Most insults are some attempt to link an aspect of a person or their behaviour with a negatively perceived thing. Most powerful insults also include breaking some form of social taboo.
Thus we have mild insults like “your argument is…” “weak-sauce” which associate the argument with the (presumably undesirable) sauce of insufficient strength; “shit” which is mild taboo but so widely used and conventional that it doesn’t hit hard; “loose stool-water, arse-gravy of the worst kind” which is both a bit taboo and reasonably novel (but wordy and pretentious).
If you’re trying to find insults that are going to impact someone, you have to find things that are upsetting / undesirable or them, so that association with that negative thing is bad and they want to avoid it. This is tricky if they have a different worldview, because what is offputting to you might be fine to them (eg. religious people insulting behaviour as ‘sinful’ or ‘satanic’ doesn’t really land for non-believers).
This is extra tricky if you don’t agree with what they find disgusting, because when you use something that disgusts them as an insult you are reinforcing the idea that it IS something to be disgusted by. Making fun of Trump’s ‘Lady-hands’ or ‘micropenis’ might be hurtful to him (or his supporters) but it also telling men that traditional masculine features and penis size are the qualities of real men. But that’s the problem, you can’t use someone’s beliefs against them while also challenging those beliefs as wrong.
So you can just accept that insults are problematic, and continue to call people ‘retarded fags’ because you know that has a negative association to them, ignoring the innocent minorities also hurt by that language. Or you can find things that are universally seen as bad and undesirable (mostly varistions on bodily functions) or that don’t really hurt the stereotyped group (“you’re whining like a little baby” is less problematic than “like a woman on the rag” or “like a little removed”). But these generally aren’t as impactful…
Most insults are some attempt to link an aspect of a person or their behaviour with a negatively perceived thing. Most powerful insults also include breaking some form of social taboo.
Thus we have mild insults like “your argument is…” “weak-sauce” which associate the argument with the (presumably undesirable) sauce of insufficient strength; “shit” which is mild taboo but so widely used and conventional that it doesn’t hit hard; “loose stool-water, arse-gravy of the worst kind” which is both a bit taboo and reasonably novel (but wordy and pretentious).
If you’re trying to find insults that are going to impact someone, you have to find things that are upsetting / undesirable or them, so that association with that negative thing is bad and they want to avoid it. This is tricky if they have a different worldview, because what is offputting to you might be fine to them (eg. religious people insulting behaviour as ‘sinful’ or ‘satanic’ doesn’t really land for non-believers).
This is extra tricky if you don’t agree with what they find disgusting, because when you use something that disgusts them as an insult you are reinforcing the idea that it IS something to be disgusted by. Making fun of Trump’s ‘Lady-hands’ or ‘micropenis’ might be hurtful to him (or his supporters) but it also telling men that traditional masculine features and penis size are the qualities of real men. But that’s the problem, you can’t use someone’s beliefs against them while also challenging those beliefs as wrong.
So you can just accept that insults are problematic, and continue to call people ‘retarded fags’ because you know that has a negative association to them, ignoring the innocent minorities also hurt by that language. Or you can find things that are universally seen as bad and undesirable (mostly varistions on bodily functions) or that don’t really hurt the stereotyped group (“you’re whining like a little baby” is less problematic than “like a woman on the rag” or “like a little removed”). But these generally aren’t as impactful…