Imagine a typical day at school. It’s fourth period, and you can tell it’s about to rain because of the moisture in the air. As you head to lunch, you remember today is your friend’s birthday. Like she does every year, she has baked a moist chocolate cake to share with all of her friends. After lunch, you head to math. The building is very warm because it’s that awkward time of year when it’s getting hotter outside, but the school hasn’t managed to turn on the air conditioning yet. As you’re sitting there perspiring in class, you notice that your notebook paper has become moist due to your sweaty hands. You just sigh, because the only way to un-moisten a moist piece of paper is to let the moisture dry on its own. Finally, after taking moist notes for a second time that day in your sixth period science class, you are able to head home.

A lot of you are probably squirming in your seats, hands clenched, with your nails digging into your palms. You might be breathing heavily through your teeth with an unflattering grimace on your face, or maybe you’ve already decided that you can’t handle reading this article and you’ve just walked away. I’m sorry, did I make you feel uncomfortable? What exactly was uncomfortable about that paragraph? Let me guess. You don’t like the word “moist.” What a surprise.

According to a poll conducted with The District Against Moist Pet Peeves, or DAMPP, in 2000 less than 10% of the population had any sort of distaste for the word moist. The proportion of “moist” haters in the world would remain that way for a while, until the numbers suddenly took a huge spike after February 19, 2007. It was on this fateful Monday evening that the groundbreaking episode of How I Met Your Mother entitled “Stuff” would air on television. In this episode, Lily Aldrin announced to the world that she found the word moist to be severely uncomfortable, and she appeared to be borderline repulsed the few times it was uttered by one of her friends. There was no stopping the “anti-moist” bandwagon fad that was to follow the airing of this scene.

Suddenly, you weren’t completely normal if you found the word to be tolerable, and you seemed shady if you used the word regularly in conversation. People throughout the nation have been shamed for a simple slip of the tongue, for using one specific word in the English language that has been deemed less than bearable.

“There is nothing inherently different about the word moist, and people should be able to use it without hesitation and fear of being shunned, as they would with any other word,” said DAMPP co-founder Carla Hill. “There is nothing vulgar about using the word moist to describe an object as being slightly wet, and the fact that the majority of today’s population has been indoctrinated to believe otherwise is sickening.”

“Some people claim that they don’t think the word moist is vulgar, and that it’s just that the word sounds weird and uncomfortable. But that’s nonsense,” said 17 year old member of DAMPP and the organization’s youth sect leader, Kyle Lane. “The word hoist sounds almost identical to moist, and yet no one bats an eye if I use hoist in conversation. But if I replace that “h” consonant sound with an “m,” everyone loses it.” People hate the word moist, and for some reason they sincerely believe there is something inappropriate about using the word. This is not true. Most people only hate the word moist because their friends do, and because they’re afraid of being seen as weird if they are comfortable with the word. The entire situation is a social construct that needs to be destroyed.

Along with other members of DAMPP, Hill and Lane have organized several protests and public events to raise awareness and fight against moist hatred. Most recently, several members of the organization stood outside in the rain and marched throughout the city in their wet clothes chanting “OUR SHIRTS ARE MOIST!” Also recently, Lane organized a bake sale at his high school to raise money for DAMPP and for further advocacy. All of the baked goods were described as being delectably moist. Unfortunately, the bake sale was eventually shut down due to parent complaints about the inappropriate nature of the fundraiser.

“The DAMPP movement has faced several obstacles along the way. People have told us numerous times that we’re out of line, however we are not discouraged,” said Hill. “We will keep fighting until we break down the close-minded walls society has created. We will defeat this social construct, so that everyone can use the word moist as the effective adjective it is without fear of being judged.”