@Notch and the 'F-bomb'

[Treblaine]

"no homo"

Didn't know that was homophobic. It's simply the gay version of "that's what she said" only with sexual innuendo of the homoerotic nature.

of course it's homophobic, it's exact meaning is "please don't think i am homosexual despite what i've just said/written".

this not only implies that homosexuality is wrong but also that certain comments/opinions could only be made by a homosexual.

Yes, but I think you are going too far saying that is homophobic.

Would it also be homophobic to say:

"I'm straight" as that also literally means: "please don't think i am homosexual"

There is a difference between "I'm embarrassed of people assuming I am something that I am not due to innuendo" and "all homosexuals should be ashamed of what they are". The latter is homophobia. Homophobia is fear of being around homosexuals, that your relatives might be homosexual or that they are somehow contagious or are some kind of threat.

And there are so many humorous ways to use No-Homo that NORMALIZE homosexuality, like say a fan of uncharted who really loves Nathan Drake as a character they write a story like:

"I'm imagining the awesome adventures we have together finding treasure, meeting hot chicks, fighting terrorists and having sex (no homo)"

The pun is in how the "having sex" is it could either be worth women they meet or with each other, the No-Homo just draws attention to that yet clarifies the stance of the author. The author could have explicitly phrased it "and each of us having sex with women we meet" but adding no-homo is makes it a joke.

But what this REALLY does is takes away the shock value of homosexuality, the thing that homophobes exploit in "its jerst wrong!". In British comedy there is loads of gay humour with characters cross dressing, same-sex innuendo and dramatic ironic romance. Most of the time the straight-guy is at the butt of the joke for being clueless and losing his cool, the characters immune are the ones who roll with it and clue in on what is going on. And as a result Britain is far more gay friendly than say America's Deep South. It's familiar, we see how common it is and so we realise that it is no problem at all (or the only problem comes from persecution).

I've heard the kind of jokes about gays in the deep south, they are universally cruel and the gay man is the butt of the joke for being gay.

"no-Homo" jokes are inherently at the expense of hetero-characters playing around with their role, and a lot more nuanced in how compact they are it plays out two scenarios of going with and going against the gay scenario.

One thing this dodges is the Smithers' Denial, the most famous fictional gay character is infamously in the closet he ALWAYS denies being gay as of course he would as he's in the closet though totally unconvincingly. So simply saying "I'm not gay" just makes people think "well, that's what a closeted gay person WOULD say". And that's the Smithers routine.

Now realise if they were REALLY homophobic, they would never allow any question of their sexuality, because that is what the "No-homo" line is, "ha ha, sound like I'm gay, oh but I'm just playing". This shows a willing to allow others to think of their actions in the gay way without them getting the wrong idea they are closeted and hinting of coming out.

Though it can be used in a homophobic way, if it is NOT as a joke but in a wildly over-defensive way for any kind of same-sex interaction. But I rarely see that and it no where near prevalent enough to declare all use of "no-homo" as cruel.

 

[SirDenim]

Pre-response. I didn;t read thee other responses.

Response. In all honesty I can't imagine parents taking their kids to mandalay bay in VEGAS without the parents expecting some bit of corrupting to be done. I mean honestly, you can't take three solid steps without tripping over pictures or call-cards of naked women folk.

TL;DR It's the parents' faults.

 

[Atsumi_Warrior]

I played minecraft before i found the yogscast.
Yogscast kept me playing. yes IT WAS FUN! but the yogscast showed me Mod's and amazing things you can do in the game. Most kids have seen Yogscast WHO PLAY! minecraft. they always swear who the fuck cares. notch STFU AND GTFO.
Talking about having sex with someones mum in one video and masturbation? and you are complaing about them saying Fuck three or four times?

Besides. who the fuck takes there kid to Las Vagas JUST FOR MINECON? they did not have to stick around for the yogscast if they GO TO IT! they must know who they are anyway.
Right?
My guess is just some fucking american ***** trying to make some money off Notch.

 

[Smeggs]

It was a single word. No reason for Notch to get a bug up his ass about it. I understand maybe he thought it was a bit embarrassing personally, but really, did he ever ask the guys to watch their language beforehand? Common sense isn't always so common, and a lot of the humor on Yogscast comes from the cursing, dirty jokes and innuendos. They were playing for the crowd.

 

[teqrevisited]

Some quite inflamatory comments going up on the twitter page. I don't know what to believe.

