The other day I was driving with my sisters and one of our current favorite songs, “Ride” by Twenty One Pilots, came on our local radio station. Now, at that point I knew the song fairly well and knew that the song contained no expletives or other inappropriate words…or so I thought? As the second verse rolled around, the station censored the word bullets, which is said around four times in that particular verse. Seriously?
This realization borderline infuriated me. Have people really become that sensitive that we now have to censor almost anything that suggests something that could be bad and/or inappropriate?
Censorship in the media has been a touchy subject for quite some time now and frankly, I’m annoyed by it. The fact that words like ass, shit, weed, and now bullets have to be censored is kind of ridiculous. Given, those words aren’t necessarily polite and can be a bit suggestive, but I don’t see how they’re so offensive that they absolutely have to be bleeped out or changed to a different word.
It honestly makes the song sound worse when certain words are censored. For one, when a word is bleeped out, 9 out of 10 people can infer what the word was anyways, so what’s the point? Or if the word ass is changed to butt or the word f*ck is changed to love, more times than less it completely alters the catchiness and likeableness of the song. And it doesn’t change the message of the song anyways, which I would argue is what gets people so upset in the first place. Censoring one word isn’t going to make that song’s message any cleaner or more appropriate, so why bother to censor the word and screw up the song?
But, “Oh, my children listen to this radio station and I don’t want them to be exposed to those words and ideas!” I love this excuse. Parents and caregivers of the world: if you don’t want your child being exposed to those words and ideas, then do not listen to those stations. Probably 60 or more percent of the songs played on those stations have suggestive lyrics about relationships, alcohol and drugs; on any given car ride, you will hear at least one song that mentions one or all of these things. So if you don’t want your child to hear those “bad” words, then listen to Radio Disney or buy the freakin’ KIDZ BOP CDs and pop those in. Don’t ruin it for the rest of us.
Or, “Oh, those lyrics go against my moral beliefs!” Again, do not listen to the station.
“Swear words make me uncomfortable.”
“That song sends out a horrible message to our youth.”
“Those words are so trashy I don’t want to listen to that on my way to work!”
Do not listen to that freaking station.
It’s literally so stupid, for lack of a better term, that radio stations have to censor all these words just because a few people are so offended over one suggestive lyric. Come on people, stop being so sensitive!
