A reader quotes me:
“But ‘NoHomo’ is almost entirely an ugly, nasty prejudice.” I think you may be misunderstanding the colloquialism. “No homo” is a jokey addendum that means, “even though what I just said sounds gay, I’m not gay.” As in, “David Beckham is one handsome motherfucker, no homo.” I suppose it still communicates some level of level of prejudice if used without irony, since it implies that it’s important not to be mistaken for gay, but in context it’s usually not hateful. I don’t think I’ve ever heard it used to mean “there should be no homos.”
Many ironic and NSFW examples of “No Homo” can be heard above. Another reader:
I just felt it necessary to point out that the recent spike for “No Homo” in your graph is an anomaly. After Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals last Saturday, Pacers center Roy Hibbert made (what I thought was a clever and NOT rhetorically-charged) joke with “no homo” as the punch line. This set off all sorts of discussion, cost him $75,000 (plus whatever future endorsements he loses) and likely spiked the Twitter traffic of “No Homo”. You may recognize Mr. Hibbert from his brief time working for Tom Haverford’s Entertainment 720, and without getting further into the weeds than I already did on Reddit, his use of “No Homo” really was a well-crafted inversion of “that’s what she said”.
The Hibbert clip is here to see for yourself. In the same press conference he also called reporters “motherfuckers”, which was probably the main reason for the $75,000 fine. Update from a reader:
This is not true. The size of that fine was a direct result of his “no homo” line, and the league has been really vocal about this. David Stern, the commissioner of the league, said, “While Roy has issued an apology, which is no doubt sincere, a fine is necessary to reinforce that such offensive comments will not be tolerated by the NBA.” He’s not referring to the word “motherfucker” here, and Hibbert’s apology was not in regards to the word “motherfucker.” For what it’s worth, Hibbert seems like a smart and intelligent dude, and his apology sounded sincere.
