• @GenderNeutralBro
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    6 months ago

    For context, original lyrics:

    Don’t wanna be an American idiot
    Don’t want a nation under the new media
    And can you hear the sound of hysteria?
    The subliminal mind fuck America

    Welcome to a new kind of tension
    All across the alienation
    Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
    Television dreams of tomorrow
    We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
    For that’s enough to argue

    Well maybe I’m the faggot America
    I’m not a part of a redneck agenda
    Now everybody do the propaganda
    And sing along to the age of paranoia

    Welcome to a new kind of tension
    All across the alienation
    Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
    Television dreams of tomorrow
    We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
    For that’s enough to argue

    Don’t want to be an American idiot
    One nation controlled by the media
    Information age of hysteria
    It’s calling out to idiot America

    Welcome to a new kind of tension
    All across the alienation
    Where everything isn’t meant to be okay
    Television dreams of tomorrow
    We’re not the ones who’re meant to follow
    For that’s enough to argue

    Super tame.

    In the New Year’s show, they changed “a redneck agenda” to “the MAGA agenda”. Okay, little bit more explicitly partisan, but basically the same thing.

    • @pyromaster55@lemmy.world
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      1466 months ago

      And yet, as a leftist redneck, I whole heartedly approve of the change.

      Feel a little more seen, even if it doesn’t mean anything.

      • @ZoopZeZoop@lemmy.world
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        206 months ago

        I’ve known many rednecks who were good people. If you aren’t hurting people, you do you, friend! Also, chunk those punkins!

        • @chrishazfun@lemmy.world
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          56 months ago

          In my experience, rednecks (chavs and bogans too) are at worst just really callous, well intentioned and imo would rather consider their opinion on something and try to make conversation to understand than someone intentionally aligning themselves with people who’re literally using some Austrian with a shitty staches manual.

    • @TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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      1266 months ago

      “a redneck agenda” to “the MAGA agenda”

      If MAGA as a name for these people had existed then, they would have used it. They’re the same people.

    • AlienInAMask
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      6 months ago

      I think part of the problem (aside from people that don’t ever listen to the words in songs) is less that the song/green day is apolitical in their interpretation, but more that for a lot of people the word “politics” means partisan politics. Being explicitly about a party or one of their core issues is what makes something 𝓅𝑜𝓁𝒾𝓉𝒾𝒸𝒶𝓁 to them.

      • @hex_m_hell@slrpnk.net
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        96 months ago

        What is and is not political is defined by oppressors. Their crosses, punisher skulls, and blue lives matter stickers are not political. The atheist symbol, antifa arrows, and black lives matter stickers are political. A keffiyeh is a political statement, but an IDF shirt isn’t. “Political” functionally means “talking about your oppression or the oppression of others.”

      • @Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        55 months ago

        JSYK, using special characters to write “political” like that doesn’t work with screen readers. Best case scenario it skips the word entirely, worst case it reads out the name of each special character individually.

    • DreamButt
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      236 months ago

      It’s tame by today’s standards but at the time it got quite a few people in a tizzy

    • Aviandelight
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      166 months ago

      Well that change in lyrics certainly got the point across. 😂

      • cheesepotatoes
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        6 months ago

        Its usage in the song is not derogatory. It’s meant to highlight the offensiveness of it and to cast the speaker as one of the disenfranchised of America.

        It’s controversial, I suppose, but it’s meant to make a point. Changing it would just diminish it.

      • @meowMix2525@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        As the other commenter said, it’s not derogatory. He’s taking a word that’s been used to belittle and dismiss him and people that share his views, owning it, and using it to fire back against those that would use it against him in that way.

        Basically, “Call me gay* (ok, like that’s supposed to be a bad thing? Watch me call myself gay lol) but at least I’m not a dumb idiot follower of the redneck/MAGA agenda.”

        To me, it’s like a more sophisticated “I know you are but what am I?”, if you will. He’s so unphased by the label that he uses it for himself with little hesitation, thus stripping its power as an insult against him. Hence why he fires back with a new, more critical put-down. It’s meant to hit them (someone that would call someone else gay or a faggot* as an insult) where it hurts, in the same way that person has meant to hurt others by using those terms derogatorily. He’s literally naming and shaming the bigotry of the time.

        *And yes I know the term faggot has some nasty origins, but it was colloquially just a much more rude/derogatory way to say “gay person” when this song came out. I highly doubt the majority of people that used it were actually thinking that critically about it. The song itself at least very clearly does not mean it in the original sense.