What's the deal with the popularity of Moonbat?

May 24, 2006 11:11 PM

Explain to me the popularity of "moonbat."

I mean, I know the right wing, particularly those with libertarian leanings, like to use it against anybody even remotely to the left of them, and I know the mean those people are crazy. I know the history of this weird little phrase. I just don't get its popularity. I also don't understadn why it seems to be applied exclusively to the left -- the comparable phrase "wingnut" seems likely to be applied to the radical fringe of the left and the right alike.

So what's the dilly?

posted by Astro Zombie to writing & language (20 comments total)

It's a fun word! No, really -- it's both derisive and fun to use. People denigrate right-of-center folks with (as you noted) "wingnut" and the ever-popular "fundies."

And a little bit of "moonbat" popularity is likely because it's more of an online thing -- have you ever heard any of your friends or relatives that are NOT regular web-surfers use the word?
posted by davidmsc at 11:22 PM on May 24, 2006

Well, "wing nut" makes sense because they're "nutty" and on "the right/left wing".

Moonbat is probably just a internet meme that happens to be centered around the rightwing blogotronysphere, like "idiotarian" or "islamofacist"
posted by Paris Hilton at 11:39 PM on May 24, 2006

The Wikipedia article claims that "moonbat" is not derived from the last name of George Monbiot, but even if that's so, I know some rightists took particular glee in it because of the resemblance. Monbiot was certainly one of the first people I saw the epithet being applied to. This probably reinforced the meme in people's minds to the extent that it began to catch on.
posted by kindall at 12:04 AM on May 25, 2006

posted by ikkyu2 at 12:05 AM on May 25, 2006

Any possible connection to former California "Governor Moonbeam" Jerry Brown?
That was so long ago...
posted by Cranberry at 1:03 AM on May 25, 2006

Honestly, the sooner people stop making up aggressively unfunny political neologisms the sooner God will not hate us. I'm serious, it's a blight. And not something I remember much from the '80's. What started this? I want to blame Rush Limbaugh – "feminazis" – but I'm not sure.
posted by furiousthought at 1:35 AM on May 25, 2006

There's a sort of generic new-agey feel to the term, which might have helped it get popular with the sort of people who like to paint the left's environmental and pacifist tendencies as hippy moon-child ramblings.

Used that way I suppose it's a dismissive rather than derogatory term, which probably makes it more appealing, too - describing the people you're disagreeing with as wrong or stupid implies some level of engagement with the points they're making, whereas labelling them as crazy addled hippies paints whatever they're saying as not even being worth listening to.
posted by terpsichoria at 2:53 AM on May 25, 2006

Honestly, the sooner people stop making up aggressively unfunny political neologisms the sooner God will not hate us.

1) People have been making up political neologisms as long as there's been politics. (Check out the history of gerrymander sometime.)

2) "Moonbat" is funny. I'm sorry for you if you're so mired in your political affiliation you can't recognize that.
posted by languagehat at 5:45 AM on May 25, 2006

It's the right-wing's echo chamber effect. They coined their own deragatory term for left-wingers, and their pundits use it across all forms of media in order to unify their message and create an impression of credibility. It didn't spontaneously become popular; it's part of the larger strategy to saturate the media with language that discredits liberals.
posted by junkbox at 6:07 AM on May 25, 2006

Yup, it's a clever little term. Moon- instantly ties into stereotypical "hippie"/goofy names (who seriously doesn't remember snickering when they first learned that Zappa named one of his kids "Moonunit?"), -bat of course ties to things like batty and batshit.

So it's a great funny bit of dismissive shorthand, of the sort that's optimized for partisan blog audiences; it's the precise mirror of wingnut, basically.
posted by Drastic at 6:09 AM on May 25, 2006

I was confused for a while since I thought it might be a reference to Reverend Sun Myung Moon, although his followers tend to stick to the right wing.

I've also seen thinly-veiled comments that allude to the crescent moon symbol associated with Islam -- moonbats love islamofacists, etc.

I pretty much close the page or go elsewhere whenever someone throws out a word like moonbat or wingnut, though. It's like a big "no intelligent commentary here, thanks" sign.
posted by mikeh at 7:57 AM on May 25, 2006

The connotations of its components cast the opponent as simultaneously crazy, dangerous, and ridiculous.

