Is it really THAT bad?! Yeah… to me it is.

I saw a commercial on TV last night that made me smile. Not only that, it made me feel somewhat validated. I know its just TV, and it was just a commercial, but let me continue and hopefully you’ll see what I mean. This is a quick overview of what happened in said commercial…

Two girls were working at some sort of retail store, standing behind the checkout counter. One turns to the other in conversation and ends her sentence with “That is SO gay!” the other girl turns to her and said “Yeah, its TOTALLY gay!” A woman walks up to them overhearing this exchange, reads the girls’ nametags and says “That is SO Emma and Julia” (the girls’ names). The girls question why she said this and she goes on to explain, “Yeah, that is the latest thing, when something is stupid you say that it is so Emma and Julia.” It then cuts to a screen saying who sponsored the commercial and a voice says something to the effect of when you’re saying that’s so gay, think about what you’re really saying and who it may be hurting.

Not an earth shattering commercial by any means, but it definitely gets the point across. A point I’ve been trying to make for I don’t even know how long. Some people call me snobbish for this. Snooty. Arrogant. I see it different. I see it as common courtesy. I can not stand when people use phrases like “that is gay” or “that’s retarded” around me. Not only because I have many people that I hold very close to my heart which fall into both the categories those phrases make fun of, but just due to the sheer ignorance of the statements themselves. It literally makes me cringe. I don’t hear it as much now as I used to. Perhaps my cringing at the sound of it has gotten to the people around me, but perhaps (my hope) its that people are growing up and thinking before they speak.

I always wonder what the outcome would be if the people saying these things woke up one morning to find out that their best friend was gay, or that their adorable nephew was handicapped. Would they still throw around these hurtful remarks, or would they take a millisecond more in their thought process to come up with a way to say what they actually mean, rather than opting for the commonly used and more hurtful than they realize fallback phrases…