The latest SJW language policing gone amok

[transemacabre]

More terrible than the bed bugs crawling up your legs! Hell, more terrible than the herpes crawling down Paris Hilton's legs! It's Social Justice Warrior language-policing time again, in which a bunch of goons who barely passed Sociology 101 clutch their pearls and tell us all how badly we human.

When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back.

For those who haven't got a spare brain cell to sacrifice to this nonsense, here's a quick rundown: Author writes a fic. Author writes Character A calling Character B a silly word that's meant to be a playful nickname. Readers call out Author for using this word. Author is shocked. Author apologizes. Author edits fic. SJWs scream at Author. Author grovels. This is reported to Fanficrants. FFR posters clutch their pearls.

And by the way--
THE FUCKING SLUR WAS "POTATO". OH MY FUCKING GOD NOT KIDDING.

You read that write, ladies, gents, and gentlequeers. The "slur" word? Potato. I guess it's triggery because of, um, all those times people have been falsely accused of being starchy tubers? I dunno.

One soul on FFR said, quote:

Agreed. The OP seems to believe that the author needs a white knight to defend them from an "angry SJW", when in fact the anon was likely expressing how much slurs can hurt in general, and the OP was choosing to focus on how that one anon was somehow "disproportionately offended" over a slur that is in fact hurtful to far more than just one person. Slurs, whether said in ignorance of the fact a word is a slur or not, still harm people, and said people have a right to be angry when this sort of thing is not isolated cases stemming from ignorance. It's systemic, and ignorance perpetuates it.


ALL THIS ABOUT THE FUCKING WORD "POTATO".

Comments

[mike-smith.livejournal.com]

I think context is important in this situation. If the character pronounced it "po-TAY-to", then it's okay. If it was meant to be pronounced "po-TAH-to" then the author needs to be hunted down and dragged to the nearest re-education facility.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I saw that, and was just giggling to myself at the sheer nuttiness. And the levels of it! Not only the ridiculousness of the initial issue, but apparently random SJWers were coming by the post, who had NEVER SEEN the original version, and ranting!

[ani-bester.livejournal.com]

And this is why I can't take these people seriously AND why I think they need to be hit about the head with a book on bullying 101, because they are some of the worst fandom bullies about the silliest things.

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

Someone suggested that the SJW bullies have a humiliation kink they don't even know about, and at first I was like EWWWW but now I think the idea has some merit. If you're hunting down random strangers to publicly shame them for any transgression, no matter how minor, you're getting something out of it, psychologically.

[demonqueen666.livejournal.com]

In the comments on the post, there's an explanation that apparently "potato" has become a slur in recent years for people with Downs/the mentally challenged? Which...is something I had never, ever heard before, but they're making it sound like it's better well-known in certain fandoms?

Yeah. I...I don't even know.

The capslock outrage is almost certainly a little over the top, since it seems more than likely the writer sincerely didn't know, but what's making me headdesk is the fact that the OP didn't give any proper context by mentioning said slur was a common noun that many reasonable people have never heard of in that context. So there are all these commenters weighing in with moral outrage when they have no idea what the actual original "offense" was. I have a feeling many of the comments, including the one you quoted in your post, wouldn't exist if they knew they word they were talking about was "potato".

[mike-smith.livejournal.com]

There's an old macro depicting a girl's face and the caption "I CAN COUNT TO POTATO". She either had Down's syndrome or looked like she did in the photo. Today she's grown up and she's offended by the use of her likeness.

I guess maybe somewhere along the way, the macro's popularity led to imageboard users to adopt "potato" as a catch-all insult. But that's still pretty obscure. Maybe someone out there is calling people "samurai" as a personal term of disdain, but that doesn't mean the word should be stricken from human civilization on account of one guy.

[toggy.livejournal.com]

Potato 4 Life.

I'm taking it back!