It's been cool to see you/your channel go from a few videos spread across a longer breadth of time... to more frequent publications and a growing fan base (and the correspondent dissenters). Keep up the good work, man. Cheers ✌🏽
Hello good sir! I was just on your patreon page and was wondering if you are still running it? I didn't see a link in your video description which is why I am asking.
I was interested in your video until you used the R slur. I have a family member with autism, so it hits close to home when people use slurs against people like him. It's wrong, you wouldn't want someone doing it to you or your family. You should seriously consider not using slurs.
Respectfully, my usage of the word "retard," had nothing to do with your autistic family member. I was commenting on the stupidity of Matt Walsh's audience, by referring to them specifically, as "retards." While I agree that it's wrong to use slurs against people in the way that you seem to object to, i.e. calling an autistic person a "retard" with the intention of dehumanizing them, my usage of slurs never takes that form. 100% of the time that I use words like "bitch," and "retard" and "faggot" as slurs, I'm using them not as pejoratives for immutable characteristics that I'm prejudiced against (being a woman, being neurodivergent, being gay), but as snappy labels for character traits that I find detestable (cowardice, stupidity, hypocrisy).
@wisamahmed251 I believe what you say about how you mean those words, but that doesn't change that its a bad thing to use words that are associated with a certain group to mean "bad". Maybe when middle school boys say "gay" or "faggot" they actually mean "slow at running" or "too girly" but it pretty quickly turns into direct anti-gay homophobia and its hurtful to anyone who is actually gay, while also making the kids seem very immature and like theyre not being raised right. When you use slurs or, idk, slur-adjacent words, you alienate your own audience. What woman, autistic person, or gay person wants to hear some guy on the Internet use words that are usually used to demean and mock them and can sometimes even preempt violence? Not many, and certainly not me. Hope you change your mind, and I definitely hope you aren't talking in real life like this.
While I get where you’re coming from, I don’t actually think what you’re saying is true. “it’s a bad thing to use words that are associated with a certain group to mean ‘bad’” - The trouble I have with this is that words, just like any other artifact of culture, are not static entities with unchanging effects on whichever audience is witness to them. How you interpret a word is heavily constrained by your understanding of its meaning, coupled with your ability to parse the context in which it was uttered, and in some cases, it’s exclusively the latter as opposed to the former. For example, you just acknowledged that my use of the slurs I mentioned above, in context, is not an expression of my animus for any of the groups they would conventionally refer to. You wouldn’t be able to get to that objectively correct interpretation of what I said, based on a reading of the dictionary definitions of those words. So between the two of us, we have an instance of communication where the literal meanings of the words I’m using don’t perfectly map onto what I’m actually trying to convey, but you still understand what I’m saying, and get what I mean. But even in less stringent cases, where we’re going off associations rather than dictionary definitions, I think it’s only decent to notice that those associations can change, and that they may or may not apply to whatever context we’re assessing. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this new phenomenon of women on TikTok calling shit they find cool “cunt,” (I just learned about it recently), but that would be an example of them taking a word that used to be associated with naked misogyny, and reappropriating it to something markedly more fun and empowering. I think that’s really cool, and dare I say, “cunt,” lmao. I would never reprimand those women as though they’re carrying water for misogyny, because in context, it’s totally clear what they’re doing (having some innocent and harmless fun wit dey bitches). I have more to say for your other points but I’m just interested to know how you’d respond to this fact of how “bad” associations can change, and we need to analyze the context to figure out how bad the usage of any specific word is.
