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YOU MIGHT THINK of gammon as the bottom piece of a side of bacon, but the word has a new context in the UK.
The term ‘gammon’ is being used to describe the complexion of angry middle-aged white people.
The bacon-based insult was popularised by younger voters during the 2017 UK general election to describe a red-faced white male, usually ranting about Brexit and immigrants.
Gammon has since taken over the UK press, with analysis pieces appearing in most publications.
A recent article in The Times UK claims that it is supporters of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn using the term to attack middle-aged men.
The phrase is seen as a response by the left to the term ‘snowflake’, which describes an millennial who’s easily offended.
The gammon and snowflake clash has highlighted the division that still remains between the generations following the Brexit vote.
According to the BBC, gammon gained momentum as an insult in 2017, when a Twitter user posted a collage of contributors to the programme Question Time, with the phrase ‘Great Wall of Gammon’.
Ben Davis / TwitterWhatever happens, hopefully politicians will start listening to young ppl after this. This Great Wall of gammon has had its way long enough. pic.twitter.com/N0ZWI3wMuM
— Ben Davis (@bendavis_86) June 8, 2017
Since then many people in the UK have spoken out against the term, describing it as derogatory and even racist towards older white people.
Democratic Unionist Party MP Emma Little-Pengelly has backed the claims of racism, saying she was appalled by the used of the word.
E Little-Pengelly MP / TwitterI'm appalled by the term "gammon" now frequently entering the lexicon of so many (mainly on the left) & seemingly be accepted. This is a term based on skin colour & age - stereotyping by colour or age is wrong no matter what race, age or community. It is just wrong
— Emma Little-Pengelly BL (@little_pengelly) May 13, 2018
Columnist for the Guardian, Owen Jones, recently wrote that affluent white men are not a race and that white people mocking other white people over their skin colour is not racism.
That right wingers are now pushing the use of the word ‘gammon’ as racism is an age-old example of how the privileged crave a sense of persecution, that they can target genuinely oppressed minorities while claiming they are the real victims.”
This opinion has been echoed by on social media, with many make light of the outrage.
DocHackenbush / TwitterI guess these are racist now. Didn’t see that coming. pic.twitter.com/ui4QGIABAa
— Doc Pumpkinbush 🎃 (@DocHackenbush) May 14, 2018
Dan / Haut/TwitterHow to tell if you might have a bad case of #Gammon.
— Haut🖖 (@HautSpot) May 13, 2018
>"I'm not racist but..."
>Conflation of strength & violence.
>Taking personal credit for historical acts.
>Feeling marginalised when others ask for equal privilege.
>Lack of empathy.
>Anger issues.
>Fragile bigoted views. pic.twitter.com/GQ20BKLaEJ
The debate surrounding the term gammon might seem benign but in a piece published today by Ben Davis, he explains how this debate is an insight into how online conversations are going.
As Davis coined the term gammon, we will leave the last word to him.
Ultimately, though, what started out as a daft meme has become just another weapon in Twitter’s never-ending culture war. The right will call you “cucks”, the left will call you “gammons”, nothing will change and I will sit back and realise that even though I have had seven books published, my biggest impact on popular culture is noticing that some blokes looked like salty meat. I think I need another drink.”
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What a time to be alive.
@Robbie Delaney: after that article, any image of a Healy Raes head makes me start drooling as I dream of a nice lump of juicy gammon accompanied by a bulger wheat salad while drink driving. Mmmmm dangerlicious
@Robbie Delaney: The left can’t meme
@Billy Connelly: ahhhh never eating gammon again after that comment!!
Personally, as soon as I hear or read somebody using terms like “snowflake”, “gammon”, MSM”, “virtue signalling” etc., I lose all interest in what that person is saying for two reasons; firstly, if they have to use ad hominum insults then there is no substance to what they are saying, and secondly the people who use these terms are generally just sheep following the vogue.
