Charlize Week 8: Diabolical
Sometimes after school, you just want to hang out somewhere with your friends and get a bite. With how expensive (and mediocre) Bing Bing is, most of my friends decide to go to Kiya Sushi. I have no choice but to reluctantly accept even though I don’t really like sushi. Or avocados. One of my closest compatriots tells me I’m Luciferian because I dislike sushi.
And then she has the audacity to tell me her concoction of kiwi and soy sauce is absolutely delectable.
While I do enjoy dogging on her terrible, terrible takes (you cannot tell me raw salmon is good with oreo), many people take insulting others way too far.
People often replace common words like “stupid” or “dumb” for “SpEd” and “autistic”, which by themselves are normal terms in the correct context, but are often used as insults. Because apparently, it’s “shameful” to be someone with special needs. Does replacing “stupid” with a mental disability emphasize a point?
Another case of community names used in an insult would be the “if you do xyz, you’re gay,” in which the other person would oftentimes stop their current action because they don’t want to be “gay,” like it’s a despicable thing.
Sure, “dark” or “edgy” humor may be funny at times, in some contexts. But all these other jokes are just aversion disguised as silly little quips.
Actual slur usage is sadly normalized as well. In 8th grade, most of us had to read the book Real by Carol Cujec about a non-speaking girl with autism who struggles to be seen due to difficulties with communicating. We had just finished a chapter on the main character talking about how hurtful the derogatory term towards disabled people is when the teacher called on someone to answer a question about the text.
They whispered loudly to their classmate, “What is this r***** saying again?”
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This being the typical “lingo” of American teens shows how deeply rooted hatred is in our society. There should be no reason for elementary schoolers to say slurs, much less know what it means. And as they grow up, it’s unjustifiable to continue using slurs because there are more than enough interactions in life to understand that slur usage is reprehensible.
I’m not saying other countries' teenagers don't act the same, but I don’t think this much hate speech gets thrown around in other schools around the world. Americans, known for being vulgar and unsophisticated, definitely utilize the full arsenal of their dictionary when insulting others.
America has a diverse population. But with different groups of people comes different prejudices, resulting in many, many different slurs.
We’ve grown so accustomed to derogatory terms as normal insults or normal words being used as derogatory terms that it’s just…appalling. And what frustrates me the most is that in most cases, this behaviour is often brushed off. Calling people out to be hit with an “okay, we get it, mb” is mind-boggling at the least.
I can try to condemn people’s actions, but I can’t force my beliefs on people, no matter how genuinely disgusting I think their words may be. However, I can still choose the people I want to be with, and I definitely don’t want to be companions with someone having morals as low as the Seventh Circle of Hell.
Insults and slurs are definitely at a very odd place in the modern American English dialect. Many of the most deplorable, insulting words one could have said in the past have become “just another word.” Words like “autistic” and “gay” have been overused as insults to such an extent that many people find it difficult to use it in an appropriate setting for fear it will come off as insulting or derogatory—I find myself struggling with this at times too.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would like to disagree with one point you made, that Americans use “the full arsenal of their dictionary when insulting others.” Although Americans undoubtedly throw insults all the time, usually it's confined to the same dozen or so words, such as calling everything “gay” as a stand-in for any other more descriptive word. We could be so much more creative and specific with our insults, like back when idioms were actually used in day-to-day conversations; “__ has a face for radio” and its sibling “a voice for autotune” will always be among my favorite disguised insults.
I saw a funny video the other day that relates to this! It was about the struggles of someone trying to make friends when their vocabulary is limited to three-letter words only. Funny enough, that character's language choice included common phrases gen z uses in slang, including but not limited to: "bet," "gay," and "nah." It made for a funny video, but I think it also reflects the lack of effort this generation has demonstrated when it comes to everyday conversations. Consequently, the insults we favor also reflect the idea of careless nonchalance: it is somehow okay to stigmatize neurodivergent and queerness because "whatever man, it's not that deep." This isn't dark humor; this is just bigotry.
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