This is tangential, but it feels kinda weird where the "R word" is atm, seems like we can't decide if it's genuinely offensive or not. I have some social circles where saying it would be almost like saying homophobic/racist slurs, but other social circles that throw it around as a synonym of "idiot/lunatic". I'm almost afraid to ask at this point what the correct answer is/should be, but I think humans will be joking around about mental cognition for many generations to come, R-word or not.

[–] thatKamGuy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 weeks ago

Grossing up in the 90s and early 00s, saying “that’s gay” for something that sucked/was bad, and “that’s retarded” for something stupid/nonsensical were just common phrases amongst millennial kids.

Not saying that either should be acceptable nowadays (especially the former), but having a brain-fart and reverting to a phrase from Torre childhood can happen. Best we can do in that situation is to apologise, and move on.

[–] Gronk@aussie.zone 3 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah it's a weird one, I'd take offence if the context was actually towards someone with a disability.

But shit, Pauline Hanson is genuinely fucking stupid if I had a dollar for every time I've heard her called a retard I could pay for a fortnight's of groceries.

Now I'm having a laugh about that time she wore a burqa into parliament and was ridiculed to oblivion..

..maybe I should be offended on this one.

[–] Zagorath@aussie.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago

seems like we can’t decide if it’s genuinely offensive or not. I have some social circles where saying it would be almost like saying homophobic/racist slurs, but other social circles that throw it around as a synonym of “idiot/lunatic”

I don't think it's a lack of decisiveness. It's just some people are very slow to adapt. Like some people still used "that's gay" as an insult into the 2010s...or worse, used the f-slur in much the same way the r-slur is being used here. Heck, a prominent player of one of my favourite games used the f-slur in that way in just 2020. It was a relatively big scandal and I think he was briefly banned from streaming sites, but frankly as far as I'm concerned being that far behind the general public in adapting to that sort of change indicates a degree of homophobia that should not be considered acceptable.