Style

A model shows off an outfit from the "Monopolize Yourself" fashion line and hairstyle.

The question: what is style? is one that losers have been asking themselves for centuries. Decade after decade, generations of young men and women furrow their acned brows and study magazines and television programs, or obsessively follow around more popular kids scribbling Susan and Chad 2gether 4ever or Chad's Mom iz a Hooker! or Now Chad's Bitch-mom Whore Will Never Stand in our Way Again! in their spiral notebooks, as they vainly attempt to understand what separates them from the enviable world of style.

Principles of style

Dennis Rader, aka "BTK"

Like the BTK serial killer, or a delicious Taco Bell burrito, style consists of three essential elements linked by a thematically unifying central concept. In the case of BTK, the three elements of binding, torturing, and killing his victims are components in a sexually gratifying fantasy that allows him to indulge a pathological god-complex. In the case of a satisfying and inexpensive Yum!-brand Taco Bell burrito, the fried, flavor-enhanced bean product, "cheese", and non-dairy vegetable-gum based sour cream, are wrapped in a chewy soft tortilla shell to provide a cost-effective taste sensation.

In the case of style, it is essential that something stylish be

• inspirational,
• effortless in appearance, and
• unapologetic.

Furthermore, these elements lead to style's fourth sine qua non: style is always

• cruel.

Also, Taco Bell analogies are always stylish.

Effort and Style
When abruptly losing a limb, crying "holy shit, fuck! My fucking arm!" is not stylish.	Grimacing for a fraction of a second before sewing up the stump using a needle gripped in your teeth is.
After a seduction, and bringing a woman to climax twice, shouting, "fuck yeah, you nasty whore!" is not stylish.	Smirking for a fraction of a second is.
Sweating is not stylish.	Making others sweat is.
Working hard is not stylish.	Hardly working is. Just joking, because riding the subway all day smelling like kool-aid and piss is definitely not stylish. Keep your fucking job, just collate with style.

Inspirational

To the murderous cult members of "The Manson Family", Charles Manson was like a living, breathing GQ magazine, and also a completely insane, blood-thirsty devil dog who's in your dreams!

Style is inspirational, which means that the concept of style is highly subjective. To his conservative followers, George W. Bush's content-free pablum is inspirational, and a contributor to his aura of style. To the rest of the world, of course, he's a fucking dumbass.

There are many examples of potentially stylish objects or events that fail because they are not inspirational.

• Many (but not all) killing sprees
• Zealotry
• Crazy people, who stand near heavily-trafficked roads dressed only in cowbot hats, boots and underwear singing along to pop radio stations
• Kittens
• Any food that requires you to Flambé it before serving
• Hitting elderly folk

Effortless in appearance

Nothing can kill a potentially stylish act faster than the appearance of effort. This is not to say that style does not, itself, require work. It takes a good deal of elbow-grease to be cool as fuck, believe you me, but style must be inspirational: revealing the labor behind the act is the quintessential buzz-kill. This requirement has many forms. Appearing to try too hard is the predominant example, but over-emotional displays are a close second.

While no one knows who "Jude" was, his stickers were the style in the 1930s, and were immortalized in the Beatles tune Hey, Jude!.

Stylishness precludes gloating, as gloating is an attempt to gain recognition for effort. Stylishness also encourages expertise, because expertise allows inspirational behavior without the appearance of effort. So, try, but not too hard, and do cool shit, but don't, like, seem to. If all this is confusing, that's because few people have it, and you simply don't. Go ahead and spend another $300 on a headshot, though, if it'll make you feel any better.

Stylish people endeavor for the moment: instead of plunking away at your computer, you want to type three lines on the keyboard, hit enter, and earn the company millions. Suddenly, you're the belle of the business, only they can't find you to congratulate you because ten minutes later you're in the front seat of your Hummer getting sucked off by a fat-assed Starbucks barrista with a cute face and father issues. That's fucking style, bitch!

Unapologetic

Chicken Chic with Squid Ensemble and Evil Kat

So important, and yet a frequently overlooked component of style, any stylish act must be done with confidence and without apology. The worst offenders here are yuppies and hippies, who realistically have no shot at being stylish anyway but shoot themselves in the foot (through their goddamned Birkenstocks) by always apologizing for what they have, who they are, or for being privileged and white. Yes, boo hoo, life's not fair.

This is not to say that it is not stylish to apologize for certain things. If the cops can definitely trace the hair-and-blood samples recovered from your front bumper to that kid they found clipped in a ditch off I-90, by all means apologize. But if you do something cool, and other people look uncool by comparison, don't apologize. Un-fucking-stylish, you Cherry Garcia eating pussy.

Cruel

While all flowers have style, most style gurus agree that they just try too hard, and can't really be considered stylish.

This segues into the final point about style.

Style invariably separates people and things into two categories: stylish and unstylish (for my niggas, John Blaze shit and wack, for my wiggas, diggity and non-jump off). This is inherently cruel, a fact which has rubbed off on the fashion industry and other style-oriented businesses, which often seem to misguidedly conflate the natural cruelty of style with the idea that it is stylish to be cruel.

As a result, the majority of people believe crap like:

• The best kind of fabric is leather culled from newborn or fetal animals.
• The most stylish shirts are shirts infected with A.I.D.S.
• The most stylish cars get less than two miles to the gallon, and circulate cyanide gas through the air conditioner vents.
• The most stylish women are fucking bitch chicas who need to have their pretty faces cut.
• The most stylish explosives are nukes that are also filled with nails. Oh and bees with stings that give cancer.
• Style is hard and painful just like those "spankings" Daddy used to give.

The only things hard and painful are cocaine-induced erections. Style need only be stylish.

This guy, by the way, is not.

See also

• Fashion
• Doggy style
• Uncyclopedia's Manuel of Style