There are jerks everywhere, especially when you’re looking for them. We’re human, so we are flawed by nature and all of us have said or done things we regret. However, there’s been a disturbing trend where campaigns are started against a specific group of people. I’m talking about the dependa-epidemic.
Dependas, Dependas, Everywhere
So what exactly is a dependa? Some in our community use it as a term to describe any military spouse they don’t like, short for ‘dependapotomus’ or a ‘dependasaurus’. But let’s really look at what a ‘dependa’ really is:
- Overweight
- Uneducated
- Lacking goals and aspirations in life
- Overspends their service members’ money on frivolous purchases to include coach handbags, only to end up begging for funds or gifts to cover basic needs just days after pay day.
- Has children (breeder) and their offspring are often characterized as ‘feral’
- Adulterers
It would sometimes seem that in our world, all military spouses are dependas until they prove on a case-by-case basis that they’re not. Of course, it’s completely open for interpretation and all milspouses are guilty until proven innocent.
So today, each and every female military spouse is marked with the Scarlet Letter ‘D’, just waiting to get their picture taken in the commissary to get harassed online, or have her Facebook photo screenshot and submitted on one of the several anti-dependa sites out there. (For the most part, male military spouses are not targeted).
The anonymity facilitated by social media is primarily to blame for this. People (armchair warriors) say things that they’d never say to another person in person.