It's more the about the principle than the product, College Humor is up there with Funny or Die as top sites to be avoided
― 龜, Thursday, 17 July 2014 22:56 (nine years ago) link
I do agree that it's cool he's figuring out how to leverage his brand though
― 龜, Thursday, 17 July 2014 22:57 (nine years ago) link
College Humor is up there with Funny or Die as top sites to be avoided
Both sites are guilty of hosting bad content, but also some great content. Not sure it makes them any different from anything else, really.
― Johnny Fever, Thursday, 17 July 2014 22:58 (nine years ago) link
like ubuweb, for instance
― mattresslessness, Thursday, 17 July 2014 22:59 (nine years ago) link
Johnny Fever owns a College Humor t-shirt, mug
― 龜, Thursday, 17 July 2014 23:00 (nine years ago) link
man dayo is gonna lost his shit when the next vid debuts on engrish.com tomorrow
― balls, Thursday, 17 July 2014 23:02 (nine years ago) link
Shut up barrs
― 龜, Thursday, 17 July 2014 23:03 (nine years ago) link
Hahahahaha
― Star Gentle Uterus (DJP), Thursday, 17 July 2014 23:33 (nine years ago) link
That Wikipedia article is pretty appalling. "Gay has come to be a playground synonym for weak, stupid, soft, embarrassing or otherwise undesirable. Therefore it is in no way offensive to use it as an insult, or say a rugby player is playing 'like a giant poofter' on broadcast television."
― boney tassel (sic), Thursday, July 17, 2014 6:35 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
if only there were some way to change what a wikipedia article said
― everybody loves lana del raymond (s.clover), Friday, 18 July 2014 00:07 (nine years ago) link
also that paris hilton video is pretty amazing, shame about the song
― everybody loves lana del raymond (s.clover), Friday, 18 July 2014 00:08 (nine years ago) link
nobody in the U.S. is offended by the word spaz, just accept it.
1. Al doesn't use the word 'spaz' in the song2. It's the fact of using a neurological condition as a pejorative, not the specific word that's the issue3. "get over it" is not historically a useful response to using descriptors as slurs
― boney tassel (sic), Friday, 18 July 2014 01:21 (nine years ago) link
Don't think this was Shakey's point in citing it as backup for "lol stfu spastics".
― boney tassel (sic), Friday, 18 July 2014 01:23 (nine years ago) link
I'm pretty offended by Al's use of the word "Weird." Is it meant as a perjorative? Isn't he reifying received norms with its usage? Perhaps "Decentered/Problematized Al" would serve as a more useful nomiker.
― relentlessly pecking at peace (President Keyes), Friday, 18 July 2014 01:32 (nine years ago) link
"what is normal anyway al"
― everybody loves lana del raymond (s.clover), Friday, 18 July 2014 01:35 (nine years ago) link
Spastic is simply not an offensive term in the u.s., it does not refer to a specific group of people or medical condition. I'm sorry this is difficult to understand.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 18 July 2014 01:55 (nine years ago) link
Spastic is not a medical term, it is not used to refer to a neurological condition.
― Οὖτις, Friday, 18 July 2014 01:58 (nine years ago) link
IN AMERICA. Where Weird Al is from.
I will not be lectured on the offensiveness of the word spastic by a nation of people who throw cunt and fag around indiscriminately.
― Johnny Fever, Friday, 18 July 2014 01:58 (nine years ago) link
Robbie Williams to thread
― chikungunya manatee (Sufjan Grafton), Friday, 18 July 2014 01:59 (nine years ago) link
obsessed with the dolly zoom in the "foil" video
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 18 July 2014 02:07 (nine years ago) link
tbf if a british family entertainer used 'cunt' or 'fag' in their act it would be perhaps a little controversial
― Merdeyeux, Friday, 18 July 2014 02:07 (nine years ago) link
also his lil spokesmodel gesture towards the mushroom clouds xp
― difficult listening hour, Friday, 18 July 2014 02:08 (nine years ago) link
Right, I get that. It was just exaggerated hardmanning.
― Johnny Fever, Friday, 18 July 2014 02:23 (nine years ago) link
What do you call people with CP?
What nation?
― boney tassel (sic), Friday, 18 July 2014 02:27 (nine years ago) link
lol what do you call ppl w/ cp?
― balls, Friday, 18 July 2014 02:30 (nine years ago) link
We call them people with cerebral palsy ime
― Οὖτις, Friday, 18 July 2014 02:33 (nine years ago) link
cunts and phags
― boney tassel (sic), Friday, 18 July 2014 02:55 (nine years ago) link
rolling teen pop thread?
― dilligaf escape plan (Whiney G. Weingarten), Friday, 18 July 2014 03:06 (nine years ago) link
huge lol
― balls, Friday, 18 July 2014 04:02 (nine years ago) link
huge fp
― it's not a fedora, it's a trill bae (m bison), Friday, 18 July 2014 04:06 (nine years ago) link
"Spastic" is indeed a medical term, referring to a particular type of velocity- and direction-dependent increased tone in the skeletal muscles (seen mostly in the limbs), which is typically produced by a lesion in the corticospinal tract. Many neurological diseases cause some degree of spasticity, from spinal cord injuries to MS to stroke. People with cerebral palsy often have spasticity, but not always. "Spastic cerebral palsy" (often specified as "spastic hemiplegia", "spastic diplegia", etc) distinguishes that type from "ataxic" and "athetoid" CP, in which spasticity is not a feature.
