On B3ta, homophobia and teen suicide
The post below may be edited through the day. I have written it in a blaze of fury and irritation, and the language, grammar and spelling has suffered as a consequence.
What the fuck is going on with B3ta? Each and every week there's the same range of crap jokes - the crap jokes that we've come to love - but increasingly one of those jokes each week seems to be about stupid funny gay people and how freakish, stereotypical and generally funny they are. I'm not going to deny that sometimes their jokes are really funny, and I wouldn't comment in the slightest if it was a relatively rare occurrence - no one wants to live in a world where people can't make any kind of tasteless jokes at all - but this really seems to be becoming some kind of obsession. And the excuse that I've heard is that it's just 'schoolyard japery' - stuff that doesn't really mean gay at all - like the idiots who wander around the place saying, "Marriage is so gay" - is just bullshit. At a certain point you have to look at the kids who grow up in these schoolyards - gay kids - who are surrounded by anti-gay sentiment each and every day. As a child, you don't even have to know what being gay means to know fairly early on that it's not something you're supposed to be - that it's bad and wrong and shameful. And b3ta is not only sanctioning this culture in schools, it's fucking promoting it and extending it to adults!
Let's start with a bit of a survey of the first few 'gay offerings' by B3ta I could find. If you know any others, let me know.
- Gay Computer Game Characters
- Spiderman will make you gay
- Gay Skeletons
- Gaylords
- Gay or Straight
- Motorbikes are gay
- Draw a picture and win gay sex
- Stephen Hawking and Davros
And by way of juxtaposition, a couple of years back I wrote an article On Homophobic Bullying in Schools. Let's just see what kind of effect 'gay' jokes can have on kids...
In November, an inquest heard that a 15-year-old choirboy had been found hanged in his bedroom. Darren Steele had been left at home watching Neighbours by his mother when she went out for the evening. When she returned she found him dead. A note by his body explained that he had killed himself because of the bullying that he was suffering at school.
Darren had been bullied because other students thought he was gay. At the inquest, his friends explained that he had been regularly taunted as a 'gay boy' and a 'poof' because of his interests in drama and cookery. Over the previous five years he had been systematically punched, verbally abused and even burned with cigarettes by other students. He never told a teacher.
His mother's statement reads: "I saw Darren kneeling on the far side of the bed. His face was blue. I went downstairs screaming 'my son is dead'."
There's more if you can stomach it.
Comments
Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.
I think you'll find that many of the patrons of b3ta are in fact gay and find that poking (excuse the pun) fun at themselves is all the norm.
→ Posted by: Hankster at November 1, 2005 9:24 PM
That is just so gay of you to say that.
→ Posted by: Roland E O'Dorant at February 10, 2006 9:15 PM
Homophobia like that is just gay.
→ Posted by: Eric Cartman at February 10, 2006 9:16 PM
I'm not homophobic; I'm not afraid of my house.
→ Posted by: Pete at February 10, 2006 9:20 PM
I am gay, and B3ta cheers up my miserable life every day. I think you are wrong.
→ Posted by: Arsebandit at February 10, 2006 9:29 PM
Eh whatever, corporate lackey.
→ Posted by: Mike Hunt at February 10, 2006 9:40 PM
You bandit! Melodromatic bandit! My sensible, reasonable, considered comment deleted by you, because it made you look a bit silly. Recap: b3ta browsing does not lead to teen suicide, FFS!
→ Posted by: drunkenoaf at February 10, 2006 11:29 PM
Homophobia? WTF is wrong with you? LOADS of gay people use B3ta everyday. do you think they would be using it if it offended them?
→ Posted by: Lord Foolius at July 2, 2006 8:20 PM
You're an otternoncing paedoclam with a willy for a hat.
B3ta isn't homophobic, but it is quite a lot better than you, you wankquenching rapefairy.
→ Posted by: Commalully at July 2, 2006 8:36 PM
What are you, the PC Police?
As the previous correspondents have said: there are plenty of gay folks on b3ta who are in no danger of committing suicide any time soon. Get your facts right.
→ Posted by: The Marquis of Hoyland at July 2, 2006 8:36 PM
I'm gay and I am offended by this post.
