Bashing is a harsh, gratuitous, prejudicial attack on a person, group or subject. Literally

Literal and figurative language

Literal and figurative language is a distinction in traditional systems for analyzing language. Literal language refers to words that do not deviate from their defined meaning. Figurative language refers to words, and groups of words, that exaggerate or alter the usual meanings of the component...

, bashing is a term meaning to hit or assault, but when it is used as a suffix

Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational, like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes...

, or in conjunction with a noun indicating the subject being attacked, it is normally used to imply that the act is motivated by bigotry.
The term is also used metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

ically, to describe verbal or critical assaults. Topics which attract bashing tend to be highly partisan

Partisan (political)

In politics, a partisan is a committed member of a political party. In multi-party systems, the term is widely understood to carry a negative connotation - referring to those who wholly support their party's policies and are perhaps even reluctant to acknowledge correctness on the part of their...

 and personally sensitive topics for the bashers, the victims or both. Common areas include religion

Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

, nationality

Nationality

Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state, usually determined by their citizenship, but sometimes by ethnicity or place of residence, or based on their sense of national identity....

, sexuality

Sexual orientation

Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

 and politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

.

Physical bashing is differentiated from regular assault because it is a motivated assault, which may be considered a hate crime

Hate crime

In crime and law, hate crimes occur when a perpetrator targets a victim because of his or her perceived membership in a certain social group, usually defined by racial group, religion, sexual orientation, disability, class, ethnicity, nationality, age, gender, gender identity, social status or...

. In relation to non-physical bashing, the term is used to imply that a verbal or critical attack is similarly unacceptable and similarly prejudicial. Use of the term in this manner is an abusive ad hominem

Ad hominem

An ad hominem , short for argumentum ad hominem, is an attempt to negate the truth of a claim by pointing out a negative characteristic or belief of the person supporting it...

 action, used to denounce the attack and admonish the attackers by comparing them to perpetrators of physical bashing.

Karen Franklin, in her paper "Psychosocial motivations of hate crimes perpetrators" identifies the following motivations for bashing: socially instilled prejudice or partisan conflict; the perception that the bashing subject is in some way contrary to, or in offense to, an underlying ideology; group or peer influence.

Physical bashing

One of the more common uses of the term bashing is to describe assault or vilification of people perceived to be homosexual

Homosexuality

Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

. Gay-bashing is related to homophobia

Homophobia

Homophobia is a term used to refer to a range of negative attitudes and feelings towards lesbian, gay and in some cases bisexual, transgender people and behavior, although these are usually covered under other terms such as biphobia and transphobia. Definitions refer to irrational fear, with the...

 and religious objections to homosexuality.

Paki-bashing, sometimes called curry bashing, is the act of physical or verbal attacks by non-Asian

Asian people

Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...

s against Pakistan

Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...

is or other South Asia

South Asia

South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...

ns in general (see

Non-physical bashing

In cases of non-physical bashing, the term is normally used with the intention of having a pejorative effect on the identified bashers by comparing them to perpetrators of criminal assaults. Sometimes this label is applied to criticisms that are not particularly vehement nor even inappropriate. In these cases, the term can be seen to be applied purely for partisan benefit. The use of the term within this context is most common in editorial or personal commentary. These terms are used to imply that the criticism of these groups or individuals is excessive, too frequent, uncompromising or inappropriate. Since politics is inherently partisan, the term bashing is frequently used to cast negative aspersions on critics for political gain.

Fans of different artistic works often accuse critics, who may be other fans, of bashing the subject or individuals upon which the fandom is centered. A common example of this on the internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 is Lucas bashing, where the term is used to decry criticism of Star Wars

Star Wars

Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...

 or George Lucas

George Lucas

George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...

personally. In this case, again the motivations include partisan conflict (for or against an aspect of an artistic work), an offense to an underlying ideology (nostalgic attachment to, or immersion in, an artistic genre) and the group influence of other fans and discussion forums. There is also character bashing, which happens when a part of the fandom openly criticises one or more characters in an artistic work, or even real people from media industry.