If you’ve spent any amount of time online recently, you’ve probably noticed that one particularly ugly descriptor has been making an unfortunate comeback. The “R-word,” a slur historically used against people with intellectual disabilities, has quietly reentered mainstream speech after spending roughly a decade in cultural exile. Recently, there’s been some online conversation about how the newest season of “Euphoria” has used the slur repeatedly, with the word appearing in three of the first four episodes, per Teen Vogue. Some critics argue the show is normalizing the term for a younger audience, but in my opinion, the truth is more complicated: “Euphoria” didn’t resurrect the R-word, but is actually reflecting a broader cultural shift that has been happening for years.Some theorize the slur’s return coincided with a wider backlash against the hyper-policed language culture of the early 2020s. After years of public callouts, many young people developed a resentment toward what they saw as performative political correctness. Around 2022, when the horrors of the pandemic felt like they were behind us, I remember hearing the first rumblings of the R-word being used again. Its use has only spread since then. Figures such as Joe Rogan, Elon Musk and Kid Rock (take of these examples what you will) have all casually used the word in public over the past several years, helping reintroduce it into the mainstream. But it’s not a purely right-wing phenomenon. Even in deeply progressive spaces, including my own circles in liberal Brooklyn, I’ve noticed younger people, many of them left-leaning, slipping the word back into everyday lexicon.I believe this shift, in part, stems from exhaustion. Many people do feel burned out by the language politics of the social media era, where morality can feel performative, another form of social capital. In some ways, I can relate to that. In many cases, verbal sensitivity does not usually equate to actual equity and protection of our most vulnerable communities.But for some reason, the R-word has become the slur people feel strangely comfortable making exceptions for in order to appear not “too woke.” But why is the disability community, of all minority groups, catching strays? People with intellectual disabilities are still very segregated in our culture, and many of us simply don’t interact with people who are directly harmed by this language. Perhaps it’s that distance that makes it easier for the slur to feel harmless. Still, disability advocates and people with intellectual disabilities have repeatedly expressed that the word is dehumanizing, which is part of the reason that, in 2010, the federal government signed “Rosa’s Law,” which retired the term “mental retardation” and replaced it with “intellectual disability.” The return of the R-word signals a broader and darker cultural regression — and although “Euphoria” may not have caused that shift, its use of the slur reflects how normalized this rhetoric has become among young people who are growing increasingly numb and perhaps less empathetic in general. When a show with enormous influence on youth culture casually reintroduces “slang” that disability advocates have spent years fighting against, it sends a message that the R-word is simply part of our everyday vocabulary once again. But what TV writers on this show (and every other wildly popular one) might want to keep in mind is that they’re not just reflecting current culture; they’re reinforcing it too.RelateddisabilityeuphoriaVoices of Disabled People