Offensive posters for sale at freshers' week

[ImJustMadAboutSaffron]

I'm a university lecturer. I have been out and about on freshers' week to different buildings and come across a poster sale that is on for a few days. There are several options for sale, Harry Styles, Blink 182, Stranger Things, Billie Eilish, Mabel, lots of different ones. But three I find really offensive, and I imagine some students would, too:

A Buddha with the wording "Don't be a Ct"
A poster with "Fk Off" in different coloured fonts
Another with the same words taking up the whole poster

Asterisks mine. Think I am repressed if you like, I don't care!

We definitely had posters like that in the 90s!!!

Love the Buddha one!! I love the word cunt though. I like the message, its funny and true. A great summary.

Young people (in general) love a bit of sweary rebellion/shock factor. My most treasured possession at 20 was a t-shirt that read "Fuck Fashion - this is Style". I'd have been overjoyed to offend you 🤷

What a great article!

Trust me its not remotely new... maybe you where just very sheltered.

Do you think they just invented the phrase 'fuck off'? Its been a thing among teens since at LEAST the 80s.

Being offended is a choice. Why should your values and opinions take primacy over those of others?

The posters are supposed to be offensive.

They're teenagers who have mostly just left home for the first time, and they're subconsciously seeking to present themselves to their peers as assertive and streetwise. As opposed to "doormat who will do everyone else's washing up".

Just surreptitiously roll your eyes and thank your stars you've grown out of all that.

Being offended is a choice.

It isn't really, but that doesn't mean it must be right.

There were posters like that when I was at uni 30+ years ago. Generally punk orientated that people got very boot faced about.

Teens think it's cool to "push the boundaries" 🤷

I got complimented throughout my mid teens to mid 20s for a t-shirt that said 'Men are Shit' on the tits in very small print... funny, it was only ever men that seemed to noticed.

That was back in the 00s so swearing on things was definitely around then but older vintage stuff I had had swearing on too.

I went to a uni in the US whose mascot is a fighting gamecock. You don't want to know some of the T-shirts, bumper stickers etc. around campus. Just let your imagination run wild. Nobody was offended. BTW, I went to uni in 1980.

I was at uni in the late 90s and had a poster of Jarvis Cocker giving the V sign, and another of the famous Trainspotting Choose Life rant on my hall of residence bedroom wall. So I'm not sure you're right there.

The only one that made me wince was the Buddha one. I don’t believe in Buddhism at all but I don’t like it. I hate the needless distortion of wording. But then I also hate Be Kind. Thankfully I don’t have to look at it.

I was a student in the 90s and posters I remember were Van Gogh's sunflowers except it was pot leaves, and renaissance angels smoking spliffs 😂 was glamourising drug use any less offensive than profanity?

Also as a university professor I'm sure you'll be well aware of the correlation between swearing and higher intelligence?

I thought you were going to say they had racist or sexist or violent connotations.. I think they’re aimed at young students and they’re not really as offensive to most people as you found them.. I’d be a bit annoyed if my son had a poster with the C word on it in his living room and I’d say it’s horrid and could well cause offence but I couldn’t get any more worked up than that.

Wouldn't bother me in the slightest. It's just words that are not directed at anyone in particular.

The other day my daughter told me I have cunty eyebrows, apparently it's a good thing. Now that made me raise one of my cunty eyebrows, but once she had explained that it was good I let it go.

Sounds like standard a student poster sale. I find it really unlikely that you are lecturer if you are shocked by students liking to hang posters with swear words on their walls. You know, sometimes they even use them in classes...

I think a poster with 'Don't be a cunt' on it is a great reminder for anyone who looks at it, not to be a cunt! ☺️

I don't think the Budda one should be allowed to be sold in an official capacity. Nor any taking the piss out of Jesus or depicting Mohammad.

But swear words I couldn't actually bother a jot about. It's pretty safe rebellion.

Maybe the OP should go on strike to protest. Ridiculous to have such outrage about some swear words.

This. ^^. Sums up many young people- want a say and make the most of it but none of the responsibility that goes with it. Their attitudes towards the environment are what annoy me most. They have views on everything but their littering is appalling, their wasting of clothing and furniture is shocking- stuff just dumped at festivals, shoved in back lanes at the end of uni terms, fast food stuff strewn in streets at weekends after Saturday night out.

In the 70s there were Rag Mags with vile racist, misogynist and homophobic 'jokes'. I wouldn't be particularly offended by a swear word but I wouldn't buy them either.

They'd have been better off keeping them... instead of that harmless titillation we now have in its place, violent pornography.

I would also find these offensive, and I would be very disappointed if either of my kids had had this sort of stuff on their walls.

I'm not saying that posters should all be kittens clinging to branches with "Hang on in there", or bunnies in clover fields, but gratuitous effing and blinding is just unpleasant. To walk into someone's home and see a poster telling me to "Fck off" wouldn't impress me at all.

*I do eff and blind on occasion myself - but I need a cause.

Um...

Have you met students before?

Definitely had posters like that by the early/mid 90s when I started thinking such things were daring, hilarious and hyper-cool. I had a ginger kitten dangling from a branch and it said 'OH FUCK' underneath it.