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Think Before You Speak Campaign

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JoshuaFH:
Josh?! Creating an actual discussion topic?! It can't be...

I was recently made aware of a certain ad campaign by the guys at PennyArcarde. It's called "Think Before You Speak" and it's apparently aimed at discouraging people from using words like "gay" in a derogatory sense.

This is the website:

http://www.thinkb4youspeak.com/TheCampaign/

and I'm not entirely sure what to think. I can understand the intention, but the people that thought of this are detached from reality in the sense that they don't realize that they're combatting alienating people by alienating other people.

Also, Gabe, in the news section of the website:

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2009/8/17/

Made it abundantly clear that the main offenders are people who aren't particularly predisposed to being agreeable or negotiable.

What do you guys think?

Broose:
I don't really care for anyone who is offended that easily by misuse of a word.

Vester:
It's just that calling someone a dyke or a fag or a homo isn't really very creative. I believe that the campaign is encouraging the Internet to use more well-thought out insults.

... or not.

Just for the record, being called a 'fag' and accused of 'man-loving' gets ironic when they do it to me. "Yeah I'm into men. What are you gonna do about it?"

Enzo:
(long sigh, due to never being able to resist the potentially controversial topics. How long before the wall-of-text arguments begin on this one?)

While I'm all for the sentiment of the campaign, do they think this will actually make a meaningful impact? "Hey, I bet kids will stop doing this if we tell them it's irresponsible! Everybody knows that works!"  :-\ And where is the money for this is coming from? Is this really the best way to spend it?

Admittedly, I don't come from an area with a lot of outright homophobia, but it seems a little silly to run an entire ad campaign about not calling things gay. I've caught my gay friends using it as a synonym for stupid (much to my amusement). It's just sort of in the lexicon now, like it or not.

Am I still allowed to call things retarded? :3

EDIT : Also, epic fail on shortening "B4" but not "You". If you're going to use crap like that, at least be consistent.

Neonivek:
I have little-no respect for Penny Arcade as it is and this campaign is rather horrible as it is anyhow.

My prediction?: Infighting YAY!

I don't like gay jokes (Ohh my goodness Yu-Gi-Oh abridged just STOP!!!), I don't like people using the word gay to mean just about anything (I like picking on people who do so in real life, "So lets get this straight, this chair is homosexual?"), however I no faith in this sort of compaign that will at best turn "gay" into a trap word.

Anyhow that out of the way Id actually would be surprised if I was an Etymologist at how the term "gay" evolved. I mean it originally meant happy, then it became a word to refer to homosexuals, and now it also is a nonsense word that means something is "bad/poor/stupid", and now there is a campaign to stop people from using the word to mean one of its new meanings.

Where is the campain for make people stop using the word "Good" to mean "Well" or "Decent Quality"?

Word wise it is all very confusing... This is all without even touching words that refer to people with mental handicaps.

I have more to say, such as how successful campaigns of this type work (which isn't like this), but I really don't want to be too ranty.

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