig this" sign, so we know it's Dig-approved. Ok, I've read about her in the NYTimes, and Luke bought her book last week and is now probably harboring a secret literary crush on Pessl. Whatever. Pessl is actress-pretty, and when smart people who do things are cute, it makes other people want to print pictures of them to spread the cuteness. Good for her, I say. But why does the Dig have two pictures of her, actually just the same picture, one panning out and one close up of the hotness? I don't know why, but it's weird. No reference to any "douchebags" though. Darn.