Rogan slammed for celebrating return of slur

Podcaster Joe Rogan has gone viral for rejoicing in the news that a controversial slur is making a comeback.

Controversial and influential podcaster Joe Rogan is being slammed for claiming it is a “victory” that the slur “retarded” is making a comeback.

Rogan used the word in a recent episode of his successful podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, and then paused to celebrate its return to people’s vocabularies.

“The word... is back and it is one of the great culture victories,” he said.

The podcast host said he thinks the resurgence has been “spurred” by podcasts and appeared genuinely thrilled, even though the R-word has become an insult.

Although the word was originally a medical term for people with intellectual disabilities, it became a slur and insult.

In 2013, even the medical field changed it from “mental retardation” to “intellectual disability”.

Joe Rogan has claimed the R-word is back. Picture: YouTube

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A snippet of Rogan rejoicing in the slur’s return is going viral on X, to the point that actor Maureen McCormick, who famously played Marcia Brady on The Brady Bunch slammed the podcast host.

“Your statement that “the ‘R’ word is back and it’s one of the great culture victories,’ ignores the terrible hurt it causes to the millions of people with intellectual disabilities,” she wrote.

“This is not a victory. It is a regression.”

Maureen McCormick slammed Rogan’s opinion. Photographer: Nigel Wright/Ten

She pointed out how hurtful the word is. Picture: Instagram/MaureenMcCormick

Rogan’s celebration of the return of the slur divided online, with many people claiming he was being insensitive.

“How exactly is this victory?” One asked.

Someone else pointed out that “reclaiming controversial terms” can seem “dismissive” of the harm slurs cause against the minorities they’re often aimed at.

Another argued that it was fine because people are “never talking about the disabled” when they use that word, but someone else replied and argued, “They are, though that is the entire comparison.”

“So you think it is okay to use this word as an insult?” another asked.

Someone else said that their son and all his friends are now saying the word and claimed it was a “cultural and generational” victory.

Another claimed the return of the slur was glorious, but someone else begged, “Can we not use that word again?”

Joe Rogan. Picture: Saul Loeb/Pool photo via AP, File

Rogan is known for being anti-woke culture. The meaning of woke has become hard to pinpoint in modern society, but originally, it meant to be aware and stand up against discrimination.

In 2021, he went viral for claiming men were being silenced because of the rise of woke culture.

“Can you make a good comedy movie anymore, or have they made it so dangerous in terms of being cancelled that comedy movies are no longer something you can do?” he asked on his podcast.

“You can never be woke enough; that’s the problem. It keeps going further and further down the line.

“If you get to the point where you capitulate, where you agree to all these demands, it’ll eventually get to straight white men are not allowed to talk.”

Rogan claimed we just have to “nice to each other” and stop playing into the “weirdness” of woke culture.