You need a thick gay skin if you’re gonna to follow @homophobes on Twitter.
The man behind @homophobes—let’s call him TMB@H for short—searches Twitter for hateful anti-gay tweets, which he turns around and re-tweets to his 8500 followers. TMB@H’s in his early twenties, lives in the United States, and is lucky enough to be working in his chosen field… and that’s as much personal information as TMB@H is comfortable divulging. I met TMB@H in person at a big gay thing we both happened to be attending sometime over the last twelve months… and that’s as specific as TMB@H wants me to get about when and where we met. (You would jealously guard your privacy too if pissing off violently homophobic bigots was your hobby.) We spoke by phone about what he hopes to accomplish with @homophobes.
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What motivated you start @homophobes?
A couple of years ago some law passed, something related to gay marriage, and I wanted to see what people were saying about it on Twitter. So I did a search and I found this one guy who said something really horrible—gay people are all sick and we don’t deserve to get married or something like that—and I re-tweeted him from my own account. A lot of my friends started talking about this guy’s tweet and some of them tweeted replies to him. That’s when I thought, “Oh, it might be a good idea to create an account to just do this, to re-tweet homophobes.” Just for kicks I checked to see if “@homophobes” was available as a Twitter name. I was surprised that it was. I really scored there.
Your account info says, “Giving homophobes the attention they’re looking for.” What kind of attention do you hope the homophobes you re-tweet get?
A lot of these people have never been challenged before. They say these things because they’ve heard them, or it’s what their friends all think, or it’s what their parents told them. They’ve literally never been challenged before. All their friends feel the same way! When I re-tweet them and people respond, maybe it will make them think about what they’re saying for the first time. And then maybe they’ll think twice before tweeting something like that again.
There have been a few people who’ve gone back and deleted their homophobic tweets. And there have been some people who apologized for their homophobic tweets. That’s only happened a few times. But being re-tweeted by @homophobes has changed a few people.
MORE AFTER THE JUMP…
How do you find homophobic tweets?
I have a long list of saved searches. If someone uses the phrase “gay people” in a tweet, it’s usually negative. The same goes for, “If I had a gay son.” Those can be really depressing. Then there’s “gay abomination,” “gay marriage” and, of course, any combination of “gay” and “bible.” And I have a search on “no offense.” So many people will say, “no offense,” right before saying something really offensive. And followers send me tweets.
You’re a gay man. Doesn’t wading through homophobic insults and 140-character anti-gay rants all day get to you? Some of the stuff you find is really violent.
It doesn’t faze me. Some of the things these people say are just so stupid. It makes me realize how stupid these people are. Their arguments are so stupid. It makes me laugh.
Do you regard @homophobes as a form of activism?
Yeah, definitely. One of the valuable things about this thing is that there are a lot of people out there who don’t think homophobia is a problem or that it can’t really be that bad. Even some gay people out there think homophobia isn’t a problem. Maybe they grew up in towns that were really gay friendly, or they never had any problems with bullying, or their parents never gave them any grief about it. But even some gay people don’t realize how bad it can be.
Imagine being the kid of someone who sent out one of those “If I had a gay son” tweets. Or one of those violently homophobic #ToMyUnBornChild tweets.
Right. Seeing these real tweets that come up every day can make people realize that homophobia is still a real problem and that it hurts real people.
I never had a problem with gay people until Dan Savage and people like him started bullying people into supporting gay marriage by using terms like “bigot” and “homophobic” to further their agenda. It’s all very dishonest and if anyone is still falling for this shit, I have some nice oceanfront property in La Grande for sale. The term “homophobic” is just fucking dumb. I know there are plenty of people out there that qualify as bigots but to lump everyone who opposes gay marriage into that group is moronic.
So you’re against lumping people into one group based on the actions of a couple people, but the actions of Dan Savage and people like him have caused you to have a generalized problem with all gay people?
Jesus, can’t you even see how stupid and illogical you sound?
….and back on topic: I hope this twitter account gets 1 million followers.
Remember kids, don’t feed the troll.
@#1. How many gay people are against gay marriage? How many gay people use the slur “homophobic” to further that agenda? How many gay marriage supporters use that same slur? How many gay people follow Dan Savage and buy into his bullshit? Don’t patronize me, man. Calling people “homophobic” for supporting traditional marriage will backfire, I assure you. This is a relatively new phenomenon and as young people wise up and get families of their own, they will see what bullshit this really is. According to the CDC, gay men are 50 times more likely than a hetero male to spread HIV (which we all know leads to AIDS) so, in all honesty, they have no fucking business redefining marriage at all. They lead a very dishonest and extremely dangerous lifestyle. Dan Savage is spreading this shit like it’s the “gospel”. Well, he hates religion and that is what this is truly about. Gay people and their supporters against religion. I won’t ever buy into that. Not because I’m religious. I’m not. I can smell the bs percolatin’ in articles like this. Are there bigots out there? Damn right there are. But you can’t have it both ways. You want to support Savage and people like him in the name of “equality”? Be my guest, free country and all. In the end, the truth is all that matters.
unless they’re targeting a specific person in these tweets this guy isn’t doing anything that’s going to help. the people that follow their accounts are likely in the same mindset. he just created a concentrated blend of all the negative comments out there, a shrine for humanity to balk or laugh at. is he hoping it will turn these people around and make them realize how hurtful the things they said were or does he want the greater internet social web to band together and shun them?
