This week, British fashion retailer ASOS quietly introduced a new model to its roster, Natasha Ghouri, whose cochlear implant — a surgically implanted hearing device for people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing — was as much on view in the brand’s e-commerce photos as the mushroom-shaped hoop earring she was modeling. Naturally, the responses on Twitter were overwhelmingly positive.

“Definitely not crying because of ASOS using an earring model with a hearing aid,” tweeted Asia Smith. “It’s so refreshing to see this kind of representation for people like me.” Smith’s tweet now has over 32,000 likes and more than 1,000 retweets. Another user, Samina Sheikh, wrote, “This is fantastic to see… My daughter is a cochlear implant-user, [who is] also deaf from birth. This is so inspiring, well done, ASOS,” while another, Georgia May, wrote, “This hits so deep! We need more models [who are deaf or hard-of-hearing]. We need more real-life models. It isn’t something to hide. It makes people with hearing aids, like myself, feel so good.” 

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A post shared by Tasha Ghouri (@tashaghouri)

“Assistive technology is normal, and it’s great to see it in the zeitgeist,” Stephanie Thomas, of disability fashion styling platform Cur8able, tells Refinery29. Howard A. Rosenblum, the CEO of the National Association of the Deaf, too, thinks normalizing the use of models who are deaf or hard-of-hearing in campaigns is one of the keys to destigmatizing it. “When we, deaf and hard-of-hearing people, see other deaf and hard-of-hearing people out in the mainstream, we feel seen,” he says. “Such representations celebrate our ‘differences’ which help others realize that we’re not so different.” 

Well done @ASOS for their positive decision to include Natasha, a model with a cochlear implant, on their website. We still have a long way to go but great to see such refreshing & empowering representation & embracing a positive inclusion agenda https://t.co/VpEQlfp5Tb @Femail

— Richard Kramer (@RichardKSense) April 15, 2021

As Richard Kramer, the chief executive of Sense, a U.K.-based charity for people with complex disabilities (including people who are deaf-blind) pointed out in a tweet, this is a meaningful step: “We still have a long way to go but [it’s] great to see such refreshing and empowering representation and [brands] embracing a positive inclusion agenda.” He’s right. As we saw when artist Chella Man, in partnership with fashion brand Private Policy, launched an ear jewelry collection, designed to celebrate the beauty within the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities, one collection can make a significant impact. (50% of the proceeds from the jewelry items went to the Deaf Queer Resource Center, the non-profit organization dedicated to deaf, queer people, and the capsule collection was covered by major outlets like Vogue, HypeBae, and The Cut.) Given the reach that ASOS has — the company recently purchased Topshop, reported 24.9 million customers in the six months ending in February 2021, and has 11.4 million Instagram followers — this one could be even greater.

“Biggest love to ASOS for welcoming me in and breaking boundaries as this will really help and inspire people out there,” wrote Ghouri in a post on her Instagram. If the scale of responses is any indication, it already has. 

Refinery29 reached out to ASOS, but the brand was not available for comment at this time. 

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Recently, I found myself thinking, Am I getting too old to partake in the latest slang? Of course, even having that realization probably means I’m already too old. Luckily, at the moment, I’m spared from worrying about it too much, because I mostly interact with younger people virtually, and it’s difficult to detect cringe through Zoom.

The only real reason I don’t think I’m already too old to use slang is because I’m an avid consumer of slang, which is another way of saying that I’m on TikTok — a lot. I’m always noticing new words or phases pop up in the videos I watch, and without fail, a day or so later my Gen Z coworkers are peppering our Slack conversations with the same terms. 

One thing I’ve noticed is how, seemingly overnight, slang seems to explode in popularity before it dies out as quickly as it came. It seems like just a few months ago people were talking about Heathers and simping and being the CEO of whatever. And now we’re on to calling each other besties and reacting to everything with “Not the ____” and talking about how we must have “skipped a few episodes.” Of course, some terms have staying power — the word messy, when used to refer to someone’s state of being, comes to mind. But in general, there’s a tremendous turnover in slang phrases that I don’t think existed in my teen years. I mean, I vividly remember in the early 2000s when everyone started calling everything “awkward.” That stuck around for two years, minimum. But has it really changed?

“Your sense that slang is shifting more quickly now is true in that language is becoming popularized more quickly,” says lexicographer Emily Brewster, a senior editor and editorial ambassador at Merriam-Webster. “We, all of us, in the 21st century, have access to the informal language of millions of people and that was never true before,” she explains.

