The folks who "decided" it was were by and large people who had disabilities or knew those who did. The reason is that while she was likely intended to only be a clumsy pony (I haven't met anyone who thinks that she was *deliberately* made to be ableist), she unfortunately ended up being a bundle of stereotypes that apply to people with mental and/or physical disabilities--the weird voice (more than one person in discussions on the matter I've seen have said that similar voices/tones were used to taunt them on the basis of their disability when they were young) and the lisp combined with the cross-eyes combined with the destructive clumsiness combined with total ignorance of what she's doing combined with a name that is Internet slang for stupid/mistake
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sorry that was so long! It's just a bit of a complicated issue plus I'm...very wordy DX Overly so. Anyway, I hope this helps a bit with understanding why others are upset, and also helps reassure you no one hates Derpy or wants her pulled : )
No it's fine! Do you have any links to were it was pointed out as offensive/people too offense being disabled themselves? I think reading it in their words might help me to understand why they believe it to be derogatory.
I'll try to find some! I'd copy-paste from the comm but that seems kinda skeevy to me, so I'll go back through the post and look for links. I'm glad you're open to this, like I said a lot of people have been really hostile to those who expressed offense, but I felt like you'd be unlikely to react that way. Glad I was right!
Personally, while I can definitely see why people found her portrayal offensive (I think the voice was the biggest problem), it's pretty obvious that it wasn't intended to be.
Speaking as someone with a disability (mild autism), I find Derpy to be adorable and lovable, and while I agree that the whole voice thing should be worked on, I didn't really have any issues with her portrayal.
So yeah, my thoughts are that basically the voice should probably be changed to something less stereotypically "stupid-sounding", but that other than that there wasn't much of a problem with her?
And I've honestly never heard the word "derpy" used as a term for someone with a mental disability. Ever. The only people I've heard say that it is a slur are, well, people who are against the term. (But if anyone can point me to evidence that people actually do use it as a slur, I'd appreciate it! :D)
Yeah, the voice seems to be what did it for a lot of people; most I've found are fine with her eyes and clumsiness (the name is 50/50) but the addition of the voice, mistake though it was, bothered them most (and they actually want to see MORE of Derpy, just so long as it's in the context of adding to her as a character, not just a slapstick joke). As for the name...y'know, I'm trying hard to find out it's origins and it's just impossible. It seems generally to have become a "thing" via South Park, but someone says that when they went to school in the early 90s, it used to be a thing to say "herp" while moving your hand in a "spastic" manner to convey stupidity, and I found a lineup of people making deliberate "derp" faces with photos of people with actual conditions (Down Syndrome and Cerebral Palsy) mixed in there and it is admittedly hard not to see the former as mocking the latter when it's put like that and the resemblance can be seen. Yet it doesn't seem to have begin initially in relation to that type of face at all
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I think your theory is probably correct, rodentfanatic. I think I did first hear it in South Park, but it was being used as a generic nonsense word (along the lines of "blah blah blah"), if I recall correctly. No one I know has actually used it to refer to disabled people (we might say we "derped" if we made a silly mistake, for instance), and I've only ever seen it used offensively in the aforementioned images of people making faces. That said, I had forgotten about said images, so thanks for mentioning them! :)
I do see a lot of the OMFG SOCIAL JUSTICE!!111 types (mostly on Tumblr) saying that the word "derp" is inherently offensive and not giving any examples, so I was a bit confused there I guess! I just never really saw it as an offensive term?
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Speaking as someone with a disability (mild autism), I find Derpy to be adorable and lovable, and while I agree that the whole voice thing should be worked on, I didn't really have any issues with her portrayal.
So yeah, my thoughts are that basically the voice should probably be changed to something less stereotypically "stupid-sounding", but that other than that there wasn't much of a problem with her?
And I've honestly never heard the word "derpy" used as a term for someone with a mental disability. Ever. The only people I've heard say that it is a slur are, well, people who are against the term. (But if anyone can point me to evidence that people actually do use it as a slur, I'd appreciate it! :D)
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I do see a lot of the OMFG SOCIAL JUSTICE!!111 types (mostly on Tumblr) saying that the word "derp" is inherently offensive and not giving any examples, so I was a bit confused there I guess! I just never really saw it as an offensive term?
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