I was recently watching Real Time with Bill Maher. And Bill Maher was talking about Rick Santorum (this was before he dropped out of the race, naturally). Then Maher joked, whatever you do, don’t Google “Santorum”, because you never know what will pop up, or something like that. (BTW, I have included a link to Google. But I still would wait to Google it, until at least you find out what the joke means, like me.) The audience immediately laughed, because it was a dirty joke. Get it?
But I don’t get it. Why is “Santorum” a dirty, presumably sexual, word? No, I was not brought up in a convent. I get most dirty jokes. And to you smart guys out there, no, I genuinely do not know what it means. And I must not be the only one, which is why I ask the question.
I’m sure someone will fill you in on the details, but IIRC there was an internet campaign, started by a gay-rights activist, to come up with a “new definition” of the word “santorum”. Kind of puerile and tasteless, but so are most politicians.
Several years ago, the Rick Santorum made some comments comparing homosexuality to bestiality and in response Dan Savage, a sex advice columnist, held a contest to name a thentofore unnamed sex term in the senator’s honor. Afterwards, he set up a website with the definition ( www.spreadingsantorum.com , possibly NSFW language) and encouraged other sites to link to it, the result being that for many years the site was the first thing that came up when you plugged “santorum” into google.
When google started doing location-specific search results, the first result would either be the person or the substance depending on where you were. In the last month or so, the person is first everywhere and the substance has even been driven off the main page in some places. From what I’ve heard, it’s not entirely clear if this is because Google made some sort of change to their search algorithim or if it was simply because of the inceased internet buzz around Santorum the person as a result of his presidential run.
As one of the (female) guests on The Daily Show after looking it up in the green room, told Jon Stewart, “I’ll never think of the word ‘frothy’ the same again.”
I don’t find the joke very funny. It has no wit to it whatsoever - they just pretend his name means something sexual and disgusting, and they think that’s hilarious. Comedians like Maher and Colbert still do entire bits that basically just involve associating Rick Santorum with the color brown or something. I mean, really? I’m glad Jon Stewart has stopped using the joke.
I feel the same way about “glitter-bombing” incidentally. I think these things reflect really badly on the gay rights movement. “We want to be taken seriously and have our rights respected, so we’re going to make puerile jokes and play annoying pranks with no underlying message at all”.
The underlying message of the redefinition of santorum is that Rick Santorum is extremely bigoted against gay people, and that people who hear his name should be continually reminded of that fact. IMO Dan Savage and his campaign have done an excellent job of associating Rick Santorum with his bigoted views on homosexuality. Of course the fact that Santorum went on to make numerous other unsupported, ridiculous statements has muted the impact somewhat, but it is still the case that the electorate is far more aware of his position on this particular issue than they would otherwise have been.
You missed the whole point, as SpoilerVirgin has already explained. I honestly cannot understand people who don’t comprehend that had this neologism not been coined, Santorum’s incredibly hateful, cruel, and bigoted statements would have been mostly forgotten, lost in the constant stream of political mini-scandals. This way, they’re cemented in stone.
And, uh, most people aren’t “pretending” at least not anymore. In my circles, that word now *does *mean something sexual and disgusting.
Yeah, the beauty of the campaign was that he really did a good job of finding a distinct and tangible phenomenon that really was begging for a name. When Santorum (the person) lost his senate seat and had seemingly faded into obscurity, people were still using the term, some of whom I suspect had no idea who the guy was. I predict the term will outlive rememberance of the man by a good margin. Etymology books of the future will put him next to General Hooker.
Oh please, this is hardly even worth responding to. This isn’t the first time that people in a serious, legitimate movement have used humor - even puerile and annoying humor - to augment their message. Do all tasteless political comedians “reflect badly” on the politics they champion? Puerile and tasteless political humor is as old as politics.
And yeah, why didn’t the OP simply google the word?
Another point: Perhaps someday people like Santorum will learn that offensive ideas have consequences, not just to the people being hurt, but to yourself. Even now that his campaign is over, all I’m hearing from Santorum and his people is that they lost because Romney had more money to throw around. It never occurs to them that they lost a lot of votes because many people found Santorum and his message to be utterly disgusting. The neologism is appropriate, and will outlast the man and his bigotry.
Actually, Googling the name was the first thing I did, and absolutely nothing significant came up (I have to admit, though, I didn’t do an exhaustive search). As someone pointed out, Google must’ve fixed the problem:).
Actually, in hindsight, I should have seen this: Campaign for the neologism "santorum" - Wikipedia, Campaign for Santorum Neologism. But as I said, I didn’t look at what the search brought up too carefully, and I realize perhaps I should have:).
Amusingly, Dan Savage himself has been glitter-bombed, according to Wikipedia, for making transgender unfriendly comments. At least, I find the situation amusing.
