Talk:Gay Pride

Brilliant! --Hrodulf 10:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Hell no!

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Warning: Tight-Ass Dickwad Ranting Ahead Be it known that since writing the following, the user Lenoxus has come to accept a higher power and is beginning to undergo a twelve-step program. The following therefore serves as an skeleton within his closet. The submitters are advised to remain as funny as ever before, except with regards to making a stupid pun about the word "closet" above. —Lenoxus 18:50, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

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There is essentially no difference between this article and the whole heaping mass of modern stereotypes held about gay men by other LGBT folks. Now, I'm not saying every article here should be a bleeding-heart tribute to the suffering underclass — I'm saying every featured article should be, in at least one significant way, original'.

Yes, of course gay pride marches tend to go over the top, and yes, a lot of them focus unfairly on gay men more than lesbians or bisexuals — but basically, either you know that or you don't, so either way, the sentence "Exposing your breasts, penis or indeed both is also a highly effective way of emphasizing your typical nature and empathy with mainstream culture" just plain isn't funny. You might as well make an article going on and on about, I don't know, how much American Neoconservatives are filled with a drooling, slobbing hate for every living creature, or the ways in which Mexican immigrants are taking our jobs. In the case of either, the problem isn't that it's hateful but that it's boring. Boring as shit. I, for one, can't tell in what ways this particular article either subverts the stereotype, mocks it, or bends and extends it to an absurd extreme. It just seems to consist of a long, unfunny rant, like this comment.

My condolences go to any lesbians who do in fact feel emotionally damaged by the behavior of gay men. This just isn't the place to vent that in a twisted kind of satire that is 180 degrees from anything Swift ever penned.

Personally, I would suggest a replacement with, say a pun on "gay" like the one at the article Gay, or a subtly satirical explanation of why silver jockstraps should convince straight people to love homosexuals. I never thought I'd say this before, but we really need to raise our standards here. 'Nuff said.

Wait... unless there's something I'm missing — I know! I'll read every other word for the secret message! Nah, doesn't work. --Lenoxus 18:36, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

For what its worth the main contributors to this article are both UK based, so perhaps have a different perspective re American Neoconservativism or Mexican immigrants. It also worth noting that one of the main contributors self identifies as a Lesbian. I actually thought the "Exposing your breasts, penis or both...." part was really quite funny....but what do I know? -- Sir Mhaille  (talk to me)

Congratulations! You're a fuckhead. - David Gerard 19:04, 5 July 2006 (UTC) Attempt at better answer below - David Gerard 06:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

I would like to make a funny enough comment to par this one, however, I don't think it's possible, you stupid fucking shitcake --Olipro Anchor KUN (Harass) 19:17, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The article's good as it is, and it's funny. It's a person's perspective on Gay Pride, you don't have to agree with it or find it funny or entertaining, just accept the fact that other people do, as evidenced by the fact that it got featured.

If anyone replaces this article with either a cheap "gay" pun or a satirical explanation of jock-straps i will personally [be rather cross]. - Jack Mort | TALK | MUN | F@H - 19:09, 5 July 2006 (UTC) (comment censored arbitrarily by sannse)

Apparently we've all been magically transported to Germany. O_o --The King In Yellow (Talk to the Dalek.) 19:12, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh good, we're back. That shit's just wrong, you know. (PUN!) --The King In Yellow (Talk to the Dalek.) 19:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

"Self-identifies as lesbian", that would be me. And I wrote the bit that talks about the behavior of everyone at pride - an event I love, but still find wonderfully ironc. David wrote the rest, so I guess that makes him the emotionally damaged lesbian. -- sannse<staff/> (talk) 19:16, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The best bit is he wrote this after I added the "Fun facts!" section. I am also considering changing my LiveJournal name to "Emotionally damaged lesbian" - David Gerard 19:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Apology, Book 1

Um... gee... I really went over the top there. I'm really, really sorry. What follows is long, long, long, LONG, so I apologize yet again, but not as strongly as I do about my original comment. I mean, I gotta lot to say. If you read the whole thing, you'll get candy at the end. And if your username is Dave Gerard, you'll see my responses to two of your comments, neither one quite as scathing as yours. Finally, I intend no sarcasm in any of what I write below — it's called as I see.

Now, to begin with, I do feel sorta touched to see that I've united Uncyclopedians for an important cause, even if it is to criticize my attacks...but I digress.

A lot of what I blurted out back there is really my pent-up anger over the success of such franchises as, say, Cathy (the comic strip), and I feel like this is really just a lesbian equivalent to that sort of cliché-mongering. You know, "Damn, straight men sure do love technology, don't they?" "Not as much as gay guys are constantly making themselves the center of attention for the gay pride movement, as well as being indecent during parades, and thinking that bisexuals don't exist!" I almost wanted to put an "attempt to explain joke" template on this, but I figured it wouldn't go anywhere...

