Swearwords increasingly used for emphasis and to build social bonds, rather than to insult, say academics

  • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    As an American yeah that’s used to happen. But I’ve not had it happen in years. Cunt though, yeah it’s considered either an extremely misogynistic insult or an extremely graphic term for body parts we don’t talk about much.

    • 0ops@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      I’m not that old but even in the last 15 years or so I’ve noticed that the fuck-word has become a lot less taboo. Even people I know who don’t swear very much I’ve heard use it, granted very sparingly, but they wouldn’t have used it at all a fewyears ago. Kids are picking up swearwords casually earlier than my peers did.

      My hypothesis, I think I big part of the change is YouTube personalities. A ton of the biggest YouTubers, especially the gamers, have sailor mouths. Gen z and later grew up with “let’s fuckin go” and shit like that, and I think that that casualness is bleeding into older generations too.