Okay. I think I’ve got my brain together enough out of the migraine soup.
Dream dedicated 25 seconds to his use of the word “retarded”. His entire response video that he actually sat down, scripted, read out, edited, and then captioned is 10 minutes long.
He dedicated less than 5% of the fucking video to the thing that everyone is mad at him about. To the thing it took him ALMOST A WEEK to admit he was wrong about.
The length of the apology isn’t the issue - had he uploaded JUST that 25 seconds, it would have been perfectly acceptable. But he didn’t.
I want to emphasize - I was neutral towards the guy before this shit. I found his videos boring and was happy for him when the allegations turned out to be false (though, idk why he was chatting with fans on Snapchat in the first place?). This action and his reaction to being rightfully called out is what has made me genuinely dislike him.
First off, the tweet itself and all of his reactions to it.
It’s clear to me based on how he has addressed this, first by insisting he can “reclaim” the word retarded because he’s autistic and then by skimming over it in the crash out stream that he does not understand why using that word that way was ableist.
“Retarded” was originally a kinder, medicalized term used to describe people who are cognitively disabled. It was made to replace words like “weak-minded”. Its association with nonverbal and disabled people caused laypeople to use it to compare those they insulted with it to the cognitively disabled.
Using the word “retarded” to insult someone is comparing them to the cognitively disabled, and expresses the belief that those with cognitive disabilities are lesser, unintelligent, less than human, etc.
It is harmful because those with cognitive disabilities are still humans who deserve dignity and kindness.
And it’s clear to me that Dream doesn’t understand that THIS is the reason that he shouldn’t have used “retarded” this way. It’s clear to me that he believes that people just feel insulted by the term.
It’s clear to me that he didn’t expect anyone cognitively disabled to see it, let alone be able to respond to it.
It’s also clear to me that he didn’t apologize because he genuinely felt bad about it - his attempts to gloss over it 3 times now and his insistence that being autistic makes it okay for him to use it against others is indicative of that. He apologized because everybody refused to shut up about it. He apologized to make people forget he said it. And he took a fucking WEEK to even attempt to apologize because he was pissy that nobody laughed with him.
Secondly, his bitching about other creators hurting his feelings.
Dream doesn’t seem to get that the reason so many people yelled at him over a meme was because he targeted regular people besides Tommy when he made that post. 15 million, in fact. Just regular fans.
Tommy and his friends only hurt… Dream. They didn’t attack his fans with a fucking slur.
Just to get that bit out of the way.
Thirdly, the burying of his apologies in complaints of other creators bullying him is a tactic to keep people distracted.
Whether he understands why people hate what he said or not, Dream has buried those apologies in accusations and complaints about bullying as a way to deflect from what he did wrong. It’s a way to shift the narrative back to well-trodden ground and keep people distracted from what he did to kick off this whole thing. I’m fuckin’ disappointed in people who have let that distract them from it.
And the fact that he ended the video response with
“And you don’t need to put other people down to lift yourself up”
Is just fucking rich coming from the guy who just punched down on cognitively disabled people.
[ you can watch his full video in connoreatspants’ vod reaction. Video starts at 3:50 ]
And just for the record? I’m cognitively disabled. I have been very open about having a memory disorder, a severe learning disability, and struggling with anomic aphasia ( knowing a word but being unable to say or recall it ).
Obviously I cannot speak for those who have more severe conditions, but even these were enough for teachers to call me retarded or imply as much to my parents as a child and a teen.
Somehow, I doubt that Dream has actually experienced that type of humiliation outside of being on the receiving end of Gamer Words. Because I can’t imagine ever trying to inflict that kind of hurt on someone else for a joke.
TLDR: Dream doesn’t know or care what he did, and his apology is pathetic and halfhearted at best.
I’m gonna go nap now bc my head still hurts.
