Since it’s a slang word, there really isn’t an “official” definition of a guido. Generally, though, they’re young men from New Jersey or New York who either have or claim to have an Italian background, and behave in a manner that they believe is suave, sophisticated and quintessentially “Italian”. The problem is that their version of “Italian” and a real Italian are practically nothing alike. These boys frost and spike their hair, turn themselves impossible shades of orange with spray-on tans, wear “wannabe” clothes from mall stores and too much cologne, drive BMWs owned by daddy (with the techno music cranked up loud), work out at the gym to look healthy, then turn around and drink like fish when they go clubbing to chase women (sometimes even their female counterparts, “guidettes”) every time they get a chance. Their MySpace pages are full of “party photos” and heavily decorated with the colours of the Italian flag. They’re generally…douches with daddy’s money, bad hair, orange skin, heavy (and deliberately so) Jersey or Noo Yawk accents, and photos of them are often seen on Hot Chicks With Douchebags. Guidos are much like wiggers, I suppose, except they’re trying (and failing) to be Italian, not African-American.

I’d thought this was exclusively an American phenomenon, but I was wrong. These boys are apparently from somewhere around Stockholm, which I guess makes them…wait for it…Swedos! 😛 I can only hope they’re not claiming Italian heritige; while the US Northeast did draw many Italian immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th century, and there does remain a Little Italy in New York to this day, to the best of my knowledge, Stockholm was not a popular destination for Italians seeking a new life a hundred or so years ago. Chances are pretty good that these boys could claim Viking ancestors, but The Family…no. They do have the same remarkable shade of orange skin, though!

I often wonder what these kids are going to think when they grow up. Sure, we all did stupid stuff at their age–I used to take my fashion cues from hair metal bands, facrissake–but when we did it, the evidence was confined to a few embarrassing prints in a photo album. These kids’ “idiot evidence” is all over the Internet, and at least hundreds of thousands of people (like me, for instance) have saved copies. When they outgrow being wiggers, guidos, “party girls” and all the stupid things that go with being their age, those photos will still exist somewhere, just waiting to come back and bite them in the arse. From the perspective of one who remembers well being that age, I’m enormously grateful that nearly no photos of me back then remain (few ever existed in the first place), but these kids won’t have the luxury of being able to forget. Interesting.