Tucker Max is my hero.

I understand if you’re so angry your vision is blurred and you can no longer read this article.  However, I think you should take a moment to clear your head and absorb what I’m about to write.

When I first walked into Barnes and Noble on a quest to buy Tucker Max’s first book, ‘I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell‘ I was nervous and slightly excited.  I’d been hearing so much about it, I couldn’t resist reading it.  So I brought it home, tried to cover it up with a magazine from my roommates and dug in.

I sat in my bed for three hours, missed the premiere of ‘Project Runway’ and finished it in one sitting.  The book was pure gold.  He was a complete and utter a-hole and it was so amazingly brilliant I wanted to put the book on a pedestal in my room labeled: Pagan among a-holes. Unable to keep it to myself, I ran into the living room, waved the book over my head and shouted to (at?) my roommates how amazing Tucker Max was.  The girls responded in a variety of ways, but mostly by looking at me like I had just told them I had a collection of gnomes in my basement.

They were scared.

And now, four years later, Tucker Max is coming out with his second a-hole book called, “A**holes Finish First,” because, according to Tucker Max himself, “What do you do when you’ve become rich and famous for writing a #1 best-selling book about your drunken, sexual misadventures? I’ll tell you what I do: I write another effing book.” It’s in stores today, September 28th, in case you want to change your life.  And I’m so excited.

I understand it’s a little weird for a chick to be totally obsessed with Tucker Max. I get it – he’s a dick.  OK, maybe ‘dick’ is an understatement.  He is an extremely offensive, terrible human being. In all of his stories, he totally degrades women, uses them and blatantly says incredibly offensive things about them. But I don’t love him because I want him in the sack or because I believe his rants are necessarily great for our society (even if he did once make a very good point);  I love him because he is a outlet of hilarity I simply cannot resist.

Now, before you stalk my life and attempt to ruin it, hear me out. Essentially, I’m confused as you are about my kudos for Mr. Max.  Sure, go ahead and blame me for being the typical stupid college girl who loves a-holes. But, let’s be honest here, ladies: don’t all women love the bad guy? Maybe it’s his honesty I love most about him.  He is a brutally, fatally honest ass hat. His books are so juicy and wonderful, I want to give him a hug.  Or maybe he’s insecure and I secretly feel bad for him.  Or may his one-liners (and rants about McGriddles) are worth my weight in gold nuggets.

I don’t support his actions and it feels weird to fork my money over to the kind of douchey frat boy my friends and I loathe, but I can’t help it. And I don’t care what anyone says, I will scream it on roof tops: Tucker Max is my hero.

“I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” is a controversial memoir by Tucker Max. If you read this website as religiously as I do, you know all about our feelings on this guy. If you are a newcomer and or live under a rock somewhere and have never heard of Max, here is his life:

Average guy.
Started a website.
Sleeps with women.
Posts his stories about the horrible things he does to said women.
Published this book and then turned it into a movie.
Guys laugh. Girls laugh.

Now, let me just say this as my disclaimer: I DO NOT AGREE WITH TUCKER MAX. I don’t think that any of the things that he does to women are right and, if they happened to me, I’m sure I would have some psychological damage. However, I have a hard time believing the truth in all of his stories (as 10% of a biography or memoir can be embellished). If you’ve read the book, you know the ridiculous things I’m talking about. And, yes, assuming that his stories are somehow exaggerated does make me feel a bit less guilty while laughing at them.

But, my point…

This book got me thinking (something I’m sure wasn’t on Max’s list of goals when writing it). In these stories Tucker does not force a woman to do any of the things they do; he simply suggests it. Obviously, some of these acts only happen because the women are beyond smashed, but really, I think Tucker inadvertently brings up a great point: why do we let men make fools of us?

The women Tucker writes about are so completely and utterly desperate that they will do WHATEVER he says. Example: After sleeping with an overweight girl, Tucker forces her to jump out of his apartment window. Yes, horrific. Beyond horrific. But THAT WOMAN AGREED. What would have happened if she had simply said, No? Probably nothing. She would have walked out the front door, Tucker’s roommates may have teased him, and I know for sure that story wouldn’t have made it into “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.”

Oh yeah – and this woman may still have a shred of dignity.

Because woman after woman has let Tucker get away with this stuff, he tries it on all of them. I’m sure there are some girls out there who have stood up and said no to this guy. But we don’t know about those women because their stories are never told. If all women that Tucker encountered said no, then he would have no career. He makes money off of women who have some crazy self-esteem issues so when a guy like Max comes around who shows ANY interest in them and he says “Jump!” they respond, “Out of that window?”

While Max’s book was meant to entertain (and entertain it did!), there is something to learn here. Stick up for yourself! Don’t put up with an abusive man (yes, verbal abuse and humiliation are still abuse). If a man tries to pull a Tucker Max, tell him where to shove it instead. You teach people how to teach you; respect yourself, know your self-worth and I promise you, you will end up with a partner who treats you like a princess.

So, I would like to thank Tucker Max for “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell” and for teaching us all a lesson about respecting ourselves. Hell, it may even be worth picking up a copy and arming yourself against the kind of scummy guys in this world. But, just know that all men are not jerks and a good one will NEVER be ashamed of you.

Or humiliate you for a few bucks and a movie deal.

