What Makes a Fuckhead?

January 20, 2018

Someone who calls himself David R. Kendrick sometime prior to 2004 wrote an essay titled "What Makes a Fuckhead?" I found the essay here, on the site of David Gerard. I found David Gerard because he's the author of "Attack of the 50-foot blockchain" which my son-by-marriage John, recommended to me. I found John because my daughter, Mira married him. Actually, I knew John before she married him, and I may be an accessory before the fact of their getting married.

Anyhow.

The page where Gerard hosts the essay has a link to the site of someone named David R. Kendrick. I deem it probable, but not certain, that the person who has the website is the essay's original author. Later I will provide some data that supports this hypothesis.

The essay begins:

But what makes a person a Fuckhead? You cannot tell a fuckhead just by looking at the e-mail address, or the Web site, or even by the newsgroups the individual frequents. A fuckhead is a person who, through the pattern of repeated behaviour when dealing with other Netizens in IRC and Usenet, demonstrates certain characteristics and a repeated inability or unwillingness to change or modify his/her behavior ...

Here are the sections of his essay:

  • A Fuckhead Must Have An Exaggerated Sense of His/Her Own Importance

  • A Fuckhead Must Refuse to Abide By Common Social Rules

  • A Fuckhead Must Never Back Down When Caught In A Lie

  • A Fuckhead Must Keep Coming Back Without Mending His/Her Ways

  • A Fuckhead Will Change His/Her Beliefs To Suit The Situation

You can read the whole essay for his elaboration of these Fuckhead characteristics.

The essay concludes:

The Fuckhead may display all of these characteristics, or some of them, or only one. Some may love a Fuckhead like a brother, some may think their brother is a Fuckhead. What is incontrovertible is that for all of humanity, there are people that you would rather not have to deal with, and those people, throughout history, are the Fuckheads.

Does this Fuckhead behavior remind you of anyone? It reminded me of someone. Still does. It might remind David R. Kendrick of the same person. But possibly not, because on his about page he says (my emphasis added)

It bothers me that we have actual live Nazis living in the United States in 2017 and the President I voted for won't tell them their support isn't required.

So maybe he does not have the same Fuckhead in mind that I have. After all, who would vote for a Fuckhed?On the other hand, voting for a Fuckhead does not violate any law of physics. It does not violate any law of the United States, at least as far as I know. You can think someone is a Fuckhead and vote for them, and even have good reasons for voting for a Fuckhead. If you can't imagine doing that, it's just a failure of imagination.David R. Kendrick seems like a pretty smart guy, and I like to communicate with smart guys even if I don't agree with them. Many times even because I don't agree wth them. Who knows? I might learn something.It turned out that David R. Kendrick had a contact link on his site. (Probably still does.) I wrote a message asking him if he was the author. Whoever answered the site's email said yes.I believe that there is a high likelihood that the person who responded was, in fact, the author and that both are the same David R. Kendrick. I wrote him back:

I thought it was amusing. It seemed that the whole set of characteristics match a particular type of person--and the example that immediately came to my mind is probably the person that your About page indicates that you voted for.

Always interested when smart people see things very differently. I assume that you know to whom I refer. Do you see him as matching that type? Or not?

The probable David R. Kendrick wrote back (and kindly permitted me to quote him):

Here is my take on President Trump. He is absolutely the kind of arrogant fuckhead I described. He is not welcome by anyone’s campfire by now and aside from getting rich and annoying everyone he doesn’t seem to have had any agenda in life.

That though is part of why he was elected. Americans are tired of being scared of terrorists, being afraid of federal interference in their lives, afraid to have the economy in the hands of people who have never successfully managed it. Trump, being a bellicose outsider, wasn’t going to knuckle under for tit-for-tat politics or bow to special interests because as an outsider and fuckhead he wasn’t beholden to any. Think of a less pious Jesse Ventura.

I’ve met Hillary Clinton, and trust me, as President she would be far, far worse. If she hadn’t rendered herself irrelevant she would be absolutely indicted or impeached by now for looting the Clinton foundation, cooking the books against Bernie Sanders, etc etc. Remember that a fully Republican Congress came in with Trump; Clinton would never have had a chance

I hope that answers your questions and I look forward to reading your article.

Thanks, David R. Kendrick for your original essay and its clear definition of a Fuckhead. Thanks for your responsiveness. Thanks for letting me quote you. I hope you enjoy the article.PS: I love the Internet.