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Julian Assange: To some people you’re a free speech hero and an anti-government crusader. To us you’re an arrogant douche who’s real crusade is promoting himself. When you’re not in prison (or playing I’ve Got a Big Secret in My Pants with a pair of Swedish love bunnies), we bet you prance around the house wearing a thong and one of those V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes masks. Steve Jobs: This year, you really outdid yourself: You waged an all-out war on porn, you sicked the cops on a blogger, you blamed everyone but yourself for your phone’s shitty antenna (no, we won’t "just avoid holding it in that way"), and you told a journalism student to go to hell when she questioned your company’s commie-like approach to media relations. Douchiest of all, though, you used the word "beautiful" approximately 7,492 times, based on our last count. We know you love the adjectives, Steve, but for Christ’s sake, go get a fucking thesaurus. They’re really quite magical. The TSA: Used to be you had to become a scout master or join the priesthood to fondle strangers and/or see them naked. Now all you need to do is you sign on for a career in airport security. We all feel much safer flying now that an ex-mall cop has touched our junk. The Lower Merion School Board: That was a brilliant plan. Give teenagers laptops with Web cams you can turn on whenever you feel like — kinda like 1984 meets To Catch a Predator. (We know you’ve got those Lower Merion Pep Squad Gone Wild videos stashed somewhere.) How you all managed to keep your jobs after this story broke is a mystery to us. Remember: If the education thing doesn’t work out, you could always work for the TSA. Tony Hayward: True, you weren’t at the helm when BP decided to drill two miles down into the ocean floor with no backup plan for when everything went to shit. But you were CEO for three years with no backup plan for when everything went to shit. When you hit an iceberg the captain is supposed to go down with the ship; instead, you went yachting. Open wide, because we’ve got a Junk Shot full of douche for you. Charlie Sheen: Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. You know we love you like a brother — a brother whose bail bondsman we keep on speed dial. But we think it’s time to dial down the bad boy act. We’re not sure what offends us more: You paying $12,000 for one night with a porn star/hooker, or spending most of that night looking for your watch. The Tea Party: Smaller government, lower taxes, more personal freedoms — we get all that. But mostly you appear determined to turn stupidity into an art form. No, the US is not secretly planning to merge with Canada and Mexico. No, the BP oil spill wasn’t caused by ‘extreme environmentalism.’ Yes, you are a witch. To Sarah, Christine, Sharron, Rand, Carl, and all the rest, your T-bag is now a D-bag. Go ahead and refudiate that. Nick Denton: Long before Gawker’s sites got pawned by a band of teenage delinquents out to take you down a few pegs, you were on our list for extreme douchebaggery. Did we really need to read about John Travolta’s gay sauna escapades or Christine O’Donnell’s hairy bush? No, we did not. Is there anything you won’t do in your quest for page views? We all know the answer to that one. Carol Bartz: Yahoo’s swirling around the drain, but you’re still trying to convince us all that it’s in great shape. We loved it when you told TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington to go "fuck off,"  but when you offered tips to Larry and Sergey while  questioning Google’s business model? Guess you really do have brass testicles. We’d send you a Douche of the Year plaque for your office, but we have a sneaking suspicion you won’t have an office much longer. Mel Gibson:  So your gold-digging Ukranian ex recorded all your hate-filled drunken rants and played them back over the InterWebs, destroying any reputation (and financial solvency) you may have had left. Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy. Turns out your only Lethal Weapon is your mouth. Judith Griggs: You became famous this year for stealing a blogger’s story for Cooks Source magazine, then chastising the blogger for having the audacity to object. We all know what happened next: The tale went viral, the Internet gave you a virtual ass-pounding, and the magazine ultimately shut down. Last we heard, you were working at a Boston Bojangles and shopping around a new manuscript, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (I Wrote This, I Swear)." Kim Jong Il: We all know you’re batshit crazy, but trying to start World War III is a bit much even for you. We know the real reason why you did it: You just found out Justin Bieber isn’t really planning to tour North Korea after all. Randall Stephenson: Pop quiz: When you’re the CEO of the most hated company on the planet, what shouldn’t you do? If you said "threaten your customers with legal action when they e-mail you," you’re on the right track. Though AT&T’s service continues to redefine ‘shitty,’ it was your notorious smackdown of a concerned customer that lands you on this year’s DB list. And yes, your PR team apologized after the deed was done. We also apologized after "accidentally" hitting the wrong hole with our girlfriends the other night. It didn’t make us any less guilty. Douchebag of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg It’s been a big year for you, big guy. The idea you stole — err developed — as an undergrad turned into the most successful Web phenomenon of all time. A critically acclaimed movie portrayed you as a socially crippled dickhead who screwed over his only real friends yet still managed to make people feel sorry for you. You’ve given away millions of dollars on Oprah and convinced Time to name you Person of the Year. You even learned how to give an interview without sweating enough to fill a jacuzzi. In short, you hired a very smart PR manager. Bravo. But you’re not fooling us. We know your goal is to suck all the details from our lives and sell them to the highest bidder. And that fish-eyed stare totally creeps us out — it’s like you’re peering into our souls and seeing that time we peed our pants in third-grade gym class. Quit it, will ya?

The bottom line is, I don’t give a shit what year it is; I just want to feel better about myself and the person I am becoming. If I want to have the balls to call myself a writer, I need to write more. If I don’t want to sound like a hypocrite when talking to people at work, I need to use social media more effectively (and not just to complain about the refs while watching Orlando Magic games, although, let’s be honest, NBA referees are terrible).