But after I have seen writers on CollegeCandy post in a Tucker Max-esque fashion and get bashed for it, I have been turned me off to the idea of writing my own book altogether.  And the comments on CollegeCandy’s recent post on Tucker Max only added fuel to the flame, as readers uncharacteristically turned the other cheek to his antics. The writer’s opinion was that Max and his antics are misogynistic and simply not funny. But the majority of the comments on the post begged to differ.

“I read every single story on the Tucker Max website about 4 years ago…and they were hilarious to me. And I’m a girl with self-respect who would never want to be someone featured in a story like that, but I don’t feel bad for those women. It was their decision to sleep with him and he happened to get some great stories out of it. I understand that a lot of people don’t appreciate smut humor..but obviously a lot of people do (including A LOT of girls considering that at least half his fan base consists of them).”

“He’s funny because he’s ridiculous. Though you can’t believe all he writes because I’m pretty sure some stories are made up/exaggerated, no one actually lives that kind of life.”

“fat girls ARE NOT real people”

It’s funny that people are so quick to praise Max for his shenanigans, but when other writers on CollegeCandy write similar stories from their own life experiences, comments such as “wow, you’re mother must be proud” litter the cornucopia of holier-than-thou responses. I, myself, have written articles anonymously for CollegeCandy because I know the comments I will receive will be derogatory, no matter how well written, ridiculous and humorous the story may be.

So for people to be so supportive of Max and his quest to document his sexual plight and yet bash other writers for exactly the same content on CollegeCandy is one of the hypocrisies of life that I will despise until my dying day.

If Tucker Max can write about the time a girl vomited on his dick while his buddy videotaped it from inside a closet and we can all laugh and pat him on the back, then why don’t we all ease up a bit when it comes to comical and usually sarcastic posts written on CollegeCandy. My mom may not be proud of me, but that’s not for you to judge.

Now, four years later, Max has a bestselling book (based on his website), another collection of stories set to be released soon, and a movie that comes out today. Max has been touring with I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell to college campuses all over the country since August, where, according to him, the film’s reception has been fantastic. He’s even been able to talk a girl into making an x-ray video of her giving him a blowjob during the tour. And judging by how much money The Hangover made this summer—over $270 million—it seems likely that the same idiot frat boys who’ve been attending Max’s premieres could make IHTSBIH a hit as well.

But why, exactly, are people enamored with this guy? Putting aside the way that Max has been called out for lying about his stories on several occasions, and the way that, despite his protests to the contrary, Max is obviously and venomously misogynistic (right, a guy who thinks “fat girls aren’t real people” doesn’t hate women), the fact remains that Tucker Max is. not. funny. Sure, his name is funny—it sounds like something Mattel would call a slightly wimpy action figure—but the stories themselves are nothing special. Unfortunately for Tucker Max, being convinced of your own originality and talent—and frequently referring to yourself in the third person—doesn’t automatically transform you into a comic genius.  The women (and men) who have been protesting Max during his tour have their hearts in the right place, but instead of calling him out for being a sexist prick, they should be objecting to how lame he is.

Most of the reviews of IHTSBIH give me hope for the future: Time Out New York calls it “painfully unfunny,” and the A.V. club thinks it’s “frankly boring.” The climax of the movie apparently involves Tucker “dashing naked through a hotel lobby with a case of explosive diarrhea from a can of beer laced with a laxative by a vengeful woman.” Um… hilarious?

Okay, the New York Times writing about explosive diarrhea is kind of funny.

Maybe, as those reviews indicate, the movie will finally convince people that Max doesn’t actually have much to offer. I’ll understand if this thing makes a ton of money, but if its box office returns are mediocre, I might get a small twinge of satisfaction. Then again, maybe I should just ignore all news relating to Tucker Max and spend my time watching things that are actually funny—like The Office, 30 Rock, and America’s Next Top Model—instead.

Wait, Top Model isn’t supposed to be funny?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this rather controversial creature, Tucker Max is the author of the book “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” a series of unfortunately true stories about Tucker Max’s “adventures” of how he likes to “disregard social norms, indulge every whim, ignore the consequences of my actions, mock idiots and posers, sleep with more women than is safe or reasonable, and just generally act like a raging dickhead.” Wow, seems like the type of guy you are just dying to bring home to your parents, huh?

As if reading about the crude, offensive, vomit-inducing stories isn’t enough, you can soon experience a visual effect. Yes, that is correct. Tucker Max’s movie based on his best-selling novel will open in theaters this fall. I think it’s safe to say that this movie can’t possibly reenact the majority of Tucker’s experiences, because even an NC-17 rating wouldn’t cut it. But you never know these days.

With a book that was on New York Time’s bestselling list for three years in a row, and a movie out soon, clearly this dude has got a lotta funs. In fact, he’s becoming someone that guys look up to. Guys now have this notion that if you drink yourself to oblivion and get with every girl in sight (no matter what they look like and regardless of whether they are too drunk to function) then you’re “the man.” It’s like Tucker is the male Carrie Bradshaw… with a beyond vulgar twist. He’s inspiring guys from coast to coast to act like an ass and to do so without remorse.

I think it’s safe to say that Tucker Max is officially ruining men. And if we thought we were safe (because most guys don’t read books anyway) this movie is only going to make it worse.

Ladies, we’re all screwed (no pun intended).