That’s It, The F-Word Is Officially Boring

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And just like that, Donald Trump ruined something else.

To be fair, Democrats also played a role in spoiling it.

And if we’re being totally honest, the whole thing was on the verge of collapse anyway.

We’re talking about the f-word, of course.

Trump forcefully discarded the topic in a live interview on Tuesday regarding the potential conflict between Israel and Iran, emphasizing, “Have you grasped my point?

Worldwide headlines were filled with shock and commentary following the president’s unexpected use of a strong language in his speech. Some newspapers, such as NPR and Buzzfeed, criticized this move as breaking another presidential norm (“Breaking Another Presidential Norm,” said NPR; “The Internet Is Losing It,” declared Buzzfeed), while others like The New York Post defended it by stating that such language is not unheard of in similar situations. In a remarkable turn of events, even The New York Times, which usually employs more polite substitutes when reporting such incidents (for instance, saying the speaker “used a vulgar expression”), chose to print the actual word instead. This decision by the editors was seen as signifying the significant impact of Trump’s choice of words on his audience and readers alike.

Prior to Donald Trump’s widely shared interview, Democratic leaders had been increasingly using a strong profanity in public. A notable example is when Representative Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.) exclaimed at a rally, “I don’t usually use such language in public, but we need to defeat Trump” – a statement that might not have been the most diplomatic way to express her sentiment.

However, the frequent use of profanity by political leaders, even when caught on open microphones, might be seen as a sign that the power of the word “fuck” has diminished due to its increasing prevalence in everyday speech.

It’s possible to attribute the widespread use of profanity on social media platforms to this phenomenon, as one study revealed that “fuck” was the most frequently used expletive on Twitter. Another explanation could be the increasing amount of mature content on streaming services overpowering the family-friendly programming once provided by broadcast networks (last month saw streaming outperform both cable and broadcast television in the Nielsen ratings). Additionally, research suggests that swearing might have positive effects on our health, such as enhancing our pain tolerance by up to 33%.

It’s not uncommon for people to point fingers at mainstream media outlets for lowering their standards over time. For example, The Hollywood Reporter has run celebrity profiles with provocative headlines such as “Harrison Ford: ‘I Know Who I Am,'” “‘John Wick’ Boss Gets Candid: ‘My Process Is Messy,'” and “Alex Cooper Is On Fire: ‘I’m a Force in Business.'” And those were just the ones I came across.

In much the same way as other publications do, we use asterisks () to replace certain letters in headlines when using words like “fuck”, not because humans can’t guess the missing letters, but more so because there might be concerns that Google may rank such content lower if it contains profanity. In essence, our main concern is ensuring these automated systems don’t take offense.

It’s interesting to note that throughout the past few centuries, there has been a significant amount of concern expressed about the growing informality in our language. In 2024, for instance, the second highest-grossing movie, Deadpool & Wolverine, from Disney, supposedly used 116 instances of the word “fuck”. On the other hand, their live-action Snow White that didn’t perform well had no such language. If Rachel Zegler’s princess had reacted to those odd CGI dwarfs with something like, “What on earth are those!?”, perhaps the movie would have fared better.

In today’s world, the word “fuck” has become so commonplace that even if Disney’s beloved Snow White were to utter it or a president of the United States were to use it, it wouldn’t elicit much reaction anymore. We are utterly swamped with this term. The word “fuck” was meant to surprise, excite, and provoke. Now, it’s just routine. When it comes to the f-word, we seem to have exhausted our capacity to be shocked or amazed.

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2025-06-26 16:54