Dickspeak, pt 2

by Jesse

Katy Perry recorded “UR SO GAY”, which sounds homophobic, but of course, she’s using the other, fashionable version of the word, meaning anything generally bad. Anyone who thinks that sounds offensive should just Jew off. And stop being so bloody black about it.

(Simon Amstell)

The other day a friend of mine gave me a link and urged me to look at it. It was this:

It was a stamp that somebody had made and uploaded on deviantART. It said, “I use the word GAY as an insult. Don’t like it? GET OVER IT.” Reasonable, perhaps. But here was how the creator of the stamp justified his position:

Words change. And the insulting version of “gay” is now almost separate from “gay” as homosexual. Most people don’t even think of homosexuals when they say it.

Let me tell you a little story.

Once upon a time there was a Senator called Rick Santorum. Rick made the gay community very angry about something. It doesn’t matter what — he was probably being an arsehole. But anyway the gay community took revenge. How? They named something of theirs after Rick — something terrible — and the name caught on.

Now, whenever anybody Googles “santorum”, the top result is … an awful, awful thing. Google it yourselves.

People use his name to mean that thing all the time now, which really sucks for Rick Santorum (although he probably deserves it). But obviously, as long as people don’t actually picture Rick’s face every time they use his last name to mean that thing, then they’re not actually inflicting a personal insult at all. Words change. Santorum now means santorum.

And as long as you don’t actually think of homosexuals frolicking in a field somewhere when you use the word ‘gay’ to mean ‘shitty’, you’re not being homophobic.

As long as you don’t actually think when you speak. As long as you don’t worry about the actual definitions of actual words, but instead just open your mouth and let the words and phrases spill out like great gobs of santorum. As long as the highest ideal you could ever hope for in speech is to release a noise from your lungs that successfully conveys hostility towards one thing and solidarity with another thing — then no, of course you’re not being homophobic when you say, “That’s so gay.”

You’re being something much worse. You’re being a fucking idiot.