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This campaign struck me from the very beginning as mean-spirited and misguided, as it adversely affects everyone with that surname, not just a particular politi
by slavat 16y ago
This campaign struck me from the very beginning as mean-spirited and misguided, as it adversely affects everyone with that surname, not just a particular politician.
- gaius 16y agoIt's interesting to note that Google will intervene in their index if they agree politically (e.g. the Obama monkey cartoons, yet they never had a problem with anyone calling Bush a chimp).
- jat850 16y agoWas that intervention a political one or a racial one? (Not disagreeing, just asking. I don't remember the issue or its resolution.)
- mcknz 16y agoseriously? you don't see a difference in calling a white person a chimp? I want to live on your planet.
- gaius 16y agoIt's pretty good here - we don't see a person's skin colour as being any more significant than their eye or hair colour.
- runjake 16y agomcknz's point is that this is not reflective of the true nature of our planet. It's pretty easy for a white person to claim that racism against blacks (or any other minority) is extinct. On the other hand, racism against whites is equally alive and well.
- pohl 16y agoI'm more curious as to why your planet does not see historical context.
- jackowayed 16y agoNot really. Sure, the word is just "Santorum", but if you "click to enter" the site, there's a picture of Rick Santorum that says "Senator Rick Santorum" under it, making it clear who the site's about. So yeah, people might have some bad associations when they meet a Santorum with no relation to the Senator, but they're not going to think the term was named after them. It's no different than the associations you'd have if you met someone with the surname Hitler. Some people have the same last name as terrible people. It happens, and no one's going to seriously hold that against the person beyond a few jokes.
- slavat 16y agoIf the word comes to be associated with that name in the same way Johnson is associated with a particular body part or Sanchez, with an apocryphal sex act, all people with that last name will eventually suffer. Johnson and, to a lesser extent, Sanchez are popular enough to have other connotations than their usage as vulgar slang; Santorum is much less popular, and those bearing it will disproportionately suffer. As for "Hitler," people unfortunate enough to have that surname changed it after the war to avoid the very sort of thing I'm talking about. The same with Adolf; a once popular boy's name in Germany is now unheard of, all because of the one bad apple who bore it.
- MichaelSalib 16y agoI don't see any evidence at all indicating that the mainstream culture has adopted this meme in common speech as opposed to just making a bunch of links to a particular website. Do you really think there are a great many people in the world who, upon being introduced to Sarah Santorum, will immediately think about a mixture of feces and lube? Seriously, do you really believe that a great number of such people exist?
- konad 16y agoNot so unpopular in the UK http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7897580/Twenty-babies-in-Britain-named-Adolf.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7897...
- 16y ago
- slavat 16y agoWhy the downvotes? I guess this sort of thing is OK if you're only catching some guineas in your crossfire; if he had a Jewish surname, I suspect the response would be markedly different. And for the record, I don't care for Santorum at all.
- MichaelSalib 16y agoI tried entering a few names ending in Santorum into google and none of them brought up the site in question. That suggests that the vast majority of people whose surname is Santorum will not have this website show up in google's results for searches containing their name. Given the lack of demonstrable harm, I don't think it makes any sense to claim this campaign was mean-spirited and misguided for the reasons you claim.
- konad 16y agoHow about being called Mr. Wanker or Mr. Tosser ?