Tuesday 2 October 2012

Queering Twitter

So language, I'm all down with reclaiming you, in that incredibly hip, post-modern type way, a lot of the time.  Only for words that describe me or a group I belong to - so queer say, rather than nigger - but often reclaiming and reimbuing langugage with new meanings is part of significant challenges to existing power relations in my opinion.

So when someone sent me this real time counting of the times "faggot", "so gay", "dyke" and "no homo" crop up on Twitter, I was kinda hoping that for faggot and dyke at least, some of the thousands of tweets would be affirming banter between queer people.  "Dykey" is often a compliment in my circle of queer friends at least, and I know "fag" is similarly used by queer men at times.

Nope, back to modernist reality.  These tweets are about all that's wrong with the world in terms of homophobia.  Depressing - and do something queer positive after you check it out - to remember we can and are changing this world every time we challenge homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.  Including counting how many times it appears.