Everything’s gay
So there’s this campaign called Think B4 You Speak, which has the aim of reducing the use of gay, fag, and dyke as insults. Not an easy task as anyone who’s been on in high school or on Xbox Live within the last fifteen years (at least). This popped up on a gaming blog I read, with less than encouraging results.
I have to say, this is very true. This sort of scolding is just not going to work and will probably make things worse. You see defenses of the use of gay as an insult running along the lines of “oh, it’s just another word for stupid in that context, so it’s okay.” Which is almost true, in that people aren’t necessarily consciously anti-homosexual, but that doesn’t make it right. It’s rare, but you occasionally see this same sort of defense with the word nigger. I remember in high school a group of kids arguing that nigger wasn’t a racial slur, it was just another word for asshole. In another instance, someone said that I don’t “know the difference between a nigger and a black person.” That’s slightly different, but it’s an attempt to remove a word from its established context. Given that there’s not much of an argument in the ads, that’s probably the reaction you’re going to get.
I don’t have a solution and I’m sympathetic to the campaign, but it’s not going to work. It’s not biting enough to have an impact. And there’s a real risk of going to far in the direction and making the ads look hysterical. I really wish I had a solution, especially because those insults are a pet peeve of mine, but I don’t.
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