Linus Tech Tips narrowly avoids killing his career with “hard-R” mishap

LinusTechTips is one of the biggest YouTubers on the platform, with a massive content and tech empire built around his online presence. In a recent episode of the WAN show, Linus almost accidentally killed his career with what was a genuine misunderstanding.

Linus had been around the tech space for a long time before he went off on his own and created the LinusTechTips content empire that now has one of the largest audiences on YouTube.

The collection of YouTube channels under the Linus Media Group umbrella is worth at least 100 million dollars as revealed by his admission that he turned down an offer from someone to outright buy the media group.

On the WAN show episode that was livestreamed on March 10, 2023, Linus had a misunderstanding as to what the “hard-R” actually means, something that led to his co-host Luke correcting the situation as everyone in the chat was shocked at what Linus had to say.

Linus Tech Tips quickly clarifies a disastrous “hard-R” claim

The WAN show is a weekly livestream hosted by Linus and Luke, and it’s been a staple on the LinusTechTips channel for years. The two of them go over the biggest tech news for the week in everything from PC building and tech companies to gaming and software development.

In a discussion about the usage of words that are now considered slurs and how they were casually used in shows like American Dad, the conversation went in a very unexpected direction.

“The casual sort of gay humor, the casual use of the hard-R”. This is where co-host Luke started to question where Linus was going with the conversation at the 1:28:00 mark in the video.

When questioned about it, Linus elaborated. “Yeah, really! Like, there was an episode of American Dad. It wasn’t for shock value, it was just used. And here’s the thing, right? That was in like 2003 or something, 2002. I’m not gonna deny that I dropped my fair share of hard-Rs back then because we— the term hard-R didn’t even exist.”

This is where Luke knew something was wrong here. He questioned Linus and asked for some clarification.

“Are you talking, like, n-word hard-R?” Linus quickly shot that down, claiming that he meant something else entirely.

Linus contested by saying he meant this: “No, the one with the uh, like, the one for mental disability.”

Luke breathed a sigh of relief following the exchange, with it clear that Linus didn’t mean he was dropping a “fair share of hard-Rs back then”. Luke gave himself a pat on the back for this one, saying that they “dodged a bullet”.

In a Livestream Fail post discussing the issue, users on the subreddit almost unanimously forgave him for the incident and fully believed that he didn’t intend to claim he was casually using racist slurs.

Linus went on to joke about it, feeling fortunate that Luke was able to bail him out. “I hope everyone likes not having a job anymore on Monday, because apparently I’m a giant racist.”

He narrowly avoided disaster and the potential fall of his media empire with just one simple misunderstanding, but at least he was able to laugh it off and get right back on track with their stream.