@@wisamahmed251 to be honest, you're obfuscating. When you say "retard" you're not really reclaiming the word, are you? Let's go with your example of the reclamation of "cunt". I think it's cool that women on tiktok have done and are now using it in an empowering way. That can be something that is happening, but if I walk up to a woman today and call her "a cunt", just because it is being reclaimed in other contexts, does not mean I'm not using it in the classic, misogynistic way when I say that to her. Right? So, reclamation is not a blanket thing that happens to a word that makes it okay to use again. Reclamation usually is done by an in group that is the target of a harmful word and, although sometimes it is acceptable for people in the out group to use the word, it is usually seen as unacceptable and a sign of malice or ignorance. "Cunt" is also a great example of how reclamation requires transformation of meaning. It's not just that women get to call each other "cunts", it's that they have altered the meaning from misogynistic put down to empowering compliment. When you say "retard" and mean something along the lines of "one who is so foolish and idiotic that it's like they are mentally disabled" you're not transforming the use of the word at all. That's exactly the way it's been used for all of my life. You are not transforming the word or using it in a new context à la tiktok girlies, you're using it in the regular, derogatory way à la 13 year old child who thinks it's funny to be cruel. Yes, language is dependent on context, but the context in which you're using slurs is still offensive and disrespectful.
“to be honest, you're obfuscating. When you say "retard" you're not really reclaiming the word, are you? Let's go with your example of the reclamation of "cunt". I think it's cool that women on tiktok have done and are now using it in an empowering way. That can be something that is happening, but if I walk up to a woman today and call her "a cunt", just because it is being reclaimed in other contexts, does not mean I'm not using it in the classic, misogynistic way when I say that to her. Right?” I agree with the gist of this with a couple caveats. First, I never said I was “reclaiming” the word “retard,” and that’s what makes it ok for me to say it. I was simply making a point about how our associations with words can change over time and depending on the context. As for your calling-a-random-woman-a-cunt hypothetical, I agree that if you’re doing that with the intention of being a sexist asshole, then we should treat you accordingly, and that the fact that TikTok girlies have reclaimed the term in other contexts doesn’t exonerate you of your misogyny in the specific case you described. I also agree *descriptively* that people will look at you as ignorant/an asshole regardless of your intentions, if you aren’t part of the in-group which has been granted license to redefine/reappropriate/reclaim words that are typically used to demean them. But *prescriptively* I think this is a terrible norm that has been upheld for far too long. I think it’s really intellectually dishonest and unfair to assume as a matter of principle, that anytime someone from the “out-group” uses the offensive word, they’re doing it out of malice (specifically to the group that that term conventionally targets) or ignorance. I would much rather prefer a norm that allows for offensive speech in certain informal contexts, provided that the speaker isn’t actually communicating a message of hate with that speech. And if they are communicating a message of hate, then the target of your criticism should be the hate, not the specific hateful speech, because obviously, people can still be hateful even if they aren’t using “hateful” speech. In fact, I would argue that the vast majority of hate, I.e. real feelings of malice directed towards people based on immutable characteristics, is expressed surreptitiously and subliminally. And one of the biggest issues I have with this retarded norm of policing offensive speech, is that it tricks people fighting ghosts into thinking they’re battling demons, all while letting actual demons off the hook. For instance, if I’m putting myself in your shoes throughout this exchange of ours, I have to imagine that you feel like you’re defending the dignity of neurodivergent people like your autistic family member, from assholes like me who use the word “retarded” to disparage stupid people, as if my use of the word “retarded,” is an affront to your family member’s wellbeing, and by extension, yours, as someone who would obviously take offense to their family member being insulted for their autism. But this whole constellation of negative emotion, where you feel like you’re in dialogue with a bad person who’s trying to dehumanize your family member, is total bullshit. I got no problems with autistic people, and I wish em nothing but the best. I still feel like saying “retarded,” though, and I will gladly call anyone who denigrates your autistic family member by calling them “retarded,” a “hoe,” a “faggot,” an “asshole,” a “dick,” a “piece of shit,” a “bitch-ass nigga,” or any other epithet that I feel would appropriately signal my hostility to that kind of cruelty. Anyway, I hope I’m not taking up too much of your time with this thread lol but you can take it where you want from here.
It's been cool to see you/your channel go from a few videos spread across a longer breadth of time... to more frequent publications and a growing fan base (and the correspondent dissenters). Keep up the good work, man.
