With 62 characters, that's the longest title I've ever put in for a blog entry. And 1.61% of those characters most probably caused some eyebrows raised on me when they saw it sandwiched between S, H, and T. --- that one lovely asterisk.
The social network generation was graced with the privilege to be able to express in an unbelievable speed today those thoughts that bother their curious minds, and the feelings entailed with the everyday experiences of their fast-paced lives. Facebook and Twitter are the best (abused) venues. And oh yeah with my weekend FB check I can see no less than a dozen censored status updates full of @, #, $, %, &, *, and all those characters I can display by pressing Shift + any number. Add to them the famous spelling twists just to make the bad words appear less harmful, but a little bit more conyo --- gagee, effin', demmet, wtf, bee-atch, and all other what-have-yous.
So what about the use of foul language does people make them feel or think they look cool? I couldn't answer either, but I believe it's not the language that mattered in a particular instance when you feel so strongly about something, but the emotion per se. The words just follow, words that might have been an influence from a generation ahead or a simple product of our environment. And because we are aware that what we say or post can actually offend someone one way or the other, we censor those "generally not acceptable words."
Censorship. Ah, the beauty of it all. That other unfathomable side of language, that side most people would not dare get to the abyss of. But there's one thing about censoring your bad words that I don't exactly get. If you rather think it can offend someone, why use foul language in the first place? Sounding cool isn't exactly cool, if how you want to achieve it is by simply copying how other people from other cultures talk. And censoring them isn't cool either --- that's cowardice. If you want to say bad words, stand up to your expressions, freak.
I'm not a clean slate after all, and there are times I'd really, really like to at least write them just to express a bad feeling. But influence is a huge part of our expressions. From the time I joined the SFC community I can say I managed to cut a huge part of bad language, because I simply don't hear it from my sistahs and brothas. Although my frequent use of "freak" has yet to be addressed. Feelings are part of our being human, but how we express them is actually a challenge to prove we are indeed human beings, raised with breed and intellect.
Influence someone today. If you've heard or seen one censored bad language, just do your part and give them a slap on the face. #
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