This (Destiny)

by Robot Chickens, Friday, August 21, 2015, 15:12 (3479 days ago) @ Cody Miller

3. Homo's an insulting shorthand for gays that they haven't taken back, AFAIK. In general, while it does mean gay, it normally means when used in an insulting way, acting like an uptight jerk. See Louis CK's routine on faggot.

Maybe you missed the episode of Louie, where a gay man speaks to him after a show about that word. The man told him something along the lines of "You have every right to say and use that word, but just be aware of the collateral damage. There are people in your audience who grew up having that screamed at them in hate, and have an association with that word. I know you don't mean harm, but it affects us nonetheless. Please think about the perspective of others."

Funkmon. All of your reasonings are sound regarding the why. However, it is not insulting to call someone a dick (even though half of us have them) in the same way. No one is implying that it is wrong to have a dick. However, the punchline of this instance is that it is somehow wrong/funny to be a homo. That is different. It assumes in/out group statuses and joke is that this person is part of the out group. In the same way, if we're talking within a generally male forum, a joke about dicks doesn't disparage people. However, a joke about vaginas probably does. It is all about identifying who is in and who is out based on group assumptions.

I generally don't care about language, but I do care about it when language is used to exclude participation in communities in cases where exclusion makes absolutely no sense. I care when the language we use makes it harder for someone to participate on a fan site because they feel unwelcome. Of course there are personality traits we probably want to make unwelcome, but that is different than what we're talking about here.

Cody's example highlights the biggest difference. When someone has shouted a word at you in hate (and most of us are aware of the charged meaning of that word, as opposed to the clinical definitions) it becomes less neutral. The question then becomes: who do we want to include/exclude from our community?

I will not play language police again, but I do want us to at least be aware of how words and jokes will affect other people's desire to be a part of our community.