I think it's ridiculous to say he was a homophobe just by saying the word. Times are different. Back then saying "fag" was just an insult but wasn't morphed into a derogatory term until the past decade. Kids playing Call of Duty Black Ops or any online game since the mid 2000's and up to like 2012 was commonly used all the time. I don't think anybody that goes around dropping that word nonchalantly makes any of us homophobes. It was basically us being anonymous, getting away being edgy to spite reaction. Majority of us had said it, but because times have changed, it literally has transformed itself into another n-word for the gay community. Just by mentioning it gets people riled up these days.
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lol. lmao, even. rofl, if you’re so inclined.
Dude, you have no clue what you’re talking about. That word was always a derogatory term for a gay man. It became a generic insult later. (And some LGBTQ people reclaim it, especially on Tumblr)
“Back then saying "fag" was just an insult but wasn't morphed into a derogatory term until the past decade.”
I would guess that YOU just think you didn’t used to get so much pushback for using the term. The meaning and use of the term has not changed over time you addle brained illiterate poser. When they used the word in the 1970s they meant homosexuals and they meant it as a slur. They just thought it was ‘okay,’ because all the homosexuals were in the closet or they were being arrested.
“ I don't think anybody that goes around dropping that word nonchalantly makes any of us homophobes”
Back in the late 2000s to early 2010s there were a lot of younger people - mainly but not exclusively kids around 8-14 who didn’t know any better - who used “gay” to mean “uncool” (similar to the earlier “lame”) and “-fag” as a suffix (or occasionally by itself) as a general insult. One of the earliest and oddest uses of the latter was “realfag”, referring to someone who is rarely or never online. (It was likely inspired by the Japanese otaku slang term “riajuu” basically meaning “real lifer”). Regardless, it went away once LGBTQIA+ people became a lot more visible online and some of those kids truly understood how offensive they were being. I have heard that it persisted awhile longer in First-Person Shooter games as a way to mock people’s manhood, (and this post seems to suggest that it may have actually started there, though I can’t confirm that) mainly by late teens and 20-somethings who generally did know how offensive it was, they just didn’t care. Meanwhile open homophobes continued to use it the same way as always.
Both terms originate from the early 20th century. I’m not sure if “gay” was ever a pejorative - and if it was, it wasn’t for all that long - but “fag” has always been a slur which has never been reclaimed to any meaningful extent. The fact that some ignorant kids used them differently for a few years and some immature and “edgy” young adults pretended that they were using it differently for longer doesn’t mean that it popped into existence in 2009 or whenever or that people are just randomly taking offense for no reason.
…and since then, those reduced to using certain words are banned from all civilised sites.
Must rile up you subhuman bigots.
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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