In the evolution of public discourse, there is a recurring irony: what begins as a form of resistance often ends up as the very thing it once resisted. Carl Jung termed this process enantiodromia—the turning of things into their opposites. Nowhere is this inversion more apparent than in the way certain strands of edgy comedy and identity-based language, once rooted in private, subcultural spaces, have been absorbed into the commercial mainstream.
This transformation raises pressing questions about the preservation of meaning, authenticity, and agency. When language that once served to build solidarity in marginalised communities becomes a marketing asset for corporate inclusivity campaigns, what is lost?
What was once hidden, coded, and fiercely guarded is now offered up as content—stripped of nuance, detached from its original form of life, and, in many cases, turned against the very communities it once empowered.
The British LGB community offers a clear example of this dynamic. Polari, a secretive and playful cant used by gay men throughout the mid-20th century, was never merely slang. It was a lifeline—a coded mode of speech in a hostile environment, a form of identity-making that thrived in the shadows of bars, cafés, and domestic circles. It was witty, defiant, and inherently social. The humour and camp bravado associated with LGB subcultures was never just entertainment—it was survival, solidarity, and subversion.
In contrast, more recent expressions associated with the TQ+ strand of identity politics often centre on the language of internal experience, subjectivity, and self-definition. Terms such as “non-binary” and “genderqueer” have emerged in online community spaces and academic discourse, aiming to articulate lived experiences of gender dysphoria and to challenge conventional categories of sex and identity. Where Polari was communal and coded, TQ+ terminology tends to be declarative and policy-facing—seeking institutional recognition and formal inclusion.
Both traditions, however distinct, have fallen prey to the same pattern: commodification without context. Edgy comedy, which in the 1980s disrupted social norms from cramped rooms in Soho and Camden, now features prominently on streaming platforms designed to please rather than provoke. The sharp edge of irreverence has been dulled to meet algorithms and audience metrics. Meanwhile, the once radical lexicon of identity now forms the backbone of corporate training manuals and HR diversity pledges, often repurposed without accountability or any meaningful engagement with its origins.
This was a point made recently by comedian Deborah Frances-White during her appearance on Triggernometry. She rightly acknowledged the paradox: language that once functioned as subversive or protective is now the lingua franca of social branding and organisational performance. The risk is that it no longer speaks for the people who first gave it voice. Instead, it speaks to—and often flatters—the dominant culture’s desire to appear progressive.
This is not simply a matter of taste or aesthetics. The danger lies in the erosion of meaning. As Wittgenstein argued, language is always rooted in a “form of life”—its meaning arises from the shared practices, contexts, and understandings of a community. When words are lifted from these settings and inserted into a mainstream devoid of that shared context, they are not just misunderstood; they are often inverted.
In the age of mass media and corporate communications, we must ask: who owns the language of resistance now? When a corporation uses the term “non-binary” in a marketing campaign, is it advancing inclusion, or is it co-opting a struggle? When a sitcom revives Polari terms for nostalgic humour, is it paying homage or trivialising the risk and ingenuity of earlier generations?
The point is not to police language but to recall its lineage. Subcultural expressions—whether comic, linguistic, or performative—are not neutral aesthetic choices. They arise from necessity, from the need to survive, to be seen, and to be heard in hostile environments. They carry stories, struggles, and shared meanings. When they become untethered from those roots, they risk becoming empty signifiers—symbols without substance.
So perhaps we need to ask, as both cultural critics and practitioners: how do we honour these traditions without reducing them to trends? How can we restore context to expression, especially when the mainstream seems eager to consume everything but the history?
The answer, I believe, lies not in retreating from the public square, not in appropriating the language and experience of others, but in holding ourselves to account. By insisting on context, by demanding ownership, by being accountable, and by drawing distinctions where they matter—between LGB and TQ+ histories and interests, between resistance and recognition—we can keep language meaningful. Not as a commodity, but as a common ground.
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