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[theatokos]

Can some one please explain to me the whole "teh gay" misspelling? Why has this caught on so? Many blogs and posts use this construction and I don't get it. "Catching teh gay" It just sounds awkward in my head when I read it and it's awkward when I say it out loud. Is it to mock people who think being gay is a communicable condition?

Comments

[goddessofmercy.livejournal.com]

i don't know if this is the "official" explanation, but as far as i know it's a fandom thing. basically people in fandom kept typing stuffing about "the gay," generally in reference to slash fic, and they often typed it wrong as is bound to happen when you are excitedly typing something about two men having sex. relatively soon the incorrect typing became a fandom thing, a way for fandom to reference slash in their own way. there is also the fandom version "teh pr0n" for "the porn."

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Weird how this stuff migrates.

[goddessofmercy.livejournal.com]

fandom has a lot of weird little things like that. weird little titles or tags that relate to ships and fic and rpgs and that sort of thing. i find it fun, fascinating and a little frustrating sometimes.

[erinya.livejournal.com]

I've seen it as "teh ghey," and yeah, I think it's mocking the intelligence of people who subscribe to that kind of hysteria. It probably has some obscure origin like the "I'm in ur" catchphrase.

Ghey (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ghey).

[ewigweibliche.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what is being communicated in that last sentence. I'll just go hang out with the granny Luddites now.

[erinya.livejournal.com]

"I'm in ur base, killin ur doods" is a phrase that originated in a multiplayer online game (Starcraft, I think,) and is one of those viral phrases adapted for all kinds of situations, especially in cat (http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Image:Dictionary_Cat.jpg) macros (http://www.roflcats.com/page5.html).

This useless information on internet culture brought to you by Erin's copious and much-wasted free time.

[hrafntinna.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one paying attention to this.

Incidentally, I thing the pronunciation of "teh" is the same as "the." I'm thinking of "pwn," which as far as I know is pronounced "own."

I really dig the way the typographic sign shears away from sound in places like this.

[eelsalad.livejournal.com]

I dunno, my hubby and I talk in leet/net speak a lot (because we're huge dorks) and we always pronounce things phonetically:

pwn = pone
teh = teh
sux0r = sucksor
pr0n = prawn
omgwtfbbq = oh em gee, dubya tee ef, be be cue?

etc.

We've always used it quasi-ironically, to mock folks of the opinions we are imitating. So yeah, (to return to the original question) "catching teh gay!" is a phrase one would use to mock people who think homosexuality is communicable.

And you're definitely not the only person paying attention to this. I've read entire essays on the cat macro pidgin evolution and the various categories of cat macro (also on where the phrase "cat macro" comes from).

[hrafntinna.livejournal.com]

I guess I meant not the only one around here. The scholarship on this stuff is getting interesting. You should see the crap I dug up on Spanish SMS.

As for pronunciation, I think the truth is that I don't say this out loud terribly often.