“Be my guest, free country and all. In the end, the truth is all that matters.”
I finally have the perfect opening line for my novel!
You understand what @#1 means, right? Whatever, please respond point by point:
1) Do you know any gay people?
2) Gay people want to get married because they hate religion? Do you order a Whopper not because you want a burger, but because you fucking hate Big Macs?
3) If gays lead a “dishonest and extremely dangerous lifestyle,” are you OK with redefining marriage to exclude ALL couples leading either dishonest or extremely dangerous lifestyles? (You don’t say how gays are dishonest, btw)
4) If not, why not?
5) If so, why is it OK to redefine marriage that way for straight people, but not for gay people?
When we’re talking about traditional marriage, are we including bigamy and anti-miscegenation? I’m pretty pro-miscegenation, but I’d be up for some bigamy.
Bigamy just leads to cattiness. Polygamy balances that shit out. You need at least three so there’s a buffer.
@bullnose. THANK YOU for being reasonable. I respect your views but I don’t necessarily agree that is the reasoning behind what Savage is doing. He is trying to bully people with political correctness to further his agenda. Many people buy into it. That’s fine. I don’t. I disagree with the tactics more than anything because it comes from a great deal of dishonesty. If gay people were truthful about their intentions and didn’t use these dishonest slurs against people like me, then maybe I would feel a little differently. Instead, I’m simply, and boy does that term ever apply here, dismissed as “homophobic” or “bigoted” because I support traditional marriage. All their tactics do is create more hostility and more division. People like Savage don’t care as long as he sells his column. Well, if they are drawing a line in the sand, I’m on the side of traditional marriage. I’m sick of the outright lies and all of the haters who just want to divvy up society for their own selfish, greedy agendas. I don’t support zealots or extremists. Ever.
Zealots & Extremists were great at Coachella last year.
You don’t have reasonable opinions against the presumed fully legal love lives of total strangers which don’t affect you at all, instead you have a neurosis and some kind of dumb crisis of masculinity which would be uninteresting and pathetic to us all if it weren’t also screwing up the nation’s politics.
I do have reasonable opinions about people I don’t know. They just happen to include heterosexual people which makes you YOU unreasonable. I don’t want anyone to tell me what to think. What is unreasonable is when people use politically correct but ultimately bogus and divisive slurs against me. That is extremist in my view. Good luck with that.
stjohnsrules,
Your words make me hot. Wanna fuck?
-TSW
PS: I have a dick.
Dude, is that supposed to be shocking? Fail.
You fags really need to grow up. I once supported gay marriage but am full on against it because I truly discovered myself and the agenda is bs..
What I truly discovered is that the straight world got insanely divided and it made many young unsure guys explore their bisexuality because of what the Jews do in the media and crap like that. I always liked women very much, but also felt the need to explore this once things got divided with men and women and I just wanted someone so I tried any angle I could + it never helped that I hung around more liberal punk rock circles in my youth that were pc so if you fell into that world, anything was possible. I had a bisexual gf at a time as well.
I think the institution of marriage in general is BS though not just gay marriage especially these days with the high divorce rate and all.
I asked around a long time ago though and wanted to know how some truly lived and found a few discoveries and there are small gay communities who want to keep to themselves and not push it on others and I can respect that more because then I will never know who they are in person.
I knew this gay guy, I think he was straight in the closet around his gay friends though because he ONLY wanted skinny long haired men and didn’t like any guy with short hair.. He wasn’t like many people I met and he never hit on me despite the fact I had longer hair at the time.. he just complained there was no guys around a lot of the time and he was alone where he lived a lot. I even knew this other long haired gay guy with a goatee in PA, he used “thats gay” to describe certain things and he didn’t like the flamers too much. He ended up getting a hippie looking bf with a beard. Then there were these other gays I came across who were just totally out there like one in some metalhead group of gay guys which is a rarity, he went through West Hollywood with wings on his damn back! pure insanity and you certainly couldn’t reason with him in politics. He often said he wanted to “taste the rainbow” which of course some of you fags know what that means.. he wanted all types. Don’t ask dont tell is perfectly fine with me, I support Chick Fil A and stjohnsrules, you seem to be a decent guy who is seeing the light.. 14/88.