Brewster is talking about social media. Before social media, we didn’t have that many opportunities to hear others’ informal languages. We talked to people in person or on the phone, we watched TV and movies, or we read books and periodicals. Many of those forms of interaction even had a gatekeeper involved — an editor, say — who would keep out more casual forms of speech. So slang was much slower to catch on than it is now.

Today, we have “much more lightweight contact” with other people than ever before, confirms sociolinguist Jessi Grieser, an assistant professor of English Linguistics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. I easily interact with 10 times the number of people, from a much wider set of backgrounds, simply from swiping through TikTok than I ever did in high school, when we were just dipping our toes into MySpace and Xanga. 

Social media has also added a visual component to slang, Brewster says. “Slang was traditionally an auditory experience, and now, it’s written. So we have things like ‘periodt,’ which you can not only hear but see, and also the word ‘folx,’ spelled with an x, which is such an interesting word. In conversation, it’s not possible to discriminate that from the ‘ks’ spelling, but you can in print; you can communicate something different because that word does not do the same job that ‘folks’ does,” she explains.

While they agreed that slang becomes popular more quickly these days, Brewster and Grieser were both a little more hesitant to say that popular terms fade away more quickly. That’s because slang doesn’t “die” so much as it reaches an even greater level of popularity, and then becomes entrenched in our common language. Suddenly, you hear your boss or teacher drop it into conversation, with or without a self-conscious little wink-wink, nudge-nudge; your mom goes from asking you what a word means to using it herself; and then there’s the final stage: the brands catch on.

“One of the death knells for slang is when it shows up in corporate social media,” Grieser says. Yes, there are companies that occasionally do social media right; Wendy’s viral Twitter roasts come to mind. “But when they’re saying, ‘Come vibe with our Baconator’ — that’s it,” she says. It’s over.

“Slang is typically an inside language. It’s about a communication between a group of people, and you want it to be cryptic because it’s a way of saying something special,” Brewster explains. “So one thing that can happen is it loses its cool as it gains its broad audience. It doesn’t die, but it can become a regular, ho-hum kind of word.” 

Or as Grieser puts it, “What you’re doing with slang is that you’re showing that you’re a  participant in a particular type of culture or age group. And as the slang starts to circulate and different social groups use it, it takes on different social meanings. Depending on how admirable those social groups are, that can end up leading to a loss of the slang.” 

It’s impossible to talk about slang without also talking about appropriation. Many slang words originate from African American Vernacular English or queer slang. Historically in the U.S., “standard English” has referred to the language spoken by wealthy, highly educated, white men, and anything else — and anyone who spoke anything else — was considered lesser, informal, and fleeting, Grieser says. That AAVE is a rule-governed variety of English just like any other is now widely understood by many, but to this day, Black people are discriminated against for using it. So white people or corporations using slang derived from AAVE to appear “cool” can be appropriative.  

When, how, or how much it is “okay” for people who don’t belong to a certain group to use slang that originated in that group isn’t necessarily the right question, though. “Instead, the question is, to what extent do we understand the way that language replicates existing inequities? To what extent does a white speaker who is using AAVE — say, a particular term they found on TikTok — understand what they’re doing? And to what extent are they able to situate that within the history of racism in this country, and the present situation that we’re in?” Grieser asks, explaining that the same questions should be asked about terms that originate in other groups that face discrimination. “The more we spend time talking about those issues, the more people are going to think about how they replicate language differently,” she says. We’ve already seen that happening with gender inclusive language. People are thinking more closely about the potential language has to cause harm, and how they could mitigate that harm.

This comes up in Brewster’s work at Merriam-Webster too. Part of her job is to be “a definer,” i.e., someone who decides which new words to add to the dictionary every year. “We can put a usage note or a paragraph that talks about a word’s etymology and origin, or the controversy of a word, that notes why someone might want to use caution when using a word or just be better informed of a word’s connotations,” she explains. That’s not just for slang: M-W includes notes like this on terms like color-blind, thug, and uppity to “explain beyond what the word means, that there’s another meaning it’s wrapping up in,” she says.

Brewster says words typically don’t make it to the dictionary unless they’ve become established in common language, which she can tell has happened once she sees a word start appearing in published text without being “glossed.” Hangry, for instance: At a certain point, editors believed enough people understood what it meant to be included in an article without an in-text definition. That’s a sign that it’s ready to be added to the dictionary. 

When I ask whether slang can be forced or intentionally created, thinking of this TikTok about the word “cheugy” specifically, Grieser says she can only think of one example where that’s worked: santorum, which columnist Dan Savage campaigned to redefine as “the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex” after an interview in which Repubican Rick Santorum made deeply disgusting and offensive homophobic comments. “It was such an amazing moment — we