Fixing a stupid meme, a lot of people found it's fine to be ableist with.
this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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You can play this game with almost quite literally every term you could use in this context. Idiot was at one time a term for someone so profoundly mentally impaired that their "mental age" was said to be no more than two years old. What is now known as the "r-slur" was literally introduced as a kinder, more polite alternative to words like idiot, moron, and imbecile because they were seen as too derogatory. Only to be later retired when it began to itself be seen as too derogatory.
It's referred to as the Euphemism Treadmill. People create some euphemism to refer to some unpleasant topic. Eventually that term becomes basically tainted by its association to that topic and itself becomes unpleasant, then a new euphemism gets created.
When it comes to ableism it's often the case that those wishing to be ableist will directly start using the new euphemism in a derogatory manner because they feel the old one has lost its "punch" so to speak. There's a certain aspect of weaponizing the "correct terminology" that is itself the appeal to many of them.
I want to share something I found funny, without hurting others I accidentally already hurt. I do not intend to weaponize words.
Shove your rhetorical game off my humorous meme.
I'm not trying to say you are. Nor am I trying to attack you for wanting to change the words you use to avoid hurting people. Not wanting to hurt people is a good thing. The point is that the words themselves aren't the problem. The actual stigma that fuels ableism is. As I said there was a time when what we now know as the r-slur was the attempt to destigmatize those kinds of mental disabilities. In time it's entirely likely that some or all of today's inclusive language might be seen as too derogatory and something different will take its place.
There will always be bad actors who seek to misuse that desire to not hurt others. Whether that's the person willfully twisting the language that tries to destigmatize into something that hurts, or someone being performatively offended by someone not using the exact correct terminology and implying their own moral superiority.
The point is that at a certain point policing language does nothing to combat ableism. Relabeling a thing on its own tends to do very little to lessen the stigma of that thing.
Stop trying to restigmatize my act of solidarity.
Play your policing game elsewhere.
Friend, you acting like this is something icky that we shouldn't talk about is stigma. I'm not trying to police your speech. I am trying to get you to think more about why you are policing yours and whether or not it is actually helping.
Without that, your "act of solidarity" is just blind aesthetics and does nothing to actually address the stigma that disabled people like myself and my kids face. Treating us like something unpleasant that is only allowed to be talked about in very specific approved terminology is literally stigmatizing us.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity
I'm aware of what Solidarity is. I can also just link things, try "Aesthetic Activism."
It makes you and a handful of people feel better that you're using "inoffensive terms" in your "funny meme" and that's it. I'm glad it makes some people feel better. But is that all your "solidarity" amounts to? Changing a word in a meme that it's entirely possible the only people complaining about are being performatively outraged to rep their own "anti-ableism activism" bona fides?
Again I'll reiterate. If you feel that the existence of myself and my children is something so icky that it is only allowed to be talked about in very precise, sanitized, inoffensive terms, how is that meaningfully better than the ableist who just calls us a bunch of r-slurs and leaves? How is your "solidarity" meaningfully different from just saying "Oh yeah, there's something wrong with them. But you can't say it that way?"