Is ‘Teabagger’ An Epithet? Rachel Maddow Teaches A Tea Party History Lesson
Last night on her show, pegged to the news of rival factions of the Tea Party Movement sort of squaring off, Rachel Maddow dedicated an entire segment to tracing the etymological history of the right-wing campaign. In addition to the “often entertaining in-fighting among all of the warring tea party factions,” Maddow noted, a new question has come to the forefront: “Should the Tea Party folks really be calling themselves ‘teabaggers?’”
In an op-ed entitled “Rise of an Epithet,” the National Review Online’s Jay Nordlinger argues that the derivation and connotation of the word “teabagger” may be detrimental to the cause. After all, its sexual nature was chuckled about even on the mainstream news, and to the left it has become a go-to putdown (albeit one that was handed to those smarmy liberals on a silver platter — just like their lattes, naturally). Nordlinger writes:
In any event, it may well be too late to purge “teabagger” from our discourse, certainly from discourse controlled by liberals. But I’m for giving it a try: for running “teabagger” out of town, even at this late date. It is really a lowdown term. “Tea partier” is a neutral term. “Tea-party patriots” is a positive term, used by some of the protesters themselves. “Teabagger” — not so positive, and not so neutral.
“To ‘teabag’ or not to ‘teabag?’” Nordlinger asks, before wondering if this terms was, in fact, “kind of a conservative N-word.” Maybe! But Maddow’s not so sure. And sick of being blamed for the use of the term as a pejorative, Maddow “set the record straight” with an “adult” segment. Get the kids out of the room, she warns, before showing a clip from the John Waters cult classic Pecker.
It gets real. And includes testicles. But not David Shuster’s, who also appears to discuss the term. Check out the full clip below:
51 comments
roxsteady says: That was hysterical! I have to say as a lefty, I hadn’t seen this movie before but, as soon as she said John Waters and the title, “Pecker” I knew what might be coming. I’m glad that Rachel was able to explain the origin to us all. It’s further proof that knowledge is power. That lack of curiosity can expose ignorance, leaving one open to ridicule.
bondwooley says: No matter what they call themselves, their anger and paranoia is making the rest of us angry and paranoid!
Watch “American Outrage” – http://bit.ly/5K4TIZ
(short satire clip)
roxsteady says: Actually, I’d rather not. I’m already outraged. It started about 8 years ago but, I expect it will get better.
Cecelia says: As much as Shuster and Maddow would like us to believe that the slang meaning of “teabagging” or ‘teabagger” was as familiar and mainstream as a middle-fingered hand gesture, it just doesn’t fly.
Maybe if you live around the block from Gomorrah, that sort of lingo is part and parcel of your lexicon, but I’d wager the vast majority of the American population had to be informed of this particular meaning for this particular word, by the ever-diligent members of MSNBC (among others).
David Shuster does actually work up the energy to put aside his smug sense of amusement for a nanosecond in order to say something to dismiss utterly any point Nordlinger makes. To do that he must go back to an era when Nordlinger was literary a babe in arms, in order to make a ridiculous and illogical attempt at a rebutting parallel to Nordlinger’s overall point: that no news media would have treated any group other than conservatives in this manner.
But let’s conjecture upon that. I’ll start by saying that if we’re going to pull out our Urban Dictionary for conservatives, why didn’t we do it for CodePink (an anti-war activist woman’s group) when according to that lexicon, “pink” is decidedly more than a color…
Can you imagine Shuster’s and Maddow’s reactions to an O’Reilly segment with Bill and Glenn on the set going into spasms of sleazy double entendre over Code…”PINK”….(get it…nudge…nudge..wink…wink… ick!…)
No, this is about feeling that it’s a-okay to throw all sense of propriety out the window when it comes to Janeane Garofolo’s “teabagging rednecks”. This is about SOCIAL and POLITICAL bias in the media and at MSNBC particularly.
