I oftentimes volunteer at my local high school with the web development classes and always make it a point to direct the students to review alistapart as they have excellent articles. I've always assumed alistapart had editors that keep the content top notch and "accessible". I was surprised this morning to see this title was real. I'm not pretending like American high schoolers don't use this kind of language but seeing it in a highly respected "magazine" of sorts made me squirm. I'm glad I wasn't in a classroom this morning.
Yes, it is something I have thought about quite a lot and concluded that being too prissy tends to not have broad appeal but being unnecessarily crude is just stupid if you are trying to grow an audience.
I have fantasies of doing a web comic at some point. Should that ever work out, the standard I have in mind is that it should be "Night Court"-esque in nature. In spite of frequently having "adult" themes it was implicit, not explicit, in nature. My 24 year old son has said that when he watched "Night Court" as a child, he thought Dan was some loser who talked a lot of crap but saw almost no action. When he saw the same show when he was older, he was surprised to realize that wasn't the case at all. Why was he even able to make the comparison? Because the show was acceptably "clean" that I did not hesitate to let a young child watch it. That translates to a much larger potential audience than the "adults only" material.
And who defines swearing? You? Me? Marilyn Manson? I think a lot of people would be surprised to learn that "douchebag" is particularly more rude than "stupid," which you apparently have no problem using. At least that's my impression from the way people tend to use it (and it seems to be pretty near ubiquitous with people my age and younger in the area where I live).
pavel_lishin brought up a great example above: sucks. To most people under the age of 30, it is categorically not swearing. It is not even slightly naughty. It's informal in much the same way that "totally sweet" is, but it's not dirty. But many people older than that will insist that it's swearing. True story: Once, when I was working on my college paper a few years ago, we used "sucks" in a headline. The faculty adviser flagged the headline and questioned whether we wanted to use swearing there. Every single student there was baffled by what she meant.
I think you missed my point somewhere. I swear quite a lot. But a lot of people are easily offended by words that wouldn't bother me. A standard some prostitutes use is to wait until their client tips their hand as to what sexually explicit words to use. Some men think "dick" is perfectly acceptable but "cock" is foul language. For other men, the reverse is true. So, yes, I think if your goal is to grow an audience, you are behaving stupidly if you do not stop and think about what kind of language will likely get negative reactions.
I am aware that words like "retard" or "stupid" can be just as problematic as words like douchebag, cock, or dick. But in this instance, I think it conveys what I mean better than any other word I could use. I am not against the use of strong or loaded words on principle. I just think unnecessary use of such language is a good way to shoot yourself in the foot. I can't imagine someone wanting to lose audience members or even risk losing them without good reason.
I am guessing you didn't read my blog post on the topic. That might explain why I am baffled by your reaction.
This is an incredibly mild insult in common usage — on roughly the same level as "jerk," I figure. What word would you have used to convey the same idea? I can't think of a less offensive choice.
I agree that it's a mild insult in common usage but I don't consider A List Apart to be common. I consider it to be top-notch and on par with leading print publications. I feel like if I opened the any well-respected periodical I'd be off-put by a similar title. "Nissan Corp is a Douchebag". Sounds silly, doesn't it? It felt like it was a cop-out to be edgy for edgy's sake.
