What the title says. I don’t know the implications of the term and I can’t really find anything that actually explains how serious of an insult is.
I generally view it as kind of a joking term unless you use 馬鹿野郎 which I feel like is more serious.
But what do you think?
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I think it could be concidered “offensive” but I wouldn’t say its “discriminatory”, discriminating against who?
Discriminatory against who, Charlie from It’s Always Sunny?
It’s just like “idiot”, how it’s taken depends completely on the context and relationship between the speakers. It’s discriminatory against idiots, I guess.
You’ll find that calling people insults is a very common way to lose friends in Japan.
It’s more plainly derogatory than it is discriminatory. It’s basically just calling someone an ‘idiot’ or a ‘dumbass’.
I would actually like to think how did you think that it was discriminatory in the first place.
I met someone once (Japanese) who was fired from teaching at a public school for saying to the kids “if you don’t study you’re バカ” so ever since I heard that story I try not to use it.
This piece of advice given to me by a native seems to work pretty well: just treat all the non-sexual insult words/phrases like English swear words/phrases.
Normally you wouldn’t go around calling people “motherfucker”, “dumbass”, or “sack of shit”, but it’s not insulting if you use it with close friends. Just be mindful of where you are when you joke with friends this way.