Regarded (Slang)

Submission 4,287

Part of a series on Algospeak / Slang Replacement. [View Related Entries]

About

Regarded and its variants such as Regards, Highly Regarded and Regard are euphemisms or algospeak versions of the controversial terms "retard" and "retarded," which are sometimes used in a pejorative way to refer to people with mental disabilities but are also used to call people or their behavior "stupid" or "dumb" in other contexts. The slang terms became increasingly prevalent online in the late 2010s and early 2020s, especially on Reddit and some parts of Twitter post-2022 as part of a general rise in slang used to circumvent censors or bans on social media platforms. The terms are often attributed to being spread and popularized on the /r/WallStreetBets subreddit in 2022.

Origin

While it is hard to pin down the use of the word "regarded" as a replacement for the term "retarded," Wiktionary^[1] notes a June 22nd, 2019, comment by Redditor /u/Michaelt359 in /r/Fitness^[2] as an early example of the term (seen below). However, other examples appear on Urban Dictionary^[9] as early as March 31st, 2019, with examples in 2020 and 2021 more accurately using "regarded" in its slang context.

Use of the term "regarded" as a means to evade censorship by Reddit admins on the subreddit /r/WallStreetBets, which has used "retarded" since early on in its creation back in 2012, with the earliest notable viral post to the subreddit using the word being an August 2nd, 2022, post by /u/REDmonster333^[3] that gathered over 7,000 upvotes in a year (seen below).

Spread

The term began appearing on other social media platforms such as TikTok in the early 2020s as it spread online. For example, TikToker sevspics^[10] used the variant "Regardation" in a post on June 6th, 2020, reacting to a comment using "regarded," receiving nearly 10,000 views and 1,700 likes in three years (seen below).

The catchphrase "highly regarded" also became a commonly used joke on /r/WallStreetBets^[4] in the latter half of 2022, as seen in an August 17th, 2022, post by Redditor /u/struggling_autist and an August 21st post by /u/l337joejoe.^[5]

On April 28th, 2023, YouTuber Kamikaze Crash notably used the slang in a video titled "Regarded father destroys his life on Bed Bath & Beyond," which received over 143,000 views and 4,600 likes in five months (shown below).

On May 8th, 2023, Redditor^[6] JoeStar2931 posted a meme to /r/okbuddyretard that read, "Why he regarded," gathering over 700 upvotes, while a meme posted by Redditor^[7] /u/mayo_-man to /r/wunkus on May 18th gathered over 400 upvotes in five months.

The slang term is also commonly used in other communities online, such as Twitch streamer PayMoneyWubby's Reddit community where it commonly appears on posts made by Redditors.^[11]

On October 18th, Redditor^[8] /u/LordnoBaron posted to /r/OutOfTheLoop asking about the trend of using the word "regarded" as a euphemism, with Redditor a_false_vacuum providing the top-voted answer as:

Answer: This is usually done to get around automatic censorship. On social media you'll find more words spelled differently or substituted with a different word, e.g. "s-----e" is replaced with "unalive" or "OnlyFans" becomes "OF". Same will go for slurs if people want to get around filters.