The guy, Jay Louis, who made the site (and the book) “Hot Chicks with Douchebags” has now been sued by both the Hot Chicks and the Douchebags.

Yvette Gorzelany, Joanna Obiedzinski, and Paulina Pakos (the Hot Chicks) went out to a club called Bliss in Jersey and had their photos taken with guys (the Douchebags). The pics ended up on the website. One of the defendants, Jay Lewis, created the website and wrote a book that includes photos of the women.

According to the suit, since publication of the book the girls have had to undergo medical treatment and psychological therapy.

One woman says she applied to be a Maitre’ d at a country club but didn’t get the job because someone saw her in the book. And we want to know why the presumed dude was looking at it in the first place.

[full post]

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NOVEMBER 18–Claiming that he has been unfairly branded a “douchebag” in the book “Hot Chicks with Douchebags,” a Las Vegas man has filed a libel lawsuit against the volume’s author and publisher. Michael Minelli, a 27-year-old club promoter, claims that the inclusion of his photograph in the book has subjected him to “hatred, contempt, and humiliation” and has resulted in “friends, acquaintances, coworkers, employees, and strangers alike” calling him a “douchebag.” As seen below, Minelli’s photo appears on page 202 of author Jay Louis’s book, which was published in July by Simon & Schuster. In the book, Louis noted that Minelli’s “popped-collar, spikey-haired presence was so far beyond regular douche, so far beyond uberdouche, he could spontaneously create a new element on the periodic tables–Douche Nine.” At the time he was photographed by Louis, Minelli was working the door at the popular “Rehab” party at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

[full filing]

And here I’m going to do a little discovery for a the plaintiffs in this case, as I think the site and the author are probably the biggest douchebags in this conversation.  I know it’s fun to make fun of people, but at some point you have to step back and think about it.

Nor am I a particular fan of douchebags. I live in Uptown, Dallas, and we’ve got our fair share.  I tend to laugh at them, to their face.  Of course, I probably have an advantage over Jay Louis in the fact that my “tough guy” persona extends beyond the Net, but I digress.

To understand the level of Louis’ douchebaggery, the simple analogy that I came up with was doing a website (and later a book) called “Nosepickers: Anonymous.”  What I would do is skulk around and take pictures of people picking their noses and then get a pic of them acting normally.  I would then reverse the order I presented the pictures in, and have a set-up and a punchline.   I would make lots of referenses to “boogers” and “sliders” and “stickers” and “flingers”.  There would be a science chapter on the nasal cavity.  The last chapter would be called “The Eaters.”

After I was finally finished, I could then publicly humiliate a ton of people, get a ton of laughs, and make a ton of money.

Sure, I’d be a total asshole, but I’d be successful and rich.  In other words, a typical douchebag.

I haven’t gone that route, however, and I won’t.  One reason being that doing such thing is *really* skirting a legal fine line, and when you have public comments like the ones I’m about to share….doing a book of a blog can be a bad idea.  Here’s an interview with Jay Louis, the author.  Strangely, I couldn’t find a good photo of Jay to tag for this post.  I wonder if he’s averse to having his picture all over the internet with photoshopped dildo goodness..hmm?

The book which is titled, HOT CHICKS WITH DOUCHEBAGS: Deconstructing the Unholy Wrongness of Hottie/Douchey Coupling and How to Recover from the Douchebag Plague will hit shelves in Spring 2008. The Los Angeles resident took time out from ‘bag hunting to catch up with LAist.

What is a douchebag?
Douchebaggery, in its purest state, is about absurdly ridiculous male performance in the interests of impressing a female. It is about men willing to look as ridiculous as possible in the hopes that this “confidence” will impress and confuse the female enough for them to get some. But even if it works, that doesn’t mean we can’t mock them.

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Has a guy ever found his photo and contacted you? Does it happen often? If so, what are the reactions like?
When the site was first starting out I’d get lots of hate-mail, but now most people seem to enjoy it, and while the ‘bags I make fun of certainly aren’t happy about it, they seem to roll with it, take their lumps and move on. If I get a request from either person in the pic to take it down, I do. That’s my policy.

[full interview]

And here we have the problem.  The guy knows he’s being a dick, and has acted to be less dick-like in the past. 

When you publish a book of a bunch of pictures that you didn’t get releases to publish and then someone asks you to “take it down,” the only way to follow “your policy” is to get the book off the shelves and re-print it.

After their lawyers find your statements, my guess is that this is exactly what is going to happen.  Well, the off the shelves part, not the re-printing.