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The blink 182 general discussion topic


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1 hour ago, Kay said:

You do understand that the reason people started referring to things as "g@y" when they meant shit or stupid is because it was derogatory to ethansexuals, and still is? while it's become common place for some people, it's common place from a root of homophobia and hatred which is still prevalent today. it isn't the same as a new slang adoption because the core hatred still exists and it still used in a homophobic context. just because you've decided it isn't offensive, doesn't mean it isn't offensive to actual ethansexual people. 

I understand that you have no ill will with it, but you have not been on the receiving end of it, or had your entire choiceless sexuality repeatedly referred to as a joke or an insult. I cannot go around assuming everyone means well when they're literally using the word most used to describe my sexuality as something rubbish or wrong, because there is still frequent and violent homophobia in the world, that I have personally been witness to. 

It doesn't seem like a big deal to you because it doesn't effect you. Literally all the people in here going "get a grip, it's no big deal, the world is too sensitive" are the people who aren't in the effected minority groups. from my understanding most of the people here with that argument are white dudes with good jobs and heterosexual tendencies. I don't like throwing the 'privilege' word around because it automatically shuts down arguments, but there's got to be a level here where people realise that their experiences and perspectives are purely theres and that other peoples lives are lead very differently. 

I'm bisexual, and my partner is a woman so I am seen by and large as a lesbian to the world. I'm not offended if friends make those sorts of comments or jokes to me, and I may ironically use it in close circles for the right situation, but if someone I'm not very close to says it it carries a very different meaning and weight.

I am a ethansexual person telling you I think it's offensive. You are entitled to free speech, so I don't think me being offensive means you should silence yourself - I think it means you should put more thought into what you and it's implications, because I'm not necessarily the only person who may be offended, and you could accidentally hurt people.

It's about respect. the very little act of "not using derogatory language about people" is possibly the bare minimum effort when it comes to respecting other humans. that's all I'm really asking for. if people are offended listen to the argument first before disregarding it, and don't assume one person not being offended means that you have a get-out-of-jail free card. Respect people, and think about the words you use. 

This isn't aimed directly at you so I'm sorry if this seems like an attack but I am sick to death of seeing a bunch of people who've not been oppressed or attacked for who they are turn around and say "man up, stop being so sensitive, fucking snowflakes". It's frankly disgusting. 

With regards to the R argument specifically, can you imagine being someone that impaired? a child can pick up on when a word is used to demean someone, you don't have to be completely all there to learn what that word means when people use it to refer to you and your weaknesses and drawbacks. now imagine being in a world where you cannot keep up with everyone around you, you cannot do the normal things for yourself that everyone else can, you need a carer or someone around constantly to assist you in just day to day activities - that word represents to them that they are weak, they are failures, that their entire existence is a mistake. Now imagine hearing people throw the word around casually as a joke. 

Words have power. 

I do agree with you that it comes from the root of homophobia but I just feel a lot of people that do use that word nowadays don't even have that in mind when saying it. It's a shame that people from different ethnics, different sexualities, backgrounds and stuff still suffer from abuse and homophobia. They're just normal people to me. Homosexuality is completely normal. That's why I won't use that word to describe something as a joke because I actually do respect people that are actually ethansexual. Same with the R word. I hate that word myself but regarding Apple Shampoo, I feel it was fine as it is since it was from the 1990s and that Mark didn't mean anything bad. I also have no problem with him changing the lyrics when they play it live too. But blink are notorious for changing lyrics, guitar parts, song structures and all in their live shows anyway. At least they were before Skiba was in the band.

Out of curiosity though, how do you feel about blink when they come up with songs like Built This Pool, I'm G4y or their sense of humour on their live shows from 92-05?

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There are certain words I wouldn't use with people I don't know very well/not on here of course, it's all about knowing your crowd.

Everything is just overanalysed to fuck these days in my opinion, words do have power but it feels like people often search so fucking hard to make them more powerful than the actual initial intention of them. 

I have a severely handicapped older sister and I have seen people mock her in public which I fucking hate but I don't get hung up when someone uses the term 'spastic' or 'retard' as a joking insult to someone who isn't. I have also laughed at racist/sexist jokes when I am neither racist nor sexist. A lot of it is about context for me, getting hung up every time a potentially offensive word is used must be exhausting - fuck that for a life.  

