After Danvers High School Principal Thomas Murray threatened to suspend students caught "meeping" in class or the hallways, school officials and adults scrambled trying to decipher the sudden teen trend.

What's meeping, they asked? Well, all any adult seems to know is that it originated from the meeps of the Muppet character Beaker. The students don't seem to have a clear answer either, which means that meeping is exactly what it sounds like: nonsense that has adults scrambling around over-analyzing.


Speaking of over-analyzing: I find this story interesting because meeping seems like more of an annoyance than a detriment to student education—like say, the phrases "that's so gay" and "no homo," which require far more community and activist protest to deter.

Is it them or us that don't get it?
Do teen meepers, that's so gayers and no homos really understand what it is that they're saying or are they walking around blurting the latest trend? I'm reminded of my teenage brother who once told me how gay his new Xbox game was. After a back and forth about how offensive it is to call something gay when you really mean stupid or silly, he told me that he never though about it in that way. It was just what the other kids say, he said.

Not just words to the gay kids
While some teens and adults consider phrases like "that's so gay" and "no homo" to be the latest threads, they tear at the self-esteem of actual gay kids whose sexual identity is associated with something stupid, silly, immaterial, or to be rejected.

Lets hope Principal Thomas Murray's anti-meep campaign includes the that's so gays and no homos too.