There is no class of patients referred to simply as "spastic" by doctors in North America (and I don't think in the UK either). The word sometimes is used as an adjective to describe a pattern of gait or a form of dysarthria.
/neurologist
I knew the first time I heard Word Crimes that Language Log would have a post up within hours pointing out that the less vs fewer distinction and other "prescriptivist peeves" are not actually poor grammar. It took another couple of listens before it occurred to me that BrE speakers would find "spastic" offensive. Never thought "mouthbreathers" was offensive, how does that work again?
Great song anyway, way easier to take than the original.
― Plasmon, Friday, 18 July 2014 04:15 (nine years ago) link
"wretched fuckwit"
― guwop (crüt), Friday, 18 July 2014 04:22 (nine years ago) link
Not only is spastic completely inoffensive in America, the word "moron" in the song, which nobody has singled out, is inarguably more offensive in America. Nobody actually cares about either as anything more than making an inconsequential point, though, so it's not a big deal.
― kaygee, Friday, 18 July 2014 04:34 (nine years ago) link
Is the word "retarded" considered offensive in the USA?
― uxorious gazumping (monotony), Friday, 18 July 2014 04:36 (nine years ago) link
Yes, a lot of disability rights groups have rebranded away from the term. The American Association on Mental Retardation (AAMR) became the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD). IDD is generally considered the more appropriate term right now.
― kaygee, Friday, 18 July 2014 04:38 (nine years ago) link
Nobody actually cares about either as anything more than making an inconsequential point, though, so it's not a big deal
I was genuinely shocked by it ("Aw, not Al...." :( ), as per my posts to LL (and hl in the other thread) before it blew up itt
― boney tassel (sic), Friday, 18 July 2014 04:40 (nine years ago) link
I'm pretty surprised someone would use the word "spastic" as a pejorative in 2014 too but then again I'm not familiar with Weird Al nor do I care about him. Also never been to the USA.
― uxorious gazumping (monotony), Friday, 18 July 2014 04:42 (nine years ago) link
xp Fair enough, but as someone with several family members with pretty severe disabilities, I find that people love occasionally pointing out a spot of inappropriate language, but are perfectly content to ignore the issues otherwise. My school of thought is that as long as there's a world where a show like Derek exists, I have a really hard time caring about such a minor issue.
― kaygee, Friday, 18 July 2014 04:46 (nine years ago) link
spaz if you want to
― nova, Friday, 18 July 2014 05:29 (nine years ago) link
Weird Al seems a bit eugenicist, too, with his desire to get grammar offenders out of the gene pool — perhaps less compassionate than The Onion's old nation's educators alarmed by poorly written suicide notes. The heroic persistence of Yankovic marches alongside the progressive normalization of geek culture, which may find itself enraged that the tools it created have made the voices of those it hates all the more publicly visible/audible ("we gave them Spell Check, yet look what they do!"). Weird Al generally seems innocuous enough to me, but this song seems to feed off some genuine resentment (even if it's not quite Al's own so much as something that "just works" for the song — not that I know one way or the other). What happened to daring to be stupid? One could care less about these things!
― eatandoph (Neue Jesse Schule), Friday, 18 July 2014 06:44 (nine years ago) link
Yes Weird Al Yankovic is deliberately advocating for Eugenics, great call and excellent interpretation
― kaygee, Friday, 18 July 2014 07:00 (nine years ago) link
This is ilm. We can ruin anything.
― Johnny Fever, Friday, 18 July 2014 07:03 (nine years ago) link
the entire premise of the song is dickish grammar nazi shit that anyone over 20 should have grown out of
sorry i didn't realise he was some sort of national treasure or w/e but yknow, deal
― lex pretend, Friday, 18 July 2014 07:31 (nine years ago) link
Can we all just go back and watch the "Foil" video again?
Seriously. Do it now if you haven't done it already.
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 18 July 2014 07:46 (nine years ago) link
The "I" of Weird Al's songs is alway Weird Al himself. He is also a fat surgeon who was in Nirvana.
― Three Word Username, Friday, 18 July 2014 08:02 (nine years ago) link
he cannot pretend
― chikungunya manatee (Sufjan Grafton), Friday, 18 July 2014 08:03 (nine years ago) link
he must actually be it
also he was in love with ricky?
― everybody loves lana del raymond (s.clover), Friday, 18 July 2014 10:47 (nine years ago) link
yes, i'm glad you got the joke!
― guwop (crüt), Friday, 18 July 2014 12:13 (nine years ago) link
With proper disciple "humour" is not necessary
― sinister porpoise (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Friday, 18 July 2014 12:40 (nine years ago) link