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27 minutes ago, Nosferatu said:

Out of curiosity though, how do you feel about blink when they come up with songs like Built This Pool, I'm G4y or their sense of humour on their live shows from 92-05?

I realize you were asking Kay, but as a fellow queermo whose views on this topic so far have been fairly similar to hers, I figured I'd chime in.

The first thing I want to mention is that, for me at least, it's possible to be critical of something and enjoy it at the same time. I've never been one to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I think some of their songs/jokes have been in (intentionally) bad taste, but it's never come across as even remotely hateful, so it hasn't really bothered me. It also helps that I grew up listening to blink, so I fully admit that I'm far more willing to excuse away and rationalize "problematic" material from them than I would be from a band I discovered today.

Anyway, I view blink's old humour as mainly absurdist parody. I'm not saying it was highbrow art, but I think they were making fun of themselves (and other bands/people, to an extent), like the reason they thought it was funny (but not necessarily why fans thought it was funny) was because it was so ridiculous that they were saying such vulgar things onstage. I don't think they struck the right tone (or had the right audience, really) to be effective as parody and I don't think they really tried to either, again, because this wasn't meant to be highbrow art. In many respects, it doesn't matter what their intent was if they weren't making it clear to a large chunk of their audience, many of whom looked up to them.

I still think some of their old jokes were great and others were really awful, but yeah, that's how I rationalize it.

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17 minutes ago, ...Dan... said:

I have a severely handicapped older sister and I have seen people mock her in public which I fucking hate but I don't get hung up when someone uses the term 'spastic' or 'retard' as a joking insult to someone who isn't. I have also laughed at racist/sexist jokes when I am neither racist nor sexist. A lot of it is about context for me, getting hung up every time a potentially offensive word is used must be exhausting - fuck that for a life.  

You have a good point here. There are absolutely good, non-racist/non-sexist/general non-bigots who enjoy non-PC jokes and don't tend to use PC language. Some of those people treat everyone with respect. Meanwhile, there are people who never use any racist, sexist, transphobic, homophobic, ablist, etc. language who are giant bigots in how they actually treat people. Language is a big indicator of someone's attitudes, but it's not the end of the story at all.

This goes back to the difference between being politically correct (which is done for appearances) and choosing one's language out of respect for others.

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as a retarded man, I please ask you to stop putting me down.

however, yeah, I'm not sure if having retarded people in your family necessarily makes you the authority to those who have them as well. It's like saying my brother is g@y, and f ag is fine with me. Nah dawg, try again.

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Of all the reasons to care about free speech (of which there are many), being upset that there’s a growing culture of people who are generally not okay with the word “retarded” seems like one of the more questionable ones. 

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If you use "me" or "I" when explaining why this is ok with you, you are looking at this completely wrong. "It doesn't offend me.", "It doesn't bother me." "I think it's dumb" ,etc. It's not about you. It's about less fortunate humans/families who weren't born as lucky as you. And if you can simply not say a word and potentially save them unnecessary stress, you should. This is basic human decency.

And if you are so fine with it, I challenge you to go volunteer with disabled kids for a day. See if it seems so silly/harmless after seeing what them (and their families) have to deal with every single day, and imagine having to hear punk kids throwing around the word as slang to mean "dumb/lame/stupid". If you have any heart, you'll find you would do anything to make them smile, and avoid anything that could make them frown.

As Frank Turner says: "Be more kind my friends. Try to be more kind."

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7 minutes ago, Ry-Bread said:

If you use "me" or "I" when explaining why this is ok with you, you are looking at this completely wrong. "It doesn't offend me.", "It doesn't bother me." "I think it's dumb" ,etc. It's not about you. It's about less fortunate humans/families who weren't born as lucky as you. And if you can simply not say a word and potentially save them unnecessary stress, you should. This is basic human decency.

Blahblah. People these days are CONDITIONED into feeling insulted over trivial issues, which is not cool. If you start avoiding the use of certain words you're a part of the problem.

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1 hour ago, Nosferatu said:

 

Out of curiosity though, how do you feel about blink when they come up with songs like Built This Pool, I'm G4y or their sense of humour on their live shows from 92-05?

