Stop Carrying Your Goddamn Guitar Around

We’ve all met this guy at some point or another. Hell, we’ve probably met several different versions of him throughout high school and college. They may very well be the most annoying, pretentious, and unnecessary people on the planet; of course, we’re talking about those assholes who carry their guitars around in public, 24/7.

These would-be mariachis operate on one basic, completely misinformed assumption: that all women, no matter how attractive, popular, or desirable, will fall to their knees in wang-licking worship at the mere sight of a musician. Now, this is partially true, but – and this is what the mariachi doesn’t understand – only when it applies to actual bands. If you and a few of your friends dye your hair black, write lyrics complaining about/raging against the status quo, and find a way to book an out-of-the-way venue downtown, congratulations: by the end of the night, you’ll be neck-deep in shallow vaginas (he women are shallow, that is; the vaginas themselves are probably wider and deeper than Benedict Canyon). That said, this fact of modern dating does not apply to lone men walking around on a college campus, idly twanging notes of Pixies songs. Women want to fuck guys who are actually in bands; they don’t want to fuck guys who wish they were in a band. You know this. I know this. The mariachi, unfortunately for the rest of us, doesn’t know this.

And so, guitar in hand, the mariachi walks from class to class or sits around the quad, attempting to convince someone – hell, anyone – that he is a deep, talented individual who is extremely gifted at finding and manhandling the female clitoris. It’d be one thing if he did it with the slightest ounce of self-respect, but the undignified way in which he literally seems to beg for attention is nothing short of goddamn pathetic.

Nobody is listening, man. Nobody wants to hear you play “The Boy Who Blocked His Own Shot,” and they want to hear your original material even less. Not unlike the worst celebrities on YouTube, the mariachi seems to derive his strength not from the endorsement of those who enjoy his work, but from the indifference and hatred of those who don’t. Somehow, continuing to do something that annoys everyone within a 200-foot radius, despite all logic and request to the contrary, is a virtue to the mariachi. They operate within the logic of a romantic comedy: no matter how irritating or creepy or unnecessary you might seem at first, sheer perseverance will eventually convince everyone to love you. Needless to say, this attitude is not applicable to real life.

What’s worse than their refusal to shut up is the immense, totally unwarranted confidence that the mariachi constantly carries around with him. In a sense, the mariachi considers himself an old-school romantic, and that his existence personifies all the great things about chivalry that have since been swept aside by the sleazy, unromantic age of the hookup. Now, this philosophy can be debated back and forth until the metaphorical cows come home, but it still stands to reason that any philosophy – no matter how potentially honorable or romantic – that allows the mariachi to continue playing crappy music without feeling the slightest hint of self-doubt is a philosophy that should be discarded. Accompanying this justification of their behavior is a bullshit sense of condescension: since I am a chivalrous, romantic guy, they think, you are a sex-driven asshole who doesn’t respect women.

Smug assholes.

It really comes down to two main things: firstly, there’s nothing particularly interesting about these people that will allow them to attract women on their own merits, and secondly, these guys simply know nothing about the opposite sex outside of romantic comedies and the King Arthur story. He assumes that women find devotion sexier than self-respect, humility sexier than confidence, and stubbornness sexier than charm. Most of us outgrew this way of thinking when we turned about twelve.

It also goes without saying that most of these guitarists just aren’t any good. They can decently replicate the notes of popular songs and can efficiently embarrass everyone around them through their overly-heartfelt singing, but, in terms of both originality and actual quality, the mariachi falls somewhere between William Hung and Hall & Oates on the scale of musical competence.

In many ways, the mariachi is mankind’s ultimate enemy: he’s annoying, wrongfully confident, pretentious, insulting, and, above all, completely inefficient. It almost feels pointless to say it, as the men who carry their guitars everywhere with them cannot be dissuaded by anything short of physical violence, but it must nonetheless be definitively spoken:

STOP CARRYING YOUR GODDAMN GUITAR AROUND.