One thing I think about a lot is how thoughtless insults can hurt way more people than the intended target, even if said target deserves it

Let’s look at an example with some hypothetical, misogynistic, racist nerd (lol who ever heard of one of those!!). They say something to you that a misogynistic, racist nerd would say, and you call them a “gross fat nerd” in response. Is insulting them justified? I think so. But even if that person deserves it, using “fat” as an insult ever a good thing, if only because it reinforces the idea that being fat is something worth insulting

That doesn’t just harm the misogynist though. They may deserve it, but it’s damaging to people who don’t deserve it, people who have to deal with being called “fat” as an insult every day because of systems and biases built on the concept that being fat is a bad thing. Systems reinforced by fat jokes and use of “fat” as an insult

That’s a general example though. A specific one I remember seeing on here is a post where someone mentioned wanting to get a sugar daddy or something. And of course some dudebro had some sexist, slut-shaming commentary for that, and the OP responded to them by saying “you sound poor” as an insult. When I saw it on my dash it had tens of thousands of notes. People were in agreement with that statement because, hey, he’s a sexist dudebro, let him have it! But calling anyone poor as an insult reinforces classist notions and is damaging to poor people as a result. It’s a lousy thing to do in general.

The problem is, so many groups of people are considered fair game to insult and criticize that you can’t call someone out for making that kind of comment without looking like you’re offended yourself. It doesn’t matter what’s being said. If I had reblogged that “you sound poor” post and called the OP out, I’d look like an offended misogynist. It’s very frustrating because I don’t WANT to defend crappy sexist dudes, I want people to not use “poor” as an insult, ever

This is all very poorly worded and I apologize for that. The solution I guess isn’t to defend individuals who have wronged others and deserve a petty insult or two, but to simply be more careful with your words. To be clear, I’m not saying not to generalize (“I hate men” and stuff like that, which I personally take no issue with, but that’s an entirely different topic that I’m not gonna broach). I’m not gonna try and make everyone get along. But if you must insult somebody, consider how many people you may be hurting with your word choice because you want to make ONE person feel bad