As Garofolo says, “make no mistake about that”.
roxsteady says: I’m not so sure this is a Liberal vs conservative issue as much as it is a lack of awareness. This slang term is used most by teenagers. Perhaps it’s more of a generational thing. As I said, I hadn’t see this John Waters movie but, I knew the term because teens were using it. I heard that even Oprah did on show on this and other things that parents didn’t know their kids were doing like sexting. Sure it’s embarrassing for Conservatives who were using the term but, I’m not sure how you blame that lack of awareness on Liberals. We’re not responsible for their ignorance. We’re just amused by it.
roxsteady says: You’ll have to forgive my typos but, sometimes I don’t spellcheck. Anyway, maybe this is a Liberal vs Conservative thing. Case in point, this article from Crook and Liars by John Amato:
“You’d think rape would be one issue Republicans would be smart enough not make into a partisan issue, but no. They couldn’t help themselves.
Franken passed an amendment that was attached to a defense bill that would withhold government contracts from companies that refused to let employees bring rape cases before the courts. It should be tough voting against rape, but thirty Republicans did just that and now they are whining the night away because bloggers and some MSMers have highlighted their atrocity. And in their usual silly reality, they are blaming Sen. Al Franken because they are getting hammered over their malfeasance.”
There seems to be a tendency to blame their mistakes on others instead of accepting responsibilty for your actions.
BenSpider says: It’s been months since I first heard this uninformed group call themselves tea baggers. I remember being shocked (and spewing coffee out my nose upon hearing) about the choice of terms to associate ones self with. Per usual blame the media, blame liberals.
Isn’t there a point where you say that’s a mistake we realize that now, lets move on call ourselves something else? Rather then to continue to focus on a mistake and blaming everyone that you are opposed to for a lack of forsight. The Modern Day Tea Party, the American Tea Party, or the United Tea Party would work. But instead this astroturf movement wants to make themselves out to be victims.
I admit it was not until I watched Rachel Maddow last night that I realized that I had first seen the reference in Pecker, I had first watched it when it just came out as a rental. I was aware of the reference from playing World of Warcraft, a game that turned 5 years old (I have wasted that many years playing it). A game that is also pretty dam main stream for being the top of its category. Conservatives also play video games, just log into the general chat of this Blizzard game and you will see what I mean by saying Obama is great, bring up the subject of health care, or any other political matter. You are sure to start a fire storm of debate.
Tater Salad says: Maddow and her left wing loons can call it whatever they want to because it is a free country….for now. If Obama has his way, his Marxist buddies will change that also and then Maddow won’t like that. In 2010 things are going to be “very different” and the left wing loons are going to be whining………….again!
roxsteady says: The lack of self awareness is a joke. For example, the lefty blogs are buzzing today with the news that Max Baucus nominated his girlfrend for a US Attorney spot. We don’t care that she withdrew her name, we think it’s a clear conflict of interest and he should never have done it. The fact that he’s also shown his duplicity on healthcare while taking more money from that industry and basically letting his former staffer go work for the industry and then come back and wirte the garbage that was the Baucus bill is not lost on us. I’m just not so sure that the right is equally critical of Republicans and Conservatives. Just look at how Megan Kelly buried the Ensign story.
roxsteady says: I’m sure that’s what many of you are hoping. I’m sure you were hoping the same for the last 2 election cycles. It’s really not going to depend so much on turnout from 20% of the population as much as whether or not we Liberals are motivated enough to come out and crush the right again. I will say that the contant trashing of this Preisdent is likely to backfire. Hopefully the jobs numbers will improve. Not so much to win elections as it’s more important that the country gets back to work. The GOP’s mantra seems to be “Vote for us because we need the majority back” Not, vote for us because we have solutions to these problems that we created. It’s not about us. It’s about them. If that’s a platform you can get behind, good luck with that!
roxsteady says: Here’s another set of numbers that won’t make Republicans and Conservatives smile. When Bill Clinton left office there were 38 million people without health insurance. By the times Bush left office last year that number increased to 46 million. These and the job growth numbers should be an eye opener but, probably won’t. For many, the truth has a Liberal Bias.
