louis ck

So, did anyone catch the new Louis CK special? 


oops meant to post this in the Ck thread my bad

I remember the first time I heard another kid use the word "gay" disparagingly against another kid in grade 4.  Kid A (ha) said "Joel is gay," and I thought he was saying he was excessively jolly (which was true).  

I'm gay as a bitch

  On 4/8/2020 at 8:13 PM, chenGOD said:

My man, you’re either being deliberately obtuse, or your education has sorely failed you. 

Seriously? You're the one being obtuse here. The meaning of language is defined by usage, you may not like the fact that gay has become a synonym for bad/lame/etc., but it has, it wasn't my idea, it's been like that for decades. This isn't a difficult concept to grasp.

Whether people should use the word this way is a completely separate argument to whether a separate meaning has evolved or not, and what that separate meaning does or doesn't entail. I'm neither advocating nor defending it's use, just pointing out the flaws in your sloppy reasoning.

Right, gay is a synonym for bad, and has been for some time. Gay is also a synonym for homosexual. The implication (as described in the PDF I linked) is that using gay to mean bad is homophobic, because the origin of that usage of the word arose with the idea that being homosexual was somehow inferior. 
 

These two points are linked together, I fail to see how you can’t understand this. By continuing to use gay as a pejorative, you are continuing to associate homosexuality with being inferior. It doesn’t matter if you mean it or not, that’s how the word is interpreted. 
 

If we substituted caze for gay, would you understand it any better?

i've never in person heard anyone use the term gay to mean simply bad. i've heard it used to mean bad in a way that is directly related to homosexuality in some form or implication, never divorced from it. never.

maybe that's just the way it is where i am, idk. but if someone says something is faggy or gay, they're distinctly talking about it's a thing a homosexual would do/like/etc and is therefore bad because of its relation to homosexuality/LGBTQ culture/associated cliches/etc. 

  On 4/8/2020 at 9:22 PM, auxien said:

i've never in person heard anyone use the term gay to mean simply bad. i've heard it used to mean bad in a way that is directly related to homosexuality in some form or implication, never divorced from it. never.

maybe that's just the way it is where i am, idk. but if someone says something is faggy or gay, they're distinctly talking about it's a thing a homosexual would do/like/etc and is therefore bad because of its relation to homosexuality/LGBTQ culture/associated cliches/etc. 

At my place in NL it gets used to imply something is bad or stupid

  On 4/8/2020 at 9:20 PM, chenGOD said:

Right, gay is a synonym for bad, and has been for some time. Gay is also a synonym for homosexual. The implication (as described in the PDF I linked) is that using gay to mean bad is homophobic, because the origin of that usage of the word arose with the idea that being homosexual was somehow inferior. 

And as I've pointed out, that doesn't make any sense. It is not a logical implication at all. That's just not how language or meaning works. The origins of the words aren't relevant either, as Louis points out in the clip above, kids don't even know what homosexuality is when they start using the word gay as a pejorative for things completely unrelated to homosexuality. Words have a life of their own after they get created, their origins are interesting, but not necessarily relevant to the meanings they take on.

  Quote

By continuing to use gay as a pejorative, you are continuing to associate homosexuality with being inferior.

Huh? I don't use gay as a pejorative, where did you get that idea?

It's one of these words that I think has a lot of subjective meaning attached to it for everyone.  For me it was definitely its own category distinct from bad or stupid or ____.  Like 8 year old me wouldn't have considered holding hands to be stupid or bad, but I would have considered it "kind of gay."  Or if some whiny kid kept dying in mario kart and shrieked "gaaaaaay" it was being used more for that grating "aaaa" sound to indicate frustration in a way that the word "dumb" or "stupid" wouldn't.  The word "lame" also works well for this, but indicates a slightly higher level of maturity, which the person using it in that moment surely lacks.... so it wouldn't work as well imo.  But yeah, most people would not be thinking of any homosexual connotation in those instances, anymore than they'd be thinking of joy when they use it to describe someone else's sexual preferences.

  On 4/8/2020 at 9:44 PM, caze said:

as Louis points out in the clip above, kids don't even know what homosexuality is when they start using the word gay as a pejorative for things completely unrelated to homosexuality.

i definitely knew calling something gay was directly linked with homosexuality/homosexual culture/cliches/etc when i was a child and heard it used pejoratively. i may not have known every single aspect of what made something particularly related to it, but i knew it was because of homosexual cliches and i knew it was bad because of that. 