@Tom Purcell: Maybe you should just judge people for what they say regardless of the words they use. Some of the words you use as examples are actually useful and describe real things. Sure “snowflake” and “gammon” are silly but virtue signalling is real; people who say something to look and feel good but ultimately don’t follow through with the action they promised. The MSM is a thing. If they make out it’s all a bunch of lies just because then I’m with you but it is a thing and can be used in rational conversations about old and new media.
@Tom Purcell: Sheep? Pigs? It’s all getting terribly Animal Farm. I need another drink.
Owen Jones states “affluent white men are not a race and that white people mocking other white people over their skin colour is not racism”. It may not be racism but it definitely provides the ammunition for racism in the near future. The fact that he can’t see this speaks volumes. Mocking someone because of their skin colour is rather juvenile and petty regardless of what race is involved and given that a large majority of Corbyn supporters are non white I fail to see how this is only a white against white issue.
@Dj: What a little baizou.
@Dj: White people calling other white people “gammon” isn’t racist just like black people calling other black people “ni**as” isn’t racist.
White people calling black people “ni**as” is racist. However black people calling white people “gammon” is not racist.
That’s just the rules. I don’t know who made them but we should just accept that that’s the way it is.
@Dj: It’s not really mocking them because of their skin colour, though, is it. It’s mocking them for being frothy-mouthed, irate, bile-spouting individuals. It just so happens that a lot of them also happen to white gentlemen of a certain age and girth whose faces turn red when they get angry.
@Féach News: All us honkys look the same anyway…
@Calum Benson: OK then. What do they call frothy mouthed, irate , bile spouting individuals who aren’t white? Do they use racial slurs for them behind closed doors?
@Dj: “given that a large majority of Corbyn supporters are non white…”.???
The heart and soul of the Labour party in Britain were the working class who because it is a European country just happened to be white. Now Labour’s central committee of lofty lefties look down with pure disdain on the party’s core. They’re middle &upper class (mostly upper class) self-loathing white lefties who spent years in Oxford & Cambridge running to their safe spaces, with no clue or care about the ordinary working man, especially if he’s white. That they use a middle eastern slur to describe their own race shows what contempt they have for the people their party had been established to fight for &how the left is just completely up its own backside
Gammon steak is not the same anymore, industrial pig meat is even worse than chicken!
@wrong side: here here
@New Property: Where where
Nothing a pineapple slice can’t sweeten!
I can’t deal with this world any more! I really can’t. People are all a shower of morons these days! Remember when people were intelligent enough to recognise satire and humor and not take it personally and/or get outraged because “it may offend someone, somewhere”. Liberal society is actually having the reverse effect, where everything must be monitored, censored and destroyed should it be deemed not to fit into the new “social norm”. Opinions are dead in our modern Ireland, you must conform or be chastised!
@Mr. H: Don’t worry friend, it’s always darkest before the dawn… and the sun is just peeking above the horizon at the moment :-)
Racial slurs are cool again!
A now anti semetic party using pig meat as a descript for those who don’t conform with their outpouring. Diane Abbot will try defend it on the media.
Two sets of insufferable eejits.
If these grumpy old white English men eat like pigs, sweat like pig, and squeal like pigs, then they must taste like bacon.
“What’s up with it Vanilla face? Me and my homie Azamat just parked our slab outside”.
Go back one article and all the lads on here are moaning because people get easily offended by a woman being reduced to a hole. Move here and it’s a different case. As usual double standards.
Just the useful idiots of the left doing the Islamists work for them again by using this version of their favorite insult.
Happy Ramadan, suckers!
@Mick Byrne: Nobody could describe the idiots of the right as useful.
@Mick Byrne: Get a life ffs!
Mmmmmmm gammon! slussp
No leave gammon alone
The word has been around years and because it’s a current slang word people are offended?
Do they want it banned now
Wonder what word will offensive next?
I hope it’s offensive myself
And there’s me thinking that snowflake and honkey where derogatory term used by a black person about a white person and gammon was part of a pig. Go figure.
Lol, middle aged people pointing their finger at aul lads and calling themselves ‘young ppl’. Facking Nora.
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