Nachi says: It is not at all unusual for the vicious, the weak, the endangered – to chew each other up.
For people who like to assert their strength and power so much, the wingnuts certainly like to play the victim card a lot.
And I’ll stop calling them “teabaggers” when they stop referring to “the Democrat party.” Or when their talking points start bearing the slightest resemblance to reality.
Cecelia says: roxsteady write:
“Sure it’s embarrassing for Conservatives who were using the term but, I’m not sure how you blame that lack of awareness on Liberals. We’re not responsible for their ignorance. We’re just amused by it.”
Who’s blaming liberals for anyone’s “lack of awareness” of the slang meaning for teabagging? On the contrary, in order to justify himself for indulging in such highbrow witticisms as making a pun of the name “Dick Army” on a news analysis show, David Shuster (and Maddow) have to act as thought the slang is as widely known and used as the term “cool” and then BLAME conservatives for being so unhip as to not know.
That mentality might hold up for TEENAGERS tittering and guffawing in front of their tv sets, but it surely doesn’t justify reporters and news show hosts doing the most puerile sort of double entendre because…because…it’s about a bunch of conservative Obama critics, anyway, and goodness knows they wanted to demean and marginalize them.
That’s it’s their fault for not knowing what you now dishonestly characterize as common vernacular is the most brainless of crap excuses, Mr. Shuster and Ms. Maddow.
You did it because you work for a news organization where you can and in an elite cultural environment where it was tolerated and encouraged in a way that would NEVER be the case for any other group of people.
Pat Doherty says: Can someone explain why “Democrat Party” is offensive? Is it a euphemism treadmill thing?
Cecelia says: Democrats find the label offensive because it implies that the person using the expression finds the democrats anything but ‘democratic’.
They’d be correct that this is the intent of the people who say “Democrat Party”.
Pat Doherty says: Thank you.
Because, simply put, it’s not the name of the party. It’s the “Democratic Party”, and for some reason — perhaps the “rat” sound — “Democrat Party” is the favored term of art by the right wing, including Rush Limbaugh, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, John Boehner, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, and Frank Luntz. Even Joe McCarthy used it.
See also Wikipedia and Hendrik Hertzberg’s Comment essay in the New Yorker.
Hertzberg writes: “There’s no great mystery about the motives behind this deliberate misnaming. ‘Democrat Party’ is a slur, or intended to be—a handy way to express contempt. Aesthetic judgments are subjective, of course, but ‘Democrat Party’ is jarring verging on ugly. It fairly screams ‘rat.’ At a slightly higher level of sophistication, it’s an attempt to deny the enemy the positive connotations of its chosen appellation.”
Cecelia says: However, using that as excuse to use sexually charged put-downs against one group of people by arguing that some of them may use the expression “Democrat Party”, is about as genuine and intelligent a justification as Madow and Shuster could conjure up.
Which is to say that it’s disingenuous crap. You’d put them down in this manner regardless. Don’t gag everyone with coy little excuses for it.
Cecelia says: Some Democrats have their own jargon for Republicans– Repuglicans, RepubliKKKans.
I suppose silliness like this on both sides keeps the user from having to come up with an articulate argument.
well, speaking for myself, I don’t refer to Republicans as “Repuglicans” or “RepubliKKKans”, because that’s just silly. Nor do I use ha-ha-aren’t-we-so-clever name changes like “Obumbles” or “Bushit.” I’m capable of criticizing someone using the name they’ve chosen and focusing my attention on their statements or policies.
However, “teabaggers” is what the movement first used to describe itself and its nascent protest of sending teabags to Congress and the White House. (Nordlinger’s article describes this, by the way.) They only decided later, after they realized the other connotations in play, that it was a slur.
