Letting Your Fuck Flag Fly

Trigger warning: This story contains frequent use of the “F” word.

Trigger warning: This story contains frequent use of the “F” word.

I’ve always said that flags are bumper stickers for your house, but I never took seriously the idea that people would start turning bumper stickers into actual flags.

Now, before anyone reaches for pearls to clutch, saying, “Fuck X” where X is the current president has been part of the American political dialogue for a long time.

I remember seeing “Fuck Bush” bumper stickers early in this century. “Fuck X” has since replaced Don’t Blame Me I Voted (other party) bumper stickers. This story isn’t about national politics or whether or not a U.S. president deserves a fuck flag.

What I want to look at is whether “fuck” now has normal word status, or if it only is acceptable in flag and bumper sticker form.

For example, if there were kids playing out in front of the house and I were to politely ask, “Hey, kids, where the fuck is your mom/dad?” would the parent have any right to object to my use of the language?

Comfortable as Fuck

I don’t mind using “fuck” in regular conversation. It bothered my dad when he was alive and continues to bother my mom. I believe they think it’s crass, that it indicates a moral or at least social failing on all of our parts when used in mixed company.

I don’t happen to agree, but I try and respect their wishes, which means reminding my children not to curse when we visit.

I don’t really have rules about cursing in my house except don’t get me in trouble with my mom. A secondary rule, “Try not to be tedious” applies tangentially to swearing. I know I’m breaking that rule in this story, but it’s for effect.

What I’m getting at is I am not at all repulsed by the fuck sign this person erected for their immediate neighbors to contemplate while they’re having their morning coffee or coming home from a hard day at the office.

I have to say I’m a little bothered by the fact that more people aren’t bothered. I also know that I’ll be tempted until the day I die to just fly a flag that says, “Fuck” in front of my house.

I found one on Amazon that said, “FUCK YOU” in neon green on a black field. Beneath, in smaller type is said, “YOU FUCKING FUCK.” This both appealed to me and would be nostalgic, crest-worthy, even.

During one giddy lockdown day (week?) last year, my wife, my youngest daughter, and I started appending every question with it in our best Dennis Farina voices: “Could you pass the pepper, you fuckin’ fuck?”

The thing is, I know it would bother my neighbors to have to see my “Fuck You, You Fuckin’ Fuck” flag day in and day out.

I guess, as much as an advocate as I am for the normalization of “fuck” I don’t want to force people to deal with it so that I can feel like I’m making a difference.

That’s what I don’t get about this guy’s flag.

Delmar is a super conservative town. I honestly think “Fuck Biden” could make a run at town motto if it were ever put up for a vote, so there’s no telling who the “And Fuck You for Voting for Him” tagline is for.

I’ve said this about the Confederate flags in my neighborhood and the upside down American flags in my neighborhood, and even those misguided blue line flags in my neighborhood: It must be a horrible thing to fly a flag in anger.

I mean, as far as a lawn decoration expressing happiness, flags used to be just behind balloons and pinwheels, now they’re a lot closer to flaming crosses.

IRL Trolling from the Comfort of Your Own Home

I don’t know why it bothers me that flags increasingly have become instruments of hate since decorative flags don’t really matter to me one way or the other. My bullshit explanation, based solely on my gut reaction, has to do with people feeling voiceless.

I write on the internet and get weekly reports about how few people read what I write. Even a few thousand readers doesn’t “feel” like many, especially on the internet. Most of my writing stays in the triple digits unless I’m trashing local puppetmasters.

How Long Can We Sustain Permanent Outrage Culture?
The world isn’t made of blood allies and nemesesbytonyrusso.medium.com

When a person spends their day sharing Facebook memes and not getting traction, they have to feel as if they’re not being heard.

I mean, that’s what trolling is all about, making someone you don’t like know how much you don’t like them.

With walled-off audiences (I’m thinking this person and I are not Facebook friends, for instance) and tightened social media content rules, it is getting more difficult to say something vile to someone with whose ideology you disagree.

Of course, it isn’t that they’re not being heard so much as they’re not saying anything interesting or even worth acknowledging, and it’s driving them nuts.

When the internet goes from salving your impotence to reenforcing it, you need to prove that you can have an effect, that you are a real person with value, not just some troll.

In your blind, impotent anger you buy a mass-marketed flag that says what you think no one else has the balls to say. Sneering with self-righteous satisfaction, you slap that motherfucker up on your front porch and say, “That’ll show ‘em.”

But it doesn’t. And it won’t. And rather than try and figure out why, you just get angrier as your fuck flag becomes part of your persona. The next thing you know, it’s Christmas time and when you step back and look at your festive decorations, you don’t even see the flag anymore.

Or maybe you do, but you don’t give a fuck. After all, standing by your beliefs is what Christmas is all about.

Join Medium - Tony Russo
As a Medium member, a portion of your membership fee goes to writers you read, and you get full access to every story…bytonyrusso.medium.com

Tony Russo is a journalist and author of “Dragged Into the Light: Truthers, Reptilians, Super Soldiers, and Death Inside an Online Cult.” Subscribe to his newsletter here.