Fighting Words

**Fighting Words** (also known as "F\*\*got PSA")is a fad created by MurdarMachene, on May 25, 2006, based on a scene from the "Fighting Words" PSA (Public Service Announcement) aired on and produced in association with MTV. It featured a montage of kids threateningly approaching and yelling homophobic remarks at the camera, then a few words from Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, a boy who was brutally murdered by two young men solely for being homosexual.

The humor in the fad stems from the grossly exaggerated presentation of the actors in the commercial portraying verbal and physical abuse towards a theoretical homosexual individual. All of the actors are stomping towards this individual in an unrealistically dark and completely empty school hallway. Despite the dark conditions, several of the actors are wearing sunglasses, most likely in an attempt to look "cool" or "badass". The audio soundtrack for the PSA includes frightening static and distortion type samples, as well as menacing "Terminator"-like synthesizers droning along. The majority of the actors overreact to the presence of a homosexual, outright shouting homophobic insults despite the likely presence of a school employee within the general area that would punish them for doing so. The culmination of these gross exaggerations is a large, fat bully-like character outright screaming "F\*\*GOT!", in a manner so outrageous as to appear hilarious both within the context of the ad and even more so in the context of a derivative YTMND. While it is true that homophobic insults and threats do happen in high school quite often, it is hard-pressed to assume any of the portrayals in the commercial are anywhere near realistic. Because of this, the PSA basically completely backfires, probably causing people to laugh more than care about the real message of the PSA.

In a later PSA featuring Judy Shepard, the fat guy's scream is used in an even more outrageous context, edited to contain a huge amount of reverb and playing immediately as a photo of Matthew Shepard appears on the screen. The scene is obviously in completely poor taste and seemingly the producers of this commercial must have finally gotten the hint that it was completely inappropriate and edited out the fat guy's scream in future versions of this alternate PSA.

Fad sites usually feature the fat guy quote edited into other fads or situations. Some sites feature the other kids from the PSA as well. The fad has existed for quite a while but still retains enough popularity to pop up quite often. A significant example of the continuing popularity of this fad is the site "Ghostbusters Tormented" which reached #1 on top viewed in April 2008 for a period of 12 hours, nearly two years after the creation of the fad.

For obvious reasons, many of these sites are tagged as NSFW.

## Links

https://faggotpsa.ytmnd.com/ - Original site by **MurdarMachene**

https://rikhan.ytmnd.com/ - Another by **DarthWang**

https://gb2.ytmnd.com/ - Another by **chrisj787**

https://hqf.ytmnd.com/ - Another by **DonaldMcRonald**

https://comer.ytmnd.com/ - Another by **DarthWang**

https://faggotchristmas.ytmnd.com/ - Another by **EmoKiller**