I thought it was pretty funny when Maddow et al. started making fun of the movement’s chosen name. I think they should give it a rest, though; it’s been a while.
Cecelia says: Vidiot: “And I’ll stop calling them “teabaggers” when they stop referring to “the Democrat party.” ‘
Is there two people posting under this name or something?…
m says: >This slang term is used most by teenagers.
A person who wasn’t aware of what teabagging meant before this whole political movement started, then they were obviously born in the wrong decade.
Anyone who’s played Halo knows what teabagging is.
BenSpider says: Cecelia, just out of curiosity when you make a mistake do you blame those that you hate, or do you own up to it?
This became an issue because of people in conservative circles that lost touch with modern America (not all conservatives, just those in the far right). The same group that wants things to be like our founding fathers set it up (some of which had slaves). Never mind in over 200 years we have made social advancements as a country. Also this is the same group that wants the government to stay out of their lives, yet want a constitutional band on gay rights.
huh?
“Teabaggers” isn’t a twisting or a perversion of a given name. It’s the name the movement originally chose for itself.
And it may well be petty if I continue to call them that after they’ve decided they don’t like what they named themselves anymore — but so be it. I don’t have a show on MSNBC (or anywhere else), and what passes for argument from the tea-party camp is so off-the-wall, unfocused, and just plain loony that I don’t mind being petty toward them.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
(Actually, I think the teabaggers would HATE Walt Whitman. He was literate, a newspaper editor, an Easterner, and he wasn’t straight. Everything they love to condemn!)
Ted says: Hold on Vidiot, teabaggers are not going to have any idea who Walt Whitman is, you see, the teabagger idea of a literary masterpiece is Glenn Becks Common Sense. My point is you need to dumb ass it down a little.
Cecelia says: BenSpider says:
December 5, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Cecelia, just out of curiosity when you make a mistake do you blame those that you hate, or do you own up to it?
————————————————————————————————————————————-
Ben if you have bothered to read the piece above, you’d see that National Review’s Jay Nordlinger’s does “own up to It” and says tea party protesters should stop using it.
My point is that the fact that such slang exists in no way excuses Rachel Maddow or David Shusters from turning their shows into demeaning vulgar double entendre fests as Rachel Maddow suggested in her segment (again…the subject of this discussion) that it did.
I gave the illustration of Code Pink, a woman’s protest group, as an example that had anyone on FNC used the urban slang for pink in order to demean these women, Shuster and Maddow would have been outraged. They would not have been mollified by any argument suggesting that these tv hosts were only pointing out that these anti-war hicks had been stupid enough to chose a name for female genitalia, and therefore fair game.
Frankly there’s not a soul at MSNBC who would have bought for one second the argument that the use of the term “pink” by women gave carte blanch for journalists and news analysts (supposedly responsible people) to turn their shows into Animal House.
No, Shuster and Maddow did what they did because they could. They could because of the network that they work for encouraged it and because their peers encouraged and delighted in it.
This is about social and political bias. There’s no other group that these supposedly serious journos could have treated this way and not have been roundly condemned.
BenSpider says: Cecelia, you did not answer my question.
At the same time, do you even watch Rachel Maddow and other news shows that you call vulgar? Or are you getting your opinion from the places that are saying they are vulgar. Are you one of those conservatives that hates moderate conservatives, and if they don’t take the conservative side 100% of the time you call them a liberal? Do you call independents liberals? Btw not a liberal I am a independent. One at this point I have a hard time justifying voting for republicans.
No the post did not owe up to it. It reads like a pity party, “we are the victims of our own lack of foresight dam the liberals for having fun this year over it”. Worse of all the bs about comparing the teabagers to the N word. These are the same people that want to return us to the way things ran when our founding fathers were around. Remember some of the founding fathers including our first president had slaves, and it was legal. Nothing funny about that, nor is any where near the n word in terms of an offensive slur. Does he think people who read have no knowledge of history, or is it he has no knowledge of history? This is the same man that says he loves Ronald Regan more then Nancy, which I sincerely doubt (after all look at the causes she is championing in Ronald’s name). He blames the liberals for bringing it forward, and yes making fun of them. It been almost a whole year, and now they are catching on. These are the same people that do not have the intelligence to understand the difference between a Muslim, fascist, nazis, and socialists. Who carry signs about killing people. I guess its ok to defend them regardless of what they say. But if it comes from someone that does not support a so called conservative view then they are dirty liberals.
When I make a mistake I don’t blame other people. I make amends if due, but I don’t blame people even if I do not agree with their thinking when I do something stupid or wrong. Though I don’t continue to make the same mistake over a year while people are pointing it out. This has nothing to do with social and poltical bias, as I am certain you and I would be laughing at liberals if they choose to call themselves something stupid and took a year for them to catch on.
The republican party will not move forward unless they adapt and stop blaming everyone for their mistakes. United we stand, divide we fall..
Cecelia says: BenSpider,
Let me address the sticking areas you mention that actually apply to Mr Coscarelli’s blog and to the Maddow Show segment and ignore the bevy of straw men you’ve thrown around in an attempt to support some underlying contention that Tea Party Protesters aren’t worthy of professional treatment from journalists.
If “blaming” journalists means that you expect them to behave professionally and in the way that they would with other groups, no matter what, then yeah…Ben, I am blaming them.
Am I blaming them for the fact that teabagging is a slang term. No. Am I blaming them for pouncing upon this fact, using it to demean (on national tv) Americans exercising their right to protest their govt…and generally acting like they are not journalists, but the junior high section at the Daily Kos, yes, again, I’m “blaming” them.
If it’s “blaming” David Shuster to suggest that it was in the worst of professional practice and the worst of taste to launch in double entendre and puns about “Dick Army”, “having a ball”, “going nuts”, etc …etc… Yeah, I’ m blaming them.
What brought this up was the segment where Maddow and Shuster attempt to justify this behavior by suggesting that the tea party protesters where fair game for this because they chose the name.
Not only is this craptastic justification for their own unprofessional behavior illogical and disingenuous, it’s also so paper thin that it’s obvious this pair would NEVER attempt such a relativistic argument on ANY OTHER GROUP.
It’s not every day that one sees a full week of television hosts engaging in snickering puerile puns and double entendre that makes a comedy appearance by Andrew Dice Clay seem cerebral in comparison.
And because of that it’s fairly easy to surmise that MSNBC hosts did it because they were given the green light to do so by the network.
More than that, it’s not every day that you see virtual silence in the industry over the sort of behavior. I doubt Ann Coulter could have called anti-war protesters or pro-immigration protesters scrotum-sucking parasites to the delight of the tv host, without said host having to hear some cries of outrage from industry watchdogs.
The social and political dynamics of this fodder for the annals of journalism go far beyond any definition found in the Urban Dictionary and beyond how ever many ‘mean placard’ or ‘ignorant bumpkin’ straw men you prop up for professional people who ought to be held to some standard of accountability.
Cecelia says: Let me address the thing about Nordlinger comparing teabagging the N word.
Nordligner opines upon whether tea party protesters should jettison the term or stick with it and ride out its connotation in the same way that has been done with other terms that started out as appellations (Nordlinger mentions many such them)
In the midst of this, Nordlinger then wonders if teabagger isn’t like the n-word in that tea party protesters don’t mind being called that by each other, but not by someone who is not one of them (in the way African-Americans use the n-word towards each other).
Now, I don’t know how you can call such discourses into the nature of terms and social dynamics (as they relate to how tea party protesters should handle the connotation of teabagger) as being on par with “whining”.
I don’t know how one can suggest that Nordlinger’s little sideline on the n-word was a suggestion that both it and teabagger are terms that are equally derisive.
I just assume that some people see the National Review banner at the head of the page and lose all sense of tone and context.
I’ve been known to occasionally say “teabagger”, but that’s because it rolls better off the tongue.
Cecelia says: Magister, you make a good point.
I’m of the camp( that Nordlinger mentions) that feels that teabaggers should continue using that word until the slang meaning of it and the double entendre (like yours) become little more than a Henny Youngman joke- Dead-on-Arrival.
BenSpider says: Cecelia,
So that means you are a tea bagger?
That’s the tea bagger problem more then 50% of the country does not agree with conservatives, a fraction of conservatives are tea baggers. Hoping that the slang dies just because you don’t like the innuendo humor (which is prudish) is like sticking a fork in an electric socket hoping the shock will not happen eventually. Unless you forget to pay the power bill, its not going to happen, unless your dumb enough to focus on trying. In which case it would probable be labeled an act of god I am sure. Almost every online video game out there has someone talking about teabagging, this term was highly prevalent before the tea baggers took it on this year. Going after news commentators is not going to stop the use. I suggest playing halo or any game that has pvp (player versus player) to see what I mean. The chances of it becoming Dead-On-Arrival are as likely as peeing your pants not being embarrassing. After all the n-word is still around and many Americans (both liberal, conservative,or independent be they black or white) would love to never hear it again.
Now while your group will not be able to get rid of innuendo of teabagging, it does not mean it can not take on another meaning such as uninformed astroturf movement. Even with a second meaning those of us that are not teabaggers will have the original meaning stuck in our heads as we snicker in our heads or laugh out loud upon hearing someone calling themselves a proud tea bagger.
Cecelia says: BenSpider,
Your facility for throwing up straw men and red herrings is surpassed only by your talent for non sequiturs.
That people may continue knowing the meaning of the slang teabaggers (duh, sherlock…) in no way contradicts the argument that relentless commenting upon it, chortling over it, and using double entendre at the sound of it, will soon get as old, tiresome, and superfluous as the old comic standby “take my wife…please…”
You own argument should inform you that relentless snickering at anything in wide use does have its shelf life (no where is that more evident than in video games)… as more and more people of your company get over the joke, roll their eyes, and say “yeah, we get it, dude…whatevah….”
Next non sequitur: It does not follow… that my venturing the opinion that the teabaggers should continue using the word until jokes about its slang application grow as silly as snickers over expressions of “ho…ho…ho” at Christmas time….therefore makes me a teabagger protester. It merely makes me someone with a particular opinion on Mr. Coscarelli’s blog at Mediaite.
As for more than 50% of people not agreeing with conservatives (About what precisely? Bailouts? Lower taxes? Abortion? A public health care option? Escalation of troops in Afghanistan? Gay marriage?), that’s a red herring that has nothing to do with the subject at hand. ( I’d venture that you’re probably getting the terms “conservative” and “Republican”, as regards public opinion, interchanged too.)
But even if we take as gospel, a percentage that you very likely pulled out of the air, you have no way to conclude that 10%, 20%, 30%, or 49.9% of these people, even if aware of the slang meaning, would bother to snicker. You have no way of knowing what percentage would bother to do anything other than perhaps think for a split second “These folks sure picked a loaded name”, and then move on in considering the information that had brought the group to their attention in the first place.
Cecelia says: By the way, your example of the n-word as a pejorative that won’t go away, is a good one.
The fact is that because of its frequent and accepted use via exposure to the broader pubic from the hip-hop culture, many people actually DO worry that the n-word WILL lose its pejorative status and come “just another word”.
African-American leaders routinely appeal to young people to take care NOT to mainstream the term, preferring that it stay an incendiary expression as an illustration of historic racism.
Contrary to your argument, suppressing words or making them taboo only tends to give keep alive their meaning and their power to offend.
