comicgeekscomicgeek:iconuk01: so-far-with-this-puzzle:hells-finest-gentleman: noonecanmagentalikeyou
comicgeekscomicgeek:iconuk01: so-far-with-this-puzzle:hells-finest-gentleman: noonecanmagentalikeyou: xcuteikinz: gryffindorgeek7777: mad-piper-with-a-box: thetomska: giddytf2: the-last-teabender: Robin Thicke is unapologetic about how rapey ‘Blurred Lines’ is, meanwhile the dude who parodied it issues a public apology for one word. And that is just one reason why I love Weird Al. It’s great that he’s addressed this but are we really supposed to believe that NO ONE during the extremely lengthy processes of writing a song, recording it, mastering it and animating the music video wouldn’t have brought it up? Excuse me but how the hell is spastic even remotely insulting? So I just recently learned that in the UK calling someone spastic means the same thing as calling someone retarded, only much worse. If it makes people in the UK feel any better, people in the US literally do not know this (like literally no one I have ever met and/or know). Here being spastic is usually meant to mean something along the lines of acting like a hyper-active child (like running around in circles yelling just because they feel like it please be quiet for just 2 minutes type of child). NOBODY here uses it as a slur. Since Weird Al is a US musician and the US music industry is pretty non-international, yeah actually I think its entirely possible that none of the people who worked on this song actually knew that spastic was considered an awful slur in some parts of the world. And I’m like 99.9999% sure that Weird Al is genuinely very sorry that he was accidentally offensive. ^^^^^ I just found out it is a slur by reading this. Same, like chill everybody. Australian seconding the US understanding Yeah, even back in the 70’s in the UK I grew up knowing that “Spastic” was a proper medical condition (it usually referred to cerebral palsy) because my parents told me, but also that it was used as one of the worst insults you could direct at someone, which I learned in the playground. I honestly don’t believe for one moment Weird Al would have used the word if he’d known. Yep, there’s definitely some origin drift with the word in the US. To the point there was even going to be a Transformer by that name, until outcry from the UK prompted a change. https://tfwiki.net/wiki/Over-Run_(PCC)#Notes“Over-Run was originally solicited with the name Spastic. While this name doesn’t really have any connotations within the United States, its announcement caused controversy in the wider Transformers fandom due to the fact that, in countries like the United Kingdom and Australia, the word “spastic” is a very derogatory word for people with neurological disorders. The controversy eventually grew to the point that it even spread outside of the fandom to UK tabloid newspapers and even radio and TV comedians. [1] When questioned, a Hasbro representative admitted to the company being unaware of the offensive connotation of the word in other countries. It was also noted that the toy would not be made available via retail channels in Europe, including the United Kingdom.[2] Nonetheless, Eric Siebenaler confirmed soon after that “Spastic” would indeed be getting a name change; perhaps a consequence of the fact that while Hasbro UK did not sell it themselves, some UK retail chains had imported previous Power Core Combiner assortments directly from Hasbro US, and could unwittingly have done the same with this one (though in the end, they didn’t). The toys with “Spastic” printed on their boxes had already been produced, and stickers with the name “Over-Run” were placed over the previous printed name. The only place where the name “Over-Run” is printed is the back of the instruction sheet.Around the same time, Transformers: Reveal the Shield Strafe’s online bio described him as “spastic”. He soon became merely “twitchy”.”Over-Run (PCC) - Transformers Wiki -- source link