→ Posted by: gaylord gayson at July 2, 2006 8:38 PM
Like many other b3ta members, I am gay, and have no problems whatsoever with the references on the site.
If you look, you will see that apparently offensive comments are directed at all groups of society, it is almost always humourous.
If anyone posts deliberately offensive comments with malicious intent on b3ta they will get very short shrift from the regulars.
As ever, if you don't like it (or don't understand the humour) - don't look.
→ Posted by: scott at July 2, 2006 8:46 PM
Brilliant, I'm very proud of you. The only comments I have on this thread ever are - of course - because someone on b3ta has decided that they want to make more gay jokes and has linked to this piece that's like FOUR YEARS OLD.
In a nutshell - great, I'm glad you all enjoy the gay jokes. That doesn't really actually have much to do with my post. I'm not even enormously interested in whether or not some gay people like the jokes. That doesn't make it okay any more than saying, "some of my best friends are poofs". Turns out gay people can be irresponsible too. I just want people to actually think about what they're doing when they do these jokes and why precisely it's more okay to do them with gay people than Jews or Black people or whatever - and to think, while they're doing these things, that gay teenagers are actually (no matter whether there's a causal link or not) fucking killing themselves, being beaten to death and thrown out of their homes because of anti-gay abuse. If you're comfortable that there's no link there, if you don't believe gay teenagers have a hard time, if you genuinely believe that the jokes are just funny funny, then it's up to your conscience whether you make them or laugh at them, and good luck to you. I hope you enjoy yourselves. Personally I think it's damaging, and I'm going to say so.
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at July 3, 2006 3:09 PM
A long time ago, GAY meant happy.
Not so long ago, GAY meant homosexual, and still meant happy.
Now, GAY means uncool, it also still means homosexual and still means happy.
Times change, and words have more than one meaning.
Get over it, and learn.
→ Posted by: milknosugar at August 31, 2006 2:13 PM
look what the fuck is wrong with you its a joke as always some people such as you wil be all pissy about and others even the ones they are paointed at will not be so i got to say this keep your damn nose out of things that dont concerne you if gays get mad let them take it up asswipe
→ Posted by: my name fuck off at October 3, 2006 8:21 AM
Okay... The article writer has a point. Gay jokes are fine, I find most of them hilarious even though I am gay. I am VERY GAY.... I like all kindsa jokes which take the mickey out of everything. See, if you can laugh at yourself as a minority, why can't you laugh at others as a minority? Now, joking aside, the article writer wasn't talking about jokes. That is the whole point which I think has been missed although maybe this was because he was blaming b3ta and drew the wrong conclusions about the the 15 year olds death. Jokes don't hurt unless you are repeatedly a victim, at which point they are no longer jokes but a cruel attack on someone. The kids in that post were evil little shites and probably realised exactly what they were doing. They were also the kind of people not to understand the b3ta mentality. Every thing is a victim, and everything is a joke. Take life easy for a change and chill out.
I do not condone any sort of bullying in this sense, it is wrong. I blame the teachers and the parents for not helping this kid out of his situation. When someone calls you a queer and throws eggs at you, that is not a joke. When someone calls you a faggot and kicks the living daylights out of you, that is not a joke. THAT is the big difference. Psychological bullying is just as bad. B3ta people are bastards to n00bs and they love being cnuts, but most (and I say most) would not do this kinda psychological shite.
Having said that, b3ta does attract the same cnuts that would bully this kid for appearing gay. But they usually get ripped into pieces after a while by the real b3tans. We don't like bastards.
→ Posted by: b3ta cheese at January 8, 2007 8:44 PM
I'm Derren Brown. You're gay, aren't you?
→ Posted by: Derren Brown at April 13, 2007 12:22 AM
Yes Derren, I am gay. I'm unclear what your point is, except that perhaps you think that calling someone gay is an insult and that somehow I'll be shut up by you doing so. Turns out black people also get tense about stereotypical jokes about black people and it affects the lives of young black kids. Would you say, "well you would say that - you're black"?
→ Posted by: Tom Coates at April 17, 2007 3:48 PM