  On 4/8/2020 at 9:44 PM, caze said:

Words have a life of their own after they get created, their origins are interesting, but not necessarily relevant to the meanings they take on.

of course. and sometimes the previous/original(ish) usage is directly relevant. i'd argue that's obviously the case here with gay (and also with the word retard) because both of those words also currently still mean the other thing that they're related to. 

  On 4/8/2020 at 9:41 PM, thumbass said:

At my place in NL it gets used to imply something is bad or stupid

whole different world there, basically. different language and dunno if y'all are saying 'gay' in English or not, but i'm not even going to try with other language issues related. hard to keep up with just one

The general you, not you specifically. 
 

That is exactly how language and meaning evolve, as explained by Berger and Luckmann in The Social Construction of Reality, as well as through Popper’s Three Worlds. 
Kids don’t know what homosexuality is, but they are socialized into using gay as a pejorative. Gay also means homosexual, and the association is made that gay=bad therefore being gay is bad. This is a simple syllogism right? 
 

Your only argument is that the person saying it didn’t mean it. But again, the question is why does gay (homosexual) mean bad? The answer is because of the rise of homophobia in the 50s-80s, and socializing the word gay to mean inferior. It’s an orthodox response to a heterodox idea that challenges the norm (being gay challenges masculine ideals in the West). You might also have heard it described as “othering”, which is to identify an out group as “other” than the norm. 

  On 4/8/2020 at 9:59 PM, auxien said:

 

 

whole different world there, basically. different language and dunno if y'all are saying 'gay' in English or not, but i'm not even going to try with other language issues related. hard to keep up with just one

Most of the time it's the English word yeah

  On 4/8/2020 at 9:56 PM, Zephyr_Nova said:

...The word "lame" also works well for this...

Just occurred to me this was originally used to describe physical disability, heh.  Another example of how these words evolve and lose their power over time through casual use.  I don't think anyone thinks twice about how offensive that word is at this point.  I really don't see this as a bad thing, but I understand why people get so riled up over it.  I'm just in the "meh, no big deal camp."  Although, again, it's rare if ever that I use those words in my day to day life.  I did notice Dawson's Creek in the gay section on Netflix, and wondered aloud to my friend "what's Dawson's Creek doing in the gay section?" followed up with "well, I suppose it's kind of gay.  is that how they're categorizing now?"  Seemed appropriate.

  On 4/8/2020 at 10:32 PM, Zephyr_Nova said:

I did notice Dawson's Creek in the gay section on Netflix, and wondered aloud to my friend "what's Dawson's Creek doing in the gay section?" followed up with "well, I suppose it's kind of gay.  is that how they're categorizing now?"  Seemed appropriate.

  On 4/8/2020 at 6:58 PM, apriorion said:

I have been in that conversation before, and it never went well at all.

Been in these discussions before. Went great for me, because I won. You notice that you won an argument if the other one leaves the place, ashamed, humiliated, defeated. :^)

Just kidding. But you know, men are much much more likely to become victim of the violence of another man than a woman is. Women, of course, are more likely to get raped, which is a relatively rare phenomenon, statistically, compared to other forms of violence in which mostly men are the victims (of other men). Men are much unsafer when being alone in the street at night, it's scientifically proven. Though rape seems more severe than being beaten up, but of course there are degrees to it all

Another thing: What's wrong with "inferior"? Why is it negatively connoted? Simply being less capable than someone and therefore being inferior in a certain field is something amoral and factual, nothing bad per se, unless you connote it that way. So saying that "gay" means "inferior" is 1000% politically correct (just providing some facts and logic here)

i see the old zeffolia has simply transmigrated you a different account

Next time you let one loose in your lady, tell her you are gay. It will be the start of something beautiful. 

Sincerely Louis CK is good

really, I mean it

I revisited my favorite Louis clip on YouTube ("your sperms are dying in my mouth right now, goddamnit! Lick it...LICK IT!!!) and now YouTube keeps feeding me clips. I'm consuming every one of them. What a good time that show could be 

  On 6/1/2020 at 12:34 AM, marf said:

Sincerely Louis CK is good

  On 6/1/2020 at 3:15 PM, IDEM said:

 

Thanks, nuwatmm

We should get a rolling empty quote window rolling sometime.

He rolled through my city a about 4 months ago. Found out after the fact. 

  On 6/1/2020 at 4:47 PM, IDEM said: