Why Saying "Gay" to Mean "Stupid" Makes You Look...Well, Stupid.

So, we’re all pretty familiar with the term “gay”, right? The first things that pop into our head when we hear that word are, astonishingly, not its original definitions. We think of things that are stupid, like Sarah Palin when she thought that Africa was a country. We think of things that are trivial, such as the outrageous applications on Facebook (I mean really, “gangster wars”? “E-babies”? Come on). We think of situations that irritate or baffle us, like when Chris Brown showed up at a women’s college that happened to be raising money for abuse against women. But what about the actual meanings of the word “gay”? Happy, flamboyant, bright, care-free and, most predominantly, homosexual.

Let’s address the original meanings first; happy, flamboyant, bright and care-free. When, exactly, did it become stupid to be happy? I don’t know about other people, but when I see somebody walking down the street with a huge smile on their face and a bounce in their step, I don’t think, “Wow, now that guy’s an idiot”. I mean, I’m a pretty happy person, but I also consider myself to be relatively smart. I could be wrong, though; maybe I’m just too stupid to know that I’m stupid. Anyways, I digress.

Now for the fun one; homosexual. As of about 200 years ago, society decided that all homosexual people were happy, flamboyant, bright and care-free; quite the compliment, eh? The homosexual men and women of the world have adopted the word “gay” to describe who they are. Can you really blame them? “Homosexual” and “lesbian” sound like medical terms for debilitating illnesses. However, now “gay” is popping up with a new meaning; stupid. Perhaps I missed the memo, but when did all gay people become stupid?

Aside from the blatant linguistic inaccuracy and lack of sense, there’s something pretty dark hiding underneath this pathetic, adolescent slang word. That’s right kids, it’s called heterosexism. The chance of a person intending to inflict emotional pain upon the entire GLBTQ community is incredibly slim, however, the chances of it actually hurting somebody who is gay is rather large. Here’s a wonderful little analogy (credited to a good friend of mine, Katy King) explaining the importance of interpretation versus intent.

You’re walking down the street swinging a baseball bat aimlessly, practicing your swing for the big game later on in the afternoon. All of a sudden, an innocent civilian’s face comes in contact with your aimlessly swinging bat! You begin to apologize profusely; you explain that you had not intended on hurting them at all, and hope that they accept your apology. They eventually do and walk away, silently whimpering while clutching their face. You feel pretty good about yourself, considering you apologized and all, but let’s face it; you just smashed somebody’s face in with a baseball bat.

When you catch your friend doing something inconceivably stupid and you say “dude, that was like, so gay of you”, I bet you feel original and intelligent, don’t you? Well, you really shouldn’t. In fact, you couldn’t be any further from the truth. Using “gay” is so unoriginal that society almost expects it to come out of an adolescent’s mouth. When it comes down to it, it makes you look exceedingly unintelligent. You may as well have drool coming out of the side of your mouth, because as far as civilized society is concerned, the inside of your skull consists of a note that says “I.O.U ONE BRAIN”.

Why, you ask? Well, it’s really quite simple; slang is not a valid language. Not only that, but the majority of slang actually has some sort of similarity or intended difference to the original word it’s making a mockery of. For example, “hot”, as in “Jessica Alba is outrageously hot”. I don’t mean that she is experiencing a high temperature, but that she’s very attractive. This slang was originated because of the connection between high numbers rating a person’s good looks and the high numbers describing high temperatures. Another example, “bad”. The reason “bad” is now used to mean “good” or “awesome” is that actually saying something is “good” is considered un-cool. Being “bad” is considered cool, therefore bad = awesome or good.

On the other hand, where does “gay” ever relate to “stupid”? It’s not stupid to be happy, and not all homosexuals are stupid. The two words aren’t opposite because they don’t even connect to each other. So obviously, “gay” cannot be used as valid slang. Whenever somebody uses the word “gay” to describe something stupid or unsavory, they’re basically showing that they have no knowledge of the English language. In fact, every time you say “gay”, you’re getting one step closer to spending the rest of your life saying “do you want fries with that?” I mean, let’s face it; only McDonald’s will accept somebody who doesn’t know the difference between happiness, homosexuality and idiocy.