My opinion is hard to put into words, because critique is so damn subjective. There's no formula anyone can apply to determine funniness, and while I like to think that my issues with this article are genuine and personal, maybe that kind of formulaism is, in fact, the trap I've fallen into. Also, I haven't been letting on the ways in which I DO like the article. The Oscar Wilde quote at the top is a brilliant simultaneous reference to his personality and to modern times (his photoshopped picture isn't quite as clever, but still chuckle-worthy). [This bracket shall be replaced by a second example of great humor as soon as I find one, for the sake of a "3-pattern" — feel free to help me out here]. Hell, even the "Exposing your breast.." sentence, which I'd listed previously as an example of wasted words, is an enequivocal example of hilarious satire. I just think it could be even funnier by being subtler. As it happens, I'd seen that very joke in a different, less satirical form in The Onion, so part of what made me mad about that sentence was knowing that there was a way to improve it, but not knowing how to do so without just copying The Onion itself. I guess I tend to get the most irritated about stuff that makes it to the "featured" section without being as funny as it could be. I'd be shitting all over this place if I didn't have that standard.

I should also explain that I originally wrote a draft of the comment, then rechecked the article and realized I hadn't quite grasped the first time around that most of it was not from a mainstream heterosexual perspective, which tends not to consider the relationship between different LGBT types and merely categorizes them individually...This lead to changes for some but not all of the comment (eg, the phrase "other LGBT folks", which originally read something like "heterosexual America"), and the fact that my homophobodar had given a false alarm made my thoughts seem harsher than I intended. (For example, the bigotry-related examples go way too far. I'd now like to replace them, if I may, with the Cathy reference above. After all, Cathy is only a tiny bit steryotype-dirven and a lot more cliché-ridden, a far lesser and more amendable sin in my opinion.) To summarize: I'd misread the article, gotten angry, realized my mistake, but still needed some way to vent the anger anyway, and I figured a few edits to my "angry draft" would be sufficient to make it all work logically. I was stupid. It obviously didn't, and I was too lazy to consider why not.

Now make no mistake, I still intended a certain degree of harshness, and do not regret the mere fact that I wrote a negative comment. I really do think that the article is sub-par in a way I personally don't know how to fix — It's good, but not great. Its basic fault, I think, is to satirize the ridiculousness of gay pride events by becoming something just as excessive, "inside-gaggy", and redundant as the events themselves — without actually being a "meta" article like Marcel Proust. That opinion of mine is still no excuse for my using phrases like "boring as shit", which is nothing but serious asstollery, or as David Gerard rightly put it recently, fuckheadedness. I'm a fuckhead sometimes. I'd say "deal with it," but you shouldn't have to. No one should; fuckheads suck.

So in conclusion, a lot of this is a basic matter of taste, a phenomenon that's caused a wide variety of disagreements, some interesting, some pointless. Me, I always try to go for subtlety above all in satire, but I realize that's not everyone's thing. We all have something to contribute here, just as long as none of us — myself included — expect everyone else to think or feel alike. Also, I'm really, really sorry. I'll try not to be such a stupid fucking shitcake.

(PS: Dave, when I used the phrase "emotionally damaged lesbian", I was simply too lazy to articulate the concept I had in mind, which was more like "pissed off lesbian", my issue still being with the "pissed off" part of that reaction. Good comedy, I feel, doesn't derive from pure, unsaturated anger/smugness any more than it does from, say, depression. Yeah, it can be angry and smug, but there must be a hint of something else to help balance it out... but again, that's just me. Seriously, I'd love to have this conversation with anyone willing to converse, because I don't think my position is nearly well-rounded enough, and the whole lot of you are definitely intelligent enough to help scrape off some of the edges...)

Assuming you really read the whole thing... here's your candy! (Safe link, I swear.)

Thank you. I would like to apologise in turn for "Congratulations! You're a fuckhead." That was an overreaction and you deserved more detail than that. e.g. that all of the "tired old stereotypes" have multiple examples as current ongoing problems, which is why the article would only work as something written by insiders (which it was). And that any subculture based on people's dicks is going to have great big silly problems that only need to be described to be at least snickerworthy. And that only being as stupid, ignorant and bigoted as everyone else is not that bad going really. Ah well - David Gerard 06:35, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks like we crossed in the mail, Dave. Still wondering about it all, though... looks like everything's cool. --Lenoxus 19:47, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

An amusing little rant about an amusing little nuisance that gay pride is.

I'm gay and I've never took any interrest in the prides. Most of the people who join such a pride parade are not concerned about gay rights, but about participating in a trashy march to enjoy the pleasures of drugs, sexuality and public indecency. Not that I have a problem with any of those. --Sinspawn 19:24, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Fuck, now we're in Holland. What's going on here? --The King In Yellow (Talk to the Dalek.) 19:27, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Whachoo talkin' about? --Lenoxus 19:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

Gay Pride is an excellent idea I thoroughly support. It's such a pity about certain bits of the reality. I also think we really really need a Drugs, Sexuality and Public Indecency Pride March - David Gerard 19:56, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

True dat. Too bad the odds are that it would eventually, of course, become unforgiveably bourgeoise. --Lenoxus 19:50, 14 July 2006 (UTC)