With so many petitions out there that achieve precisely jack shit for anybody, it's hard to imagine that anything significant can change after a single complaint. But it turns out that sometimes a vocal minority can make a world of difference, even if that minority is exactly one person and his or her complaint is completely stupid.

5 A Single Complaint Gets a Song Banned in Canada ... 26 Years After It Comes Out

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In January 2011, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) decided that the Dire Straits song "Money for Nothing" just wasn't fit for polite society and banned unedited versions from radio station playlists. The ban was the result of a single complaint, when one Newfoundland listener took issue with the song's use of the word "faggot," which, to be fair, does appear three times in the second verse:

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See the little faggot with the earring and the makeup

Yeah buddy that's his own hair

That little faggot got his own jet airplane

That little faggot he's a millionaire

That may even seem like a pretty valid complaint, if you don't know any more of the story -- you can't just write a song that flings words like that around willy-nilly. But it's the context that make this whole thing ridiculous.

First, that song was released in 1985, which means that it graced the airwaves for 26 years without incident until that single complaint made everyone suddenly realize that the lyric might be problematic. Second, there's the context of the words themselves (hint: the singer is playing the role of the "faggot" in the tale).

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As denoted by the pink headband, worn by all homosexuals in the 1980s as a means of identification.

For those who are only vaguely aware that the song has something to do with microwave ovens and MTV, "Money for Nothing" was cobbled together from quotes that lead singer Mark Knopfler overheard from a deliveryman in an electronics store. Sung from his point of view as he watches MTV video clips in the store display, it's a parody of what guys like him think about pop stars, oblivious to the fact that the guy he was ranting at was, in fact, a huge pop star.