Stop Spazzing Out About 'Spaz': SOCIAL MEDIA, STREAMING, AND A NEW ERA OF DIGITAL SELF-CENSORSHIP.

• Author: Rosenfield, Kat

EVEN IF YOU didn't know about the scandal that preceded its release, you still might notice the digital sleight of hand on Beyonce's new album, Renaissance. It comes toward the end of the song "Heated," as Bey snarls her way through the lines of a staccato rap.

Yada, yada, yah, yada, yada, yah-yah Yada, yada, yada, bom-bom, kah-kah Blastin'on that ass, blast on that ass Fan me quick, girl, I need my glass You don't have to be a Beyonce fan--or even able to pick her out of a lineup--to sense that something's not quite right.

Maybe your brain stalls for a moment on the question of what it means to blast on someone's ass, since neither of the two possible meanings--that Beyonce is either threatening to shoot someone or commanding someone to ejaculate on her--makes a ton of sense in context. Maybe you hiccup over the slightly disproportionate weight of the word "blasting," the extra split-second of time it takes the singer to wrap her mouth around that first syllable, so that the rest of the line feels like it's hurrying to catch up.

Or maybe you only sense the change, the way you do when you take your first step down a familiar but freshly paved street. There used to be a pothole there--or was it on the other side? The new curb is just a little higher than it used to be--or is it?

Maybe you're the one misremembering. Maybe it was always "blasting." Listen again: Do you still hear it?

Are you sure?

In fact, "Heated" was the second song this year to be bowdlerized in post-production after some listeners took exception to one of its lyrics. Lizzo's "Grrrls" was the first to come under fire in June over the word spaz, which some British and Australian listeners described as an "ableist slur."

As journalists covering the controversy at the time were obligated to explain, "spaz" hits differently across the pond. The closest American analogue in terms of offensiveness is probably "retard," which is why the 2003 Black Eyed Peas banger "Let's Get Retarded" had to become the more staid "Let's Get It Started" in order to pass muster as an NBA promo song.

Like most contemporary squabbles over cultural sensitivity and censorship, spazgate started with a call-out on social media. On June 11, an Australia-based writer and self-described disability advocate named Hannah Diviney tweeted at Lizzo, "'Spaz' doesn't mean freaked out or crazy. It's an ableist slur. It's 2022. Do better."

What was unusual was how fast the artists capitulated. Within two days, Lizzo had announced her plans to alter the song. The statement she released read, in part, "As a fat black woman in America, I've had many hurtful words used against me so I overstand the power words can have (whether intentionally or in my case, unintentionally)." When Beyonce was subject to the same criticism two months later, the resolution was even more frictionless: The announcement that "Heated" would be altered came almost instantly via a spokesperson, without a word from Bey herself.

These moments represent a remarkable shift in the cultural landscape, a transformative one-two punch by the twin forces of social and streaming media. The former allows audiences to levy direct, immediate demands on artists whose work they dislike. The latter has made it possible for artists to quickly edit their work in response.

Spazgate, in other words, is about more than just a single controversial word in a couple of hip hop songs. It's a rapidly advancing new frontier for the suppression of speech and artistic expression even after they've been recorded and sent out into the world...