Twice in one day, oh boy!
Ok, so yesterday I was reading a review online for a new video game that had come out, and I was reading the comments when this one struck me: "OMFG the rater is a cock eating Bieber fan. "A shooting gallery" Really dick bag? WTF DO YOU CALL MW2!?!? MW2 IS AS GAY AS IT GETS!! This is WAAAY better than MW2. I just wiped my ass with MW2, because Im never touching it again! You gave MW2 a better rating, WHY? Seriously man, I have one other question, How the fk were you even smart enough to escape the abortion bucket??? The thing that pisses me off, is that NO ONE in IGN knows how to "Properly" rate a game. Youre just bad at the game so stfu"
Now, there are so many things wrong with this comment I'm not going to go into all of them, but the one part that irritated me most was the user's use of the word "gay" to mean stupid. I knew I probably wasn't going to reach anybody, especially the user with any comment, but I thought I would try anyway as my pledge to speak up. So I replied with this: "I respectfully ask that you reconsider calling things you mean to be stupid or dumb "gay." It is not just an expression and is offensive to the millions of people who identify as gay. Thank you."
Now I thought that was neither too judgmental or too preachy, but got the point across. This was the response that the user posted: "Fuck all you fags lol".
I get that in the online world there is no responsibility or repercussions for people's actions, and that this was a gaming site with the user probably a young teen or adult. That's no excuse. Language such as this is so detrimental to our society, and is absolutely offensive to those in the Queer Community, and to me as an Ally. I know we have such a long way to go, and as I said last night, the road getting there is not going to be easy. This will not discourage me, but I can't say that I'm not disappointed that someone (actually this person wasn't the only one to use this kind of language) would think that it is ok to speak like this. I can pretty much guarantee that they wouldn't dare that use that kind of language in real life, so why is so ok to troll on these sites and comment as they please without repercussions? This is just one type of behavior that leads into bullying, hate speech, violence, etc.
I don't know even how to start thinking of a solution, but just some thoughts I wanted to put out there.
This is a HUGE issue for me as well, Brandon. I've taken it upon myself to educate those who use the word in this manner, the same way you do. But in the end, it comes down to a person's choice. They will only change when they want to. All we can really do is run our lives the way we want to be.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing is that you say people wouldn't talk like this in real life? I think that it is more common than we want to believe. Common and accepted by the people who surround the trolls who speak this way. But wasn't there a semi-recent campaign of commercials talking about this issue? Hilary Duff was in one I believe. Anywho, I think that this definitely needs to be brought up very publicly and have people with power or influence speak out about it. Too many who hear language like this keep silent.
Oh people use the "That's so Gay" line and the like all the time in real life, I meant the ranting and raving with the overly harsh language. But yeah, I hear gay being used as stupid way too much.
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