The Decline of the Insult

I've been haphazardly following the Twitter Feud between Jezebel and Scott Baio, and with the addition of his very eloquent and charming wife, I feel I can no longer sit on this plaguing question: when did the Insult become so pathetic? While "Shitasses" and "cuntness" receive points for humor (the comical element stemming from the button-cute blonde Mommy holding her lil bundled Future Bigot of America) they are largely unoriginal and juvenile. If she had stopped there, we could just assume she was a pirate in a past life and call it a day. But the woman goes on to use "class" as an adjective and "Lesbian" as an insult, and this is where we over at Elephantine, get a little bored:

WHEW. Glad you cleared that one up Renee! For a second there I thought you were hating on lesbians! But you have a friend who's gay? Cool, girl. By all means, you slur out the word, no worries. Now that we know you're cool with a Gay Person, you can really just go nuts.

PC backpeddling is more nauseating to me than the outright bigotry itself. She, and rightly so, anticipates an onslaught of negative criticism for using a sexuality as an insult, and thus asserts this doesn't make her a homophobe because she has a Lesbian Friend (because, in case you hadn't heard, Gay is the new Black).

And while she's covering her barmy arse, she really pulls out all the stops: Renee Baio, everyone, also has friends who are left- and right-wing, Christian and not, handicapped and otherwise, and come in various sizes and colors. (etc etc.) According to Renee, her circle of friends is made up of Michael Jackson's We Are the World Benefit audience. Girlfriend's backpedaling so hard, she flies right into some gibberish meant to appease animal rights activists.. at least, that's to whom I determine "with or without animals," could possibly be intended. (While the Asshole Flag is undoubtedly flying high over her online avatars, I somehow doubt that "Lesbian cunts" shows up on PETA's radar.) I guess, if you're going to cry hood pass, you may as well be thorough.

Then it just gets downright silly:

Now, here's where I feel enlightened: I had no idea the Attorney General was in charge of mediating commenting rules on social networking and media websites. Huh. Learn something new everyday.

Anyway, the Tweet that started it all:

I'm sure you can deduce all you need to about the Baios' political affiliation from there. Nonetheless, this is also coming from a man who capitalized on his being 45 and commitment-phobic. I don't know about you, but I'm inclined to say that Reality TV Featuring a Big Washed Up Bum doesn't really qualify as "hard-working," but that's neither here nor there. We're talking about the lost art of the insult today.

After recognizing that he'd blipped up as Republican/Whiny/Angry on the Jez site, he goes into full on defensive mode, no holds bar:

To which, I'm sorry to say, writer Irin bites and makes a rather flimsy attack:

And then..

Oh GROAN. We're pulling the "take the high road" line and praying for one another now? AND arbitrarily throwing around the R-word? I think it speaks to his bigotry, that when he goes on the defense and attacks with abandon, the first thing he can think of is "a ignorant racist.**" Kind of like when Perez called Will.i.am a "Faggot." I love that he, like his wife, is completely thorough when they take the gormless road-- "blocking tweets" is the Twitter equivalent of "AND you can't come to my birthday party anymore! So there!"

Again, I'm a little sad that Irin took the "Go to hell" play, even if she did try to elevate it with a cutesy "sir." While I'll spare you the play by play for today's onslaught of the Baios' tweets and status updates (they're still taking the holier than thou road, undoubtedly reveling in the confidence that comes from being so tight with the Attorney General) but I will say this: if we are going to take the time to engage in a passive aggressive repartee via Twitter, Facebook, or any other social networking site, I implore the usage of your thesaurus. There's a widget for it, people. Then, at least when we're being forced to witness your temper tantrums, we won't have to look at words like "shitasses," or hear about the levels of "class" in your piss.

And maybe, one day, one of your awesome lesbo friends will let you know that while it's true some men "couldn't put up with their cuntness," the nature of being a lesbian means that the woman is not attracted to the man. Not the other way around.

Muttonhead.

** I didn't want to go SNOOT on you here, but "a ignorant" pretty much slammed what would otherwise have been a mildly uninteresting insult into full blown dumb ass territory.