I can’t now remember where I saw this but I recall someone writing about the Internet term “based” assuming that it’s origin was that it was the opposite of “debased” which is a synonym for depraved or degenerate. “Based” then would logically be the antonym of “debased”. Although it has more or less come to mean exactly this and the presumption of the writer was logical enough, it’s actual origins are far less rational than this. In reality it originates with a rapper called “Lil B” AKA “THE BASED GOD”. Wikipedia’s article refers to an earlier use of the term relating to cocaine and claims it was “co-opted” during #GamerGate which is true in the same way that “gay” was “co-opted” by sodomites and was appropriated as a pejorative in retaliation. From here, it spread to the right-wing with phrases like “based and redpilled” becoming more common over the last decade.
The more absurd truth about it’s origin has me wondering what might be true about the origin of many other words and phrases now in common use. As an example, we trace many neologisms to Shakespeare though he was known to do a lot of borrowing and so it is just as likely he did not invent half of what is now attributed to him. It is amusing to wonder just how much overthinking may have been done with etymology over the centuries.
Another phrase that has become more common (at least in Internet parlance), is “fake and gay” which has its origins in the golden age of the Internet and hilariously on 4chan where a real leaked intelligence report was dismissed as “fake and gay” by the Anon legions. Yet much like “BASED”, there is more truth to it than it’s surface origins suggest.
To get the definitions of each word out of the way, “fake” as generally understood just means not real or genuine. “Gay” used to be a synonym for happy or joyful in common use. Reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe gives a good idea of how it used to be used in English. Another example (if you’re old enough), is The Flintstones theme song where the audience is told three times “we’ll have a gay old time” which now has a considerably different connotation to modern ears. As mentioned this now refers to same-sex “relationships” which is a more delicate way to refer to sodomy. This new meaning of the word was quickly adopted as a pejorative on school grounds and in sport fields and certainly common when I was growing up. Calling someone “gay” was generally meant as an insult and using it to describe something like clothing usually implied it was effeminate or just “lame” — another word that has changed somewhat from it’s original meaning. At least in the mainstream, calling anyone or anything “gay” as a pejorative is considered rude and public figures have to avoid it. As a quick example, professional sportsmen in the Australian Football League (AFL) get a harsher punishment for a gay slur than they do for getting in physical fights. The linked example punished a player with a five match suspension and mandatory “sensitivity training” though never revealing what was actually said. The authors of the same article also believe these absurdly draconian punishments don’t go far enough.
I have gone on a bit of a tangent above but I think it does give more context to why “fake and gay” has become so widely used. The main way is to simply dismiss false narratives without wasting time engaging in argument. A quick example would be dismissing the COVID hysteria from not very long ago as “fake and gay”. It could also be for something more trivial such as a claim from a guy who has an “uncle that works for Nintendo“.
What is more interesting though and the reason for this post was how well it describes so many conservative/right-wing public figures. Fake is also another way of describing someone or something that has been “propped up” or “astroturfed”. I am going to avoid specific names as examples but it is not hard to discover a rather large list of people under this category; many who persist in their assigned roles as of writing.
As for gay, while it is no longer considered controversial to “come out” so to speak, it does still have a negative effect on how you are perceived if you’re associated with the political right in any way. There is at least one politician in the English-speaking world who went to their grave without revealing what is considered an open secret and I may have hinted at another one elsewhere on this blog. I can also name off the top of my head a number of other figures who were unwillingly pushed out of the proverbial closet though they usually deny or obfuscate when exposed. Most of these are suspected of (if not confirmed), to have received backing from shadowy figures. So describing many of these people “fake and gay” is apt because they literally are.
Further, it is much easier to describe the clown world in which we live as that because so much of what is claimed to true about our society is false. We’re more and more told we live in a democracy while the public will is ignored whenever it interferes with the interests of the powerful. We’re told we have “freedom” while most of these rights are increasingly limited by threatening people’s livelihoods if they don’t comply such as the example in the AFL above. To this is now being added legislation with penalties that are harsher than those given for property crimes and even violent or sexual assault. This is coupled with the ever worsening sexual degeneracy within society which are the only “freedoms” allowed as long as we’re at minimum, giving silent assent. The old joke about having to participate may not be too far around the corner either.
This is so much the case that often knowing what is true is seeing what is in opposition to this.