Laura covers this well but I'll throw mine in, 

I think Built This Pool is fine, probably because as Laura put it I've grown quite forgiving of things from blink because like the friendship argument of whats appropriate and what isn't, I'm in the 'know' enough to know it's meant in jest from them. I know Mark was a big supporter of ethan marriage, and is quite the ally to the LGBT community. if he turned around with a song now laughing about ethans I'd have a very different opinion, but a 30 second clip of him saying he built a pool to attract naked dudes? absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. it's barely anti ethan at all (hell I think Oli would argue Feldmann wrote it), there'd be no issue if he'd worked naked girls into the same line. 

As for their live shows and sense of humour - blinks horrible sense of humour is what appealed to me the most. I thought maybe I'd grown out of that but my recent discovery of the band 'Ninja Sex Party' begs to differ (incredibly silly music, and I find it hysterical). I liked blinks shock value lyrics because I got into blink as a kid, things you're not allowed to say are funny - I initially liked Eminem at the same age for the same reason (I really don't like basically any of Eminem's work now, though). 

I got into blink when I didn't know I was ethan, or much of anything, so by the time I had grown up enough to properly understand some of the references I was already deeply familiar with the material, which makes it easier to be fine with. 

I can't actually think of a blink song that I actually find offensive, one or two lyrics make me cringe a little but they are a part of their time, and a lot of the more problematic ones are when they were barely in their 20s. I know the world is different now, as are they and I think they'd never in a million years write a song with those lyrics in now. Built This Pool is incredibly tame compared to their older gags. 

The other thing is I actually have quite a dark sense of humour, so a lot of blinks more messed up things still amuse me - but I think like Dan said, context is important and I think how that works with people at large is where it becomes problematic. 

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7 minutes ago, MSandt said:

Blahblah. People these days are CONDITIONED into feeling insulted over trivial issues, which is not cool.

I assume you are a healthy able-bodied human being, in which case this is a horribly selfish take. Explain to a parent whose child is in a wheelchair, or requires 24/7 constant professional care how they are "conditioned" into feeling insulted.

Frankly when someone uses the R word in today's society, it strikes me as being small-minded and not having changed your vocabulary since the 1990's which is pretty sad IMHO. 

(Btw love your Peter Laird turtle profile picture)

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2 minutes ago, Ry-Bread said:

I assume you are a healthy able-bodied human being, in which case this is a horribly selfish take. Explain to a parent whose child is in a wheelchair, or requires 24/7 constant professional care how they are "conditioned" into feeling insulted.

Frankly when someone uses the R word in today's society, it strikes me as being small-minded and not having changed your vocabulary since the 1990's which is pretty sad IMHO. 

(Btw love your Peter Laird turtle profile picture)

But why should they feel insulted if I use the word retard to describe a moron? If they do, then they are retarded (and by that I wouldn't be referring to their handicap). I can understand not referring to blacks as niggers since you wouldn't use the word in a non-racist context (aside from descriptive uses) anyway unless you're black.

Now, as I said I don't doubt that some differently abled do feel insulted by the use of the term, but that's because they've been conditioned into feeling insulted, and this kind of creeping fascism should be fought to the bitter end even if it means insulting some people in the process. There's a saying in Finland that if you offer the devil your little finger he'll rip your entire arm off.

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If he's going to change his lyrics, at least change them to something that captures the sentiment of the line. "She's so important, and I'm so unguarded" doesn't mean the same thing as retarded. at least use a line that implies stupidity.

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1 hour ago, _Kyle_ said:

as a retarded man, I please ask you to stop putting me down.

however, yeah, I'm not sure if having retarded people in your family necessarily makes you the authority to those who have them as well. It's like saying my brother is g@y, and f ag is fine with me. Nah dawg, try again.

Wasn't saying it was right for everyone dawg, just how I personally approach things.

I can't be particularly bothered to find offence in everything, like I said above it sounds exhausting but if you want too then it's fine by me, as long as you don't expect me to do the same. I take a logical approach and assess on a case by case basis. 

As Laura said, the language and phrases I use don't determine the person I am, I kind of see most things as fair game when joking around (especially amongst close friends) but that doesn't mean they define my beliefs in real life. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact I have a pretty sick sense of humour while generally being a pretty liberal person, I don't think the two have to be mutually exclusive but seems quite a lot of people do. 

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