"Check your privilege".
A simple phrase, only heard on some parts of the internet. And yet whenever it's posted I feel a strong desire to reply with "check your self-importance, prick".

The idea behind it is that you're expressing a narrow-minded viewpoint and that you should open your mind to other people's viewpoints.

I can understand the reasoning behind the message, but the way it's delivered is so deliberately confrontational and obnoxious it makes you (or me, at any rate) take the other side of the argument by default, because it sounds like the rallying cry of a moral crusade.

Needless to say, I had the last laugh if you use it as a battle cry it'll really help you make friends and influence folk.

See also: "cisprivilege". I can understand the idea behind it, but the word itself is so clumsy and stupid I can't resist laughing whenever I see it.

One good thing about living in a cultural no-man's land is that you never hear phrases like this spoken in real life. I don't know for sure what the penalties are for laughing at a real-life preacher of this value system, but I suspect they involve heavy doses of condescension, finger-wagging and being branded with such damning terms as "reactionary", "uneducated" or "right-wing".
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 0:55, 9 replies)

*grudging click*
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 1:34, closed)

not heard this before
is it like checking your testicles for lumps?
(polished turd 404 pixels wide, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 5:09, closed)

Not really, it's more like checking your weapons.

( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 14:33, closed)

Yep, that's the one
*click*
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 10:02, closed)

never heard of it
sounds like a chavvy teenager's favourite put-down
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 16:18, closed)

This is the most objective summary of the phrase I've come across so far.
knowyourmeme.com/memes/check-your-privilege

"As of October 2012, there are more than 2300 search results on YouTube for 'check your privilege,' including both serious vlogs (shown below, left) and satirical videos (shown below, right)."

It's quite telling that the satirical video "no longer exists".
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 22:10, closed)

this both informs and saddens me

( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sun 27 Jan 2013, 16:03, closed)

It is a phrase used by people who claim to abhor discrimination based upon sexuality/gender/race as a one-stop dismissal of any argument whatsoever, based entirely upon the sexuality/gender/race of its proponent.
( Happy Phantom has been to Hastings, Brighton, and Eastbourne too, Sat 26 Jan 2013, 23:17, closed)

pretentious wank, you mean?

( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Sun 27 Jan 2013, 16:03, closed)