I'd like to think that it might be their humour being misinterpreted, I know it's happened when I've been involved with people from other countries, but if what Persson is saying is true then consider me saddened (On egos, payments and the like. Fuck the swearing.)

I don't really think Vegas would be the kind of place for kids, though.

 

[Therumancer]

So today there's been something of an explosion over on Twitter with the revelation that someone at the Minecon event in Las Vegas 'dropped the F-bomb' in front of some kids, much to the dismay of Minecraft creator/demi-god, Markus Alexej Persson, aka Notch. Apparently, the culprits were in fact the Yogscast with their opening skit being the offending article(can't confirm this). This is an interesting case as in the past I've questioned the sensibilities of the Youtube gaming community, in terms of censorship, and thought I'd ask The Escapist community how they feel.

By sensibilities I'm referring to the casual sexism, disablism, homophobia, crude language etc. Personally, I have no problems with cursing. I would say that I swear fairy often and I find it strange that people would be offended. Fuck is a great word for enunciating views both critically and for comedic effect. The issue of swearing in front of children is a bit of tough one. My nine year old brother loves the Yogscast, he watches it for their gameplay and humour, most of which clearly goes over his head. They regularly make suggestive references (case point: masturbation with Notch) which he clearly does not understand. All of his friends also watch the Yogscast which means they are privy to language and information I wasn't until much later on life. He does, however, understand that to repeat this language is wrong. Is Notch overreacting?

As for the sexism, disablism and homophobia, that nonsense makes me cringe. Even revered Youtubers such as Seananners(who I love by the way) make silly throwaway comments about 'acting gay' or 'no homo '. The same thing goes for the overuse of the word 'retarded' as an insult. Chat about 'banging chicks' is fairly normal too. So many kids watch these videos and assume these attitudes are acceptable. I'm sure the people in the community who are female, disabled or gay don't enjoy it. Female presenters, such as Tara Long on Destructoid, are open to regular abuse from viewers/trolls, purely because they are female. The irrelevant comments they receive quite often project pure hatred.

We need to remember that playground politics do after all originate in the playground.

So, what do you think? Are these problems that need to be addressed? Do you think they are acceptable? Are they even there?

Free Speech does NOT mean simply the freedom for someone to say what you agree with. Not does it protect people from all forms of negativity. There is no reason why you have to like or support gay people, the disabled, or any other group and can't make your opinion clearly known. In fact the insinuation that people shouldn't be able to do this is one of the biggest problems we have in society right now, and also one of the things that is keeping the
political divide in the country nearly 50-50 especially on a lot of big issues.

You don't need to agree with someone on everything, maybe you like gay people, and someone else doesn't. Thinking that this invalidates everything else they might say or changes the things you DO agree with them on is just plain wrong. There are plenty of people I enjoy listening to who I seriously disagree with on a number of fundemental issues.

When it comes to female presenters and personalities, I think what your saying is a non-issue. I think it comes down to the whole "durrr, protect the woman" thing which is actually based on a degree of sexism. Simply put pretty much all internet personalities get a ton of bile thrown at them, you just tend to notice it more when it's a girl. Anyone who sticks themselves out there for that long is going to get abuse, and be able to take it... and let's be honest, a lot of people might REALLY hate the ladies in question, that goes with the territory.

That said, I have mixed opinions about swearing, I've been trying to cut back a bit due to it lacking grace (so to speak). Swearing in front of children is not a good thing, but at the same time bringing children into an uncontrolled enviroment to see internet personalities and such can be considered fairly irresponsible to begin with. "Minecon" is not a controlled, family friendly event from what little I know about it, and more of a general meeting of internet people going out to meet other internet people. If your concerned about your kids running into some F-Bombs they shouldn't be in an enviroment like that. It's sort of like letting them run around any other con where you never know what they are going to run into, it could be some 400 point 60 year old blob of wrinkles (and indeterminate gender) going by in an electric wheelcheer crammed into a Chun-Li costume. at comic-con or a video game convention or whatever. That's probably more scarring than the "F word" which frankly any kid over 7 has probably heard used casually thousands of times. Besides which this is also a MINECRAFT convention, and really Minecraft is populated by people who have apparently done things like create concentration camp replicas, and ginormous sex organs the size of mountains and such. While Minecraft doesn't have to be lewd, your bringing a kid into mixed company with a population you have to expect to be fairly warped and jaded to begin with.

