Theoretically, they may not ever be mature enough for one, at any age, heh. It's probably better that they work through mistakes while they're young enough that A. the stakes are a bit lower and B. they still have you around. Rather than "protecting" them from their own immaturity such that they potentially crash and burn the moment they leave the nest. Without different philosophies, there wouldn't be interesting discussions!
WHAT?!? Even the most mature kid is not mature enough to realize all the shit you think they should. But I'm sure your kid is the lone exception.
It's certainly a dark one. The simple truth about teenage boys is that they're terrified that they are gay or that someone else is going to think they're gay. They often use homophobic language as a sort of preemptive strike to make sure they're not the target of homophobic scrutiny. As I have been reading this thread and it got into parents trying to control their children and possible religious persecution of those in the LGBT community it got me thinking about all the potential professional athletes that grow up trying to carefully cultivate their image. It doesn't look like Collins is one of those. He seems like a stand kid raised with the internet that just spouts what he's thinking. Going with that theory I feel kinda good that we found a homophobic tweet from five years ago. If he were really a homophobe we'd have found a lot more.
It was absolutely suggestive! Posting a link called "Zach Collins' old tweets as a kid" would've been fine and on topic. Posting a thread called "Zach Collins homophobe?" is inflammatory. I'm personally offended by the thread title and I vote to change it. We're the official message board of the Blazers and we just drafted this teenager. Now we're gonna bash him? Let's stay classier than that.
Oh look, people getting outraged over a 14 year old tweets and assuming anybody who refers to anything as gay isn't a homophobic bigot. Come on guys, this is virtue signaling at its finest. This is what the kids say. Including me at 25. Yes, I say gay to people close to me. Am I homophobic no. Am I secretly gay? No I have been in a relationship for five years. People need to chill. Words are words, people give the, power. Gay used to mean happy. Fag wasn't even a slur originally. We grew up calling our friends gay and the meaning was entirely different. It's incredibly stupid to get upset about a 14 year olds tweets or anybody who says that unless the intent is to directly attack a gay person. All about context and intent
Who in the forum is outraged? I call BS on this. I'm sure you called your friends gay but you were teasingly calling them homosexual. Gay hasn't been used for happy since before your dad was born.
I meant more so people on the internet outside the forum are outraged and virtue signaling. Doesn't matter that gay hasn't been used in that way for that long. Same with fag. They meant different things at one point. I have grown up in the time gay meant stupid or whatever and can tell you we used it and still use it but pretty rarely these days not to describe anything homosexual. I mean you won't get it. I don't expect you too.
If he was a Lakers, GSW, Knicks or Clippers this thread would have been a lot more fun. Zach Collins is a Blazers so everything is OK.
I get it. It's not like you're generation has suddenly come up with a new meaning for gay, lol. You first said that gay meant happy and that you used to call your friends gay. I called BS on that and you immediately agreed with me. You were not meaning happy when you called your friends gay, you meant stupid. Point being is that you weren't using gay as a compliment or expression of happiness like you originally claimed. See, I knew you weren't a neckbeard, I know you aren't calling women milady and wishing everyone Gay Birthday!
The thing is, the fact that you and your friends used gay as a synonym for stupid or unmanly is based first on the fact that gay meant homosexual. If the word didn't have that meaning first, you wouldn't subsequently use it as a pejorative. The implication, then, is that homosexuality is negative, as is the activity or characteristic you were describing as "gay". It's not difficult to follow the linguistic evolution.
I remember hearing a friend say "hey, the word really means happy!" So I asked him "are you telling me, that you're really just calling me a happy wad?"