It’s the MAINSTREAMING of taboo words that erodes their significance and their edge.
Hence Nordlinger’s argument.
ingenieux says: Tea-bagger is legally defined in 2001: http://www.legalreader.com/archives/003197.html
BenSpider says: Cecelia,
Your argument does not make a bit of sense. You’re saying its ok to use a term with sexual tones is going to change it to your own meaning. When your own argument gives reason to believe people are going to continue to point and laugh at you.
Bottomline:
teabagging = male sex organ to the head
versus
teabagging = a poor misconception of the Boston tea party
Which do you think has the lasting power, and don’t underestimate the power of human nature to lean towards the funny. Also it was already main stream as ingenieux has shown before your little group had hold of it, hence the video game references, it was already rather rampant. It just was not in the main stream news, but it was defiantly there. Hence the humor. The f word is also mainstream, care to adopt that to your party as well?
As for the n word, why not compare yourselves to faggot and offensive term for gay people. Tea bagger does not compare to either word. Gay people and those of African decent did not choose the term. Perhaps some in the groups have adopted it, but that does not mean of the bulk of either approve, though I am sure that’s what you are told.
Cecelia says: I think you should speak for yourself, Ben, rather than assuming that as long as there are teabagger protests that everyone will be tittering over the name.
There were teabags before there was a slang term called teabagging.
Human nature may always reach toward humor, but the power of humor lies its freshness of perspective.
I suppose there are some people in the world who guffaw when someone says “nut” or “screw”, but I feel sure that they aren’t the majority of the populace.
As to the n-word, I’ve already talked about Nordlinger’s statement about it. Though he says being called the slang definition of the word teabagger is meant to be offensive, he was not claiming that teabagger is as incendiary an epithet as the n-word, nor as persecuting. Rather he was making an observation about the dynamics terms can take on AMONG MEMBERS OF THE SAME GROUP.
And no, there’s been no memo issued from Rush Limbaugh, telling teabaggers, republicans, conservatives (name your poison…) that gays or African-Americans enjoy being called racial or sexual slurs. I let you know if one is sent out…
BTW– I have it on good authority that gays and straights in Britain take no offense at being offered a fag. Neither does it send them into fits of boyish laughter…
BenSpider says: Cecelia,
“BTW– I have it on good authority that gays and straights in Britain take no offense at being offered a fag. Neither does it send them into fits of boyish laughter…”
Yes and try and sell a car called a nova in Spain, they will not buy a car with a name that translates into no go. Point of the matter is what teabagging means here not in another country.
My finale thought: My suggestion is to change the name. You will have more success in a name change then sticking with a term that is the equivalent of “a kick me” sign on your back. Don’t just continue to wear it because you think people will join you in wearing “kick me” signs as a fashion accessory. The term was already in the mainstream of online gaming (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teabagging). Trying to change the meaning is not going to turn it into powerful term that will make people respect your cause. Especially when that reference is of a sexual nature, you might as well try and stand in front of a train to stop it. Also the examples of supposed insults that Nordlinger gives were not made before those given the actual term existed. I also doubt that Nordlinger has any scope of how big the online gaming community is, had he I am sure he would consider a name change.
I imagine those calling themselves teabaggers will stick with it given whatever divine reason. Because there are two things that the far right conservatives fear most is change and sex. Apparently your group fears change more then sex.
Cecelia says: Let’s see what you’ve offered up now:
another red herring: the immensity of the “online gaming community”.
Another non sequitur: that an argument that teabagging jokes will fade into boredom is tantamount to “trying to change the meaning of the slang” and to trying to “turn it into a powerful term that will make people respect your cause”.
Another pronouncement that’s nothing more than inflammatory rhetoric as substitute for actually thinking: “…two things that the far right conservatives fear mos is change and sex.”
And I suppose for the sake of variety you’ve now added a myth.