It's not a good thing, but not really worth mentioning, and I hope Notch doesn't overreact or try and crack down too much on further cons so people are afraid to let their hair down and act like themselves because kids MIGHT be around. I never intend to attend since I'm not a Minecraft fan, but a lot of conventions wind up going in that direction after complaints and usually wind up becoming a lot less fun as a result. It might lack grace, but I don't think an adult should be all that concerned about dropping an "F-Bomb" when they want to.

Maybe Minecon needs a kiddie room to drop the kids off in or something.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

*sigh*

All I know is that this reeks of a simaler situation that started over twitter....

Hopefully this will have a better outcome.

 

[Revolutionary]

While I don't think they should have sworn in front of kids I don't think that it's yogcasts problem. It's the responsibility of the event managers.

 

[Alleged_Alec]

Some quite inflamatory comments going up on the twitter page. I don't know what to believe.

I'd like to think that it might be their humour being misinterpreted, I know it's happened when I've been involved with people from other countries, but if what Persson is saying is true then consider me saddened (On egos, payments and the like. Fuck the swearing.)

I must say: I don't believe too much of what Notch has been saying about them. From what I've seen and heard, they're really nice guys. Some of those things could indeed be jokes, but shit like:

A kid wanted them to sign something I had signed, and they said they'd cross it out and put "fuck you" there instead.

I don't believe a bit about they'd say something like that in a serious manner.

 

[walrusaurus]

A. British People say fuck a lot. in general.

B. Its an internet culture convention in LAS VEGAS. Beyond questioning why you would bring your children there in the first place, why on earth would you be shocked that they saw/heard something you consider offensive while your there?

EDIT: just read notches twitter stream. bit of tirade. I'm withholding judgement till i hear both sides. But its not like its gonna stop me listening to the yogpod. those two are hilarious.

 

[Formica Archonis]

Woah, that's one hell of a salvo Notch fired on Twitter. If they were really acting like that, then he's got more than enough justification to cut them out of anything.

Unfortunately, this is just gonna turn into another he said/he said.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Having seen the video in question I see nothing wrong, when someone messes up with TNT saying "oh fuck" is perfectly normal, hell you wall in a 6 year old with TNT he'll say "oh fuck" because that's all there is to say. I said it when I went to the bathroom only to come back to find myself encased in TNT and my friend set it off. Perfect words for those situations, nothing else will really suffice.

 

[theultimateend]

Won't somebody please think of the children? Keep them closeted from stuff they probably already know!

There is no such thing as a shocked child.

At least judging by my own youth.

 

[Treblaine]

You using "that's gay" to describe things that are merely pathetic rather than of a same-sex screwing thing... that is homophobic.

Why has the black culture transformed the n-word into something that does not carry the old pejorative meaning but we can't take the homophobic out of "gay"?

I don't get mankind at all.

Don't get me started on the N-word. It's use is EXTREMELY complex and depends hugely on who uses it in what way. Black people have not transformed the word, it's meaning has always been the same, it still brings up the same associations of slavery, colonial abuses and lynching justice.

Anyway, I can't find the exact quote from Stephen K. Amos, but he said of the N-word that the difference between a black or white person saying it is you know if a black person saying it that is not a queue for violence and separations.

When a black person says it or even addresses him by it, that emphasises their similarity, a kind of racial brotherhood, an intensely strong if intangible one born though suffering and denigration. It brings up the memories of slavery and colonialism when all they had in the universe was each other.

But when a white person calls him a ******, that just emphasises how different they are in the crudest way, how that difference was exploited in slavery and lynch justice. It doesn't just separate him from the white guy but is perceived as a racist rallying cry to other racist to move in against him, this is VERY clear to any black person, the history is unavoidable and the precedent continues as racist continue to use the label "******" as a rallying cry for racist conspiracies, and uncouth black people continue to use the term ****** the reinforce brotherhood of historical (and continuing) adversity as distinct from other racial groups.

 

[ElPatron]

Double standards. They can have the N-word. [sarcasm]What if from now on, anyone who breaks into my property will get a warning or a shot depending on his colour [/sarcasm]. After that sentence double standards don't seem so good now, do they?





Also, by your logic the fact that I have an ambiguous sexual orientation allows me to use the word "gay". Because I am protected under your double standard.

 

[The Funslinger]

I'm just going to say this: the day western society gets over this ridiculous notion that certain words are inherently "bad" will be a good day indeed.

To be fair, I'm glad swear words have at least some taboo. Why? Because people associate them with that taboo, and so to swear can vent frustration and has been proven to psychologically beneficial. I doubt that effect would be there if they were just part of the everyday socially "acceptable" verbal repertoire.