Although to be honest, low and pathetic is kinda expected on Smashboards, you're always going to get that with adolescents.
Now who's being ignorant? You say it's not okay to go around offending people (which is obviously true), and that using your personal experiences with people in a certain group to form an image about the whole is not okay (example: you're friend that was ***** is okay with it....) but then immediately do the same.
Of course you don't have to use such derogotary words yourself, but you are hardly in any position to criticize others for doing so.
Why focus on this one particular word? What makes this one word so much worse than the rest? I am of the opinion that the words themselves should have no real impact, only the meaning (IN CONTEXT) behind the words should. To me and many others within the community (I assume) the phrase "man, you just got *****," is in no way more offensive than "man, you just got destroyed," (in fact the opposite may be true, simply because the word "destroyed" takes longer to say and is often more memorable) When using the word ****, we have absolutely no intention of downplaying such a very serious action. It is just using the alternate meaning of a word, as words meanings are determined by how they are used, NOT the other way around.
If you got the majority of your community to use the word "yank," in the manor you described, then I would take being called yank as an insult, because of the implied meaning. In that context it would not be a derogatory term to refer to Americans as, it would simply mean "idiot" and I would take it as such (and still be offended at being called an idiot <_<.) Words are only a part of what we use to communicate, and as long as the
message is understood then it shouldn't really matter what word is used.
Of course that's just my personal opinion, and is my reasoning for interchanging derogatory terms when insulting somebody. It is also the reason I'm not insulted when such terms are used while trying to compliment me (dude, that last combo was "****"), or used in a more playful manner (close friend saying "oh ****, did you see that? I totally destroyed your last stock!"), as I'm not really too personally offended by small bits of gloating in the first place.
CA5H said:
It's not so much the word, but the feeling people put behind it. Like they're rubbing it in your face that you may have been headshotted or whatnot.
So what you're really asking for (or rather simply bringing to others attention) is that people be nicer to each other.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you would probably be offended by any remarks designed to belittle a player, or anything that would represent gloating (understandably of course, as that is the sole purpose of the remarks). So the word "****" itself isn't really all that important, as similarly used terms (in this context) such as destroy, trash, own, ect convey the same message. Are those any better? And if so, why?