The moon suggests hippies/paganism, insanity, fantasy, and lycanthropy; bats suggest blindness/circadian reversal (abnormalism), rabies and vampirism

So it's a nice, compact pejorative for a rhetorical attack based solely on attack on character rather than intellectual substance. Hence, it has been adopted by radical fundie wingnuts.
posted by nanojath at 10:27 AM on May 25, 2006

2) "Moonbat" is funny. I'm sorry for you if you're so mired in your political affiliation you can't recognize that.

Like "truthiness" or "batshit insane," it was funny the first three times or so. Now it's just tiresome. But hey, don't ever stop lecturing! And if it makes you feel better--clearly, it does--I don't mind if you feel sorry for me.
posted by Skot at 10:29 AM on May 25, 2006

Languagehat:

- it's not a brand new innovation, I'm sure, but damn it's become a lot more prevalent the last 10 years.

- no. "Moonbat" isn't funny. NONE of these terms are funny. "Rethuglican"? Not funny! "Truthiness"? Not very funny! It cuts across partisan lines. It's a way of saying, I'm not going to bother with being very witty, and I'm going to smack you in the face with it. You may be a pretty good lecturer but you're a terrible judge of humor! Listen to Skot, he's much, much funnier than you.
posted by furiousthought at 10:34 AM on May 25, 2006

Yeah, but I think languagehat was making the point that "moonbat" is a funny word. It's fun to say. I'm very far left (I'm talking on an international spectrum, not just the US) and it's a funny word. It's not a pun that relies on context as far as I can tell. It's a fun insult that either was invented or expropriated by the right-wing. "Gerrymander" is kind of fun to say, too, though it sucks when you're describing an actual occurrence.

I probably would never use the term "moonbat" and if some right-winger described me as that, I'd possibly get irate, but the word isn't an annoying play on words like "rethuglican". As for "truthiness", I'd consider it (and I know I use this comparison too often, I've used it at least once before on this site) Stephen Colbert's "Rick James". It's funny when he uses it in the context of his television persona, it's not funny when you use it frequently in a blog post along the lines of "Hey, I'm clever...and my political opinions show it!".

But we all have those failings. Right now my favourite is using the phrase "decent left" sarcastically. It's annoying, childish, and dismissive, but for the moment I get a kick out of it. At least I'm conscious that it isn't the height of comedic genius.
posted by Gnatcho at 10:50 AM on May 25, 2006

Now it's just tiresome.

Agreed -- it's just another dumb term RWAs use, like "asshat."
posted by Rash at 10:55 AM on May 25, 2006

Okay, now I think we're getting screwed up on our neologisms. Asshat is from fark. "Moonbat" is, admittedly, a little better than "idiotarian" or the current plague "dhimmitude"... but they're all expressly political.

Actually what they remind me of, now that I think about it, is epithets from computer flamewars, which predate the ascendance of Rush Limbaugh a bit... words like "Macintrash" and "Micro$oft."
posted by furiousthought at 11:14 AM on May 25, 2006

Hmmm. I think the first time I came across it was as the name of a character in Hanif Kureishi's Buddha of Suburbia.

It's a clever little thing, moonbat; it packs a lot of implications into two syllables.
posted by jokeefe at 12:34 PM on May 25, 2006

I always liked "pinko". Fun to say, and makes me think of Plinko, my favorite Price Is Right game!
posted by gigawhat? at 12:54 PM on May 25, 2006

It's the right-wing's echo chamber effect. They coined their own deragatory term for left-wingers, and their pundits use it across all forms of media in order to unify their message and create an impression of credibility. It didn't spontaneously become popular; it's part of the larger strategy to saturate the media with language that discredits liberals.

As much as I admire the right's ability and willingness to communicate with a coordinated vocabulary and message, this simply isn't true. The right-leaning blogs that circulated the term originally were all written by people who read each other's work and influenced each other, but they definitely *weren't* trying to introduce a new term into the political lexicon in a deliberate way.

It was different enough and infurating enough (apparently, judging by this thread, it sometimes still is) that it caught on. As one of the first people publicly decried by a large number of righty bloggers as a moonbat (yikes. put that on my resume) it's not a word I love, but I'm not ascribing its popularity to anything so nefarious as a plan.
posted by anildash at 10:21 PM on May 25, 2006