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
BenSpider says: thats ok, the “kick me” sign looks nice on you :-)
Cecelia says: That means you’re already inured to the sign (slang) and are looking past it.
Checkmate.
BenSpider says: uhhhhh ……….. sure lets go with that >.>
adam says: It was well known well before this group started using it. Whether people like it or not, that’s simply a fact. I think the same folks who disagree are also in the dark about the size of the groups who agree. And the size of one of the agreeing groups is the online gaming community. vast. vaaaaaaaast. The single game mentioned in the comments here has nearly 12 million players, and it wasn’t coined in that game, it was previously prevalent to it in F.P.S type gaming.
Cecelia says: The vast….immense….huge….really big, man….online gaming community, has nothing to do with the fact that jokes get old and rarely outlive their youth.
adam says: well then look forward to THAT day! cheers!
Cecelia says: Adam,
As I said, my argument isn’t about how widely the term is known, but about how soon it goes from funny to dumb, to joke about the protesters in this manner.
However, after googling “teabagging, video game” and learning that in video games it’s defined as the action where a winner crouches over a defeated foe in order to rub his crotch over the face of the corpse, I readily admit that anyone capable of that mentality, even in fantasy, probably WILL always snicker at the term teabagging.
I don’t think anyone else IN THE WORLD should be concerned about people like this, other than feeling relief that there is some fantasy outlet for their aggressive impulses.
Otherwise, they’d be acting them out by drowning puppies in bleach…
BenSpider says: World of Warcraft is 5 years old, in 5 years in this game the joke has not gotten old yet. If anything after the teabagger movement its gotten worse :-( . That’s just Warcraft, that’s not including halo ( I have a friend that loves the game just because he can tea bag in it o.O), dungeons and dragons, age of Conan, star wars, age of Camelot and a list that goes on and on and on. Mmorpgs are a huge market. Any of which have more members then the teabaggers even if you compare with those that pvp (just to restate that means player versus player)
Think of this from a business point of view, which is how I am seeing it. Your point is to bring in more to your cause. Unless we change political systems you arenot going to effect change with a small group, which is smaller then the gay rights movement. Your group is currently spending time trying to justify and claim ownership of a term that has people laughing at you or think your nuts just because of the term you adopted (humor is not the only reason to drop the term). You could spend less time taking on a new term (with research) then trying to restructure the term to your use. Its been a year, how many more do you think your cause should waste their time trying to restructure an established term. The use of the term should not be more important then the you have formed. People have been laughing at fart jokes for atleast 2 decades, crude humor (dare I say vulgar) that has no end in sight.
adam says: OK, whether this becomes dumb next week or next year, complaining about the immaturity of it all wont change a thing. ESPECIALLY for the people who are obviously apt to be drowning puppies in bleach, am I right? But your argument isn’t whether people should be concerned about these people or not, its when the joke will become DOA. Again I say: look forward to that day.
ingenieux says: again, “teabagging” was legally defined in 2001: http://www.legalreader.com/archives/003197.html
So, a video game that has so many players, computer companies began producing laptops just for them (“gamming”); the judicial system of the USA; fraternities and High Schools across the country (which includes not only students, but faculty, staff and parents as well); the movie “Pecker” whose director comes wiith a cult following….
It seems that the *only* people who were not aware of, or without social skills required to be aware of, were the teabaggers themselves.
BenSpider says: Pretty much, and the funny thing is its now their red badge of courage.
Though if they can get the term changed to one of respect; perhaps my friends will stop making fun of me for buying Vanilla Ice’s cassette tapes (but he keeps coming back on reality TV to haunt my life).
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CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin: Supreme Court Will Not Overrule ‘Deem and Pass’
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There are two very distinct things to note about the way CNN has introduced the upcoming 7pmET show John King, USA to its audience - the show itself and the way it happened. John King hosted a trial run of the program today on CNN.com/live, which gave a sneak peek at what the show will be, but also gave viewers a chance to give their take on the first look.
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