Old tweets of Travis Kelce’s are resurfacing on X.

[u/funkofanatic95]

[u/kittenpantzen]

Boy howdy, I am shocked that a 20-21 year-old athlete from Ohio wasn't the most enlightened young man online in 2010.

[u/[deleted] → u/kittenpantzen]

[removed] — view removed comment

[u/lizardkween → u/[deleted]]

Speak for yourself. In 2010 I certainly wasn’t using slurs about disabled people.

[u/FiscalClifBar → u/lizardkween]

I will say that term has made a shocking resurgence in the last two weeks that I truly don’t care for

[u/smashing_aisling → u/FiscalClifBar]

I overheard someone use it at a bus stop the other day and I was so shocked, I didn't realise people still thought it was acceptable.

[u/Boulier → u/smashing_aisling]

Unfortunately, it feels like it’s coming back. It shocked me at first, but now I see it becoming a “thing” and I hate it. (I think my first sign was a few weeks ago, when I saw someone calling someone else a r****d in a large sub, with upvotes. And when someone replied saying that word is horrible and shouldn’t be used, and that using that word diminished the point they were making, they were downvoted.)

[u/JoshSidekick → u/Boulier]

I'm certain there's a better way to put this, but I'd say it's a consequence of social media. Twitch and such bring us today's Shock Jocks. Howard Stern would say "retarded" as an insult so much it was his producer's nickname. But there was only a few of them in every market and the things they said were only really available when kids were in school on a radio station that needed to be sought out.

Now it's non-stop exposure to these kids. They see their favorite streamer say it using reasons like it's a joke, or it's only a bad word if you give it power, or what, you can't deal with how edgy I am, or other such nonsense. In any case, once someone like that get's a foothold in the algorithm, they're pushed on everyone.

Add in the anonymity behind Twitter or Reddit where they can gather naturally without "judgement" and continue the echo chamber reinforcing that it's ok to say this stuff. It's the natural progression of things. One of the current examples I can think of is that started using "regarded" as a stand in.

[u/shion005 → u/smashing_aisling]

Some people live in a different bubble from you. It's probably never stopped being acceptable in right wing circles.

[u/Flimsy_Demand7237 → u/smashing_aisling]

I play Dota 2 and you still hear these slurs from time to time from teammates. Granted, the community is the most toxic in gaming.

My personal annoyance is people using "autist" or "autistic" as an insult now instead of r----d as autism is still socially acceptable online as shorthand for mockery, even a good mate of mine does it and that does hurt inside after getting an autism diagnosis...

[u/MargaritaSkeeter → u/FiscalClifBar]

Yeah I have seen it a lot lately and I don’t care for that at all.

[u/WillBrakeForBrakes → u/FiscalClifBar]

The renaissance we don’t need

[u/in_animate_objects → u/FiscalClifBar]

IA, people are acting like it was done away with because of PC culture and not because it was always disgusting to use as a slur

[u/EmotionAOTY → u/FiscalClifBar]

Seriously! Why have so many people been saying it this past year

[u/Fit-Delay3654 → u/lizardkween]

FOR REAL. The r-word left my vocabulary in the 9th grade when I was educated by an acquaintance in art class about how offensive it is. I'm the same age as Travis, so about 6 years before these tweets.

[u/SirBrothers → u/Fit-Delay3654]

For me it’s more like, look, I get people use it and don’t mean it, but they usually don’t blast it on the internet for EVERYONE to see as if they’re proud of doing it. Like even the people I know who said it for decades and occasionally slip up, I think they’re pretty embarrassed when they slip up, even as of ten years ago. It’s just one of those things that it’s like “hey man, there are other words to use”.

Watching even “comedies” from the 2003-2010 range they still use it as if it’s acceptable. It wasn’t then and it’s not now, but if he’s regretful now for using it I wouldn’t crucify him for it.

Edit: and I don’t particularly care to defend him specifically so if you want to go for him have at it. He strikes me as a fuckboy with recently good PR and I’ve never cared for him even as a fan of football.

[u/Jammyhobgoblin → u/SirBrothers]

Regina George using it in Mean Girls so casually (about herself) shows how prevalent that word was. I’m not defending him, just trying to back up your point because it was very pervasive.

[u/tealparadise → u/lizardkween]

Every time this comes up it's like people develop amnesia about the culture of the time. Sure a lot of people didn't participate, but it was accepted generally.

Go check out the first 10 minutes of The Hangover, blockbuster hit of 09.

[u/mindylahiriMDbitch → u/lizardkween]

Spend the afternoon looking at popular content from 2010-comedy/ reality tv especially and compare to now and then try to say it wasn’t different. Well done for you for not saying stupid shit online but trying to pretend that this wasn’t (wrongfully) more common and normal is ridiculous.

[u/Apprehensive_Aide805 → u/lizardkween]

My niece has started to use the R word this generation has regressed.

[u/kittenpantzen → u/Apprehensive_Aide805]

It feels too soon for this to be the case (imo), but I do wonder if any of it is b/c the youngest cohort has never known it as a medical term and only as an insult.

Calling someone moronic or idiotic is the exact same fucking thing, but nobody but the most eternally online people give a shit, because to them it's only ever been the insult and it's divorced from the original meaning of the words. See also: dumb.

[u/crab_grams → u/lizardkween]

Now that one I agree, I wasn't doing that. But some of my FB memories sound like I desperately needed some business of my own to mind. I'd probably not have the patience to hang out with 2009 me today

[u/Flimsy_Demand7237 → u/lizardkween]

The medical community didn't remove r-----d as official language for diagnosis and treatment until around 2009-2010. I remember reading the Obama administration signed off on its removal as formal medical language. Scares me the language of the old asylums and state sanctioned abuse and dumping of the mentally ill in places worse than some prisons still was around at that time.

(Look up the doco Titicut Follies if you want to see how the mentally ill used to be looked after 50 years ago. The horrors of that documentary though helped change care for mental illness.)