Cheers ✌🏽
Thanks bro. It's been cool seein you hop in every now and then too ❤
@ maybe someday I'll weigh in more substantially on the topics at hand, but for now I'm contented to watch ☺️
Hello good sir! I was just on your patreon page and was wondering if you are still running it? I didn't see a link in your video description which is why I am asking.
It's on the back-burner for now. You'll be seeing the link in a month or so once I've finally uploaded my entire back catalog.
I was interested in your video until you used the R slur. I have a family member with autism, so it hits close to home when people use slurs against people like him. It's wrong, you wouldn't want someone doing it to you or your family. You should seriously consider not using slurs.
Respectfully, my usage of the word "retard," had nothing to do with your autistic family member. I was commenting on the stupidity of Matt Walsh's audience, by referring to them specifically, as "retards." While I agree that it's wrong to use slurs against people in the way that you seem to object to, i.e. calling an autistic person a "retard" with the intention of dehumanizing them, my usage of slurs never takes that form.
100% of the time that I use words like "bitch," and "retard" and "faggot" as slurs, I'm using them not as pejoratives for immutable characteristics that I'm prejudiced against (being a woman, being neurodivergent, being gay), but as snappy labels for character traits that I find detestable (cowardice, stupidity, hypocrisy).
@wisamahmed251 I believe what you say about how you mean those words, but that doesn't change that its a bad thing to use words that are associated with a certain group to mean "bad". Maybe when middle school boys say "gay" or "faggot" they actually mean "slow at running" or "too girly" but it pretty quickly turns into direct anti-gay homophobia and its hurtful to anyone who is actually gay, while also making the kids seem very immature and like theyre not being raised right. When you use slurs or, idk, slur-adjacent words, you alienate your own audience. What woman, autistic person, or gay person wants to hear some guy on the Internet use words that are usually used to demean and mock them and can sometimes even preempt violence? Not many, and certainly not me. Hope you change your mind, and I definitely hope you aren't talking in real life like this.
While I get where you’re coming from, I don’t actually think what you’re saying is true.
“it’s a bad thing to use words that are associated with a certain group to mean ‘bad’” - The trouble I have with this is that words, just like any other artifact of culture, are not static entities with unchanging effects on whichever audience is witness to them. How you interpret a word is heavily constrained by your understanding of its meaning, coupled with your ability to parse the context in which it was uttered, and in some cases, it’s exclusively the latter as opposed to the former. For example, you just acknowledged that my use of the slurs I mentioned above, in context, is not an expression of my animus for any of the groups they would conventionally refer to. You wouldn’t be able to get to that objectively correct interpretation of what I said, based on a reading of the dictionary definitions of those words. So between the two of us, we have an instance of communication where the literal meanings of the words I’m using don’t perfectly map onto what I’m actually trying to convey, but you still understand what I’m saying, and get what I mean. But even in less stringent cases, where we’re going off associations rather than dictionary definitions, I think it’s only decent to notice that those associations can change, and that they may or may not apply to whatever context we’re assessing. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this new phenomenon of women on TikTok calling shit they find cool “cunt,” (I just learned about it recently), but that would be an example of them taking a word that used to be associated with naked misogyny, and reappropriating it to something markedly more fun and empowering. I think that’s really cool, and dare I say, “cunt,” lmao. I would never reprimand those women as though they’re carrying water for misogyny, because in context, it’s totally clear what they’re doing (having some innocent and harmless fun wit dey bitches). I have more to say for your other points but I’m just interested to know how you’d respond to this fact of how “bad” associations can change, and we need to analyze the context to figure out how bad the usage of any specific word is.
