EclecticWarrior wrote:
I would say the usage of "gay" in this context has decreased since LGBT rights went mainstream, but I still hear people say the R-word to describe things they don't like and think they don't mean anything by it. I don't like it, but as you say it's become part of youth slang in particular.
I agree with this, I think "that's so gay" has decreased in usage over the last decade to a point where sooner or later it'll become obsolete (such as "bad" meaning "good", for one). However, when it was still in popular use, I think it was a lot more mean-spirited in context than the "R-word" tends to be. I'm not implying that every person who used "gay" in that sense was acting out of malicious intent, but it's pretty undeniable that the origins of using that word in a negative context is rooted in one form or another of homophobia. I sincerely doubt it was, for instance, an ironic reversal of "gay" meaning "happy". Either way, not a fan.