@@wisamahmed251 to be honest, you're obfuscating. When you say "retard" you're not really reclaiming the word, are you? Let's go with your example of the reclamation of "cunt". I think it's cool that women on tiktok have done and are now using it in an empowering way. That can be something that is happening, but if I walk up to a woman today and call her "a cunt", just because it is being reclaimed in other contexts, does not mean I'm not using it in the classic, misogynistic way when I say that to her. Right? So, reclamation is not a blanket thing that happens to a word that makes it okay to use again. Reclamation usually is done by an in group that is the target of a harmful word and, although sometimes it is acceptable for people in the out group to use the word, it is usually seen as unacceptable and a sign of malice or ignorance. "Cunt" is also a great example of how reclamation requires transformation of meaning. It's not just that women get to call each other "cunts", it's that they have altered the meaning from misogynistic put down to empowering compliment.
When you say "retard" and mean something along the lines of "one who is so foolish and idiotic that it's like they are mentally disabled" you're not transforming the use of the word at all. That's exactly the way it's been used for all of my life. You are not transforming the word or using it in a new context à la tiktok girlies, you're using it in the regular, derogatory way à la 13 year old child who thinks it's funny to be cruel. Yes, language is dependent on context, but the context in which you're using slurs is still offensive and disrespectful.
“to be honest, you're obfuscating. When you say "retard" you're not really reclaiming the word, are you? Let's go with your example of the reclamation of "cunt". I think it's cool that women on tiktok have done and are now using it in an empowering way. That can be something that is happening, but if I walk up to a woman today and call her "a cunt", just because it is being reclaimed in other contexts, does not mean I'm not using it in the classic, misogynistic way when I say that to her. Right?”
I agree with the gist of this with a couple caveats. First, I never said I was “reclaiming” the word “retard,” and that’s what makes it ok for me to say it. I was simply making a point about how our associations with words can change over time and depending on the context. As for your calling-a-random-woman-a-cunt hypothetical, I agree that if you’re doing that with the intention of being a sexist asshole, then we should treat you accordingly, and that the fact that TikTok girlies have reclaimed the term in other contexts doesn’t exonerate you of your misogyny in the specific case you described. I also agree *descriptively* that people will look at you as ignorant/an asshole regardless of your intentions, if you aren’t part of the in-group which has been granted license to redefine/reappropriate/reclaim words that are typically used to demean them.
But *prescriptively* I think this is a terrible norm that has been upheld for far too long. I think it’s really intellectually dishonest and unfair to assume as a matter of principle, that anytime someone from the “out-group” uses the offensive word, they’re doing it out of malice (specifically to the group that that term conventionally targets) or ignorance. I would much rather prefer a norm that allows for offensive speech in certain informal contexts, provided that the speaker isn’t actually communicating a message of hate with that speech. And if they are communicating a message of hate, then the target of your criticism should be the hate, not the specific hateful speech, because obviously, people can still be hateful even if they aren’t using “hateful” speech. In fact, I would argue that the vast majority of hate, I.e. real feelings of malice directed towards people based on immutable characteristics, is expressed surreptitiously and subliminally. And one of the biggest issues I have with this retarded norm of policing offensive speech, is that it tricks people fighting ghosts into thinking they’re battling demons, all while letting actual demons off the hook.
For instance, if I’m putting myself in your shoes throughout this exchange of ours, I have to imagine that you feel like you’re defending the dignity of neurodivergent people like your autistic family member, from assholes like me who use the word “retarded” to disparage stupid people, as if my use of the word “retarded,” is an affront to your family member’s wellbeing, and by extension, yours, as someone who would obviously take offense to their family member being insulted for their autism. But this whole constellation of negative emotion, where you feel like you’re in dialogue with a bad person who’s trying to dehumanize your family member, is total bullshit. I got no problems with autistic people, and I wish em nothing but the best. I still feel like saying “retarded,” though, and I will gladly call anyone who denigrates your autistic family member by calling them “retarded,” a “hoe,” a “faggot,” an “asshole,” a “dick,” a “piece of shit,” a “bitch-ass nigga,” or any other epithet that I feel would appropriately signal my hostility to that kind of cruelty.
Anyway, I hope I’m not taking up too much of your time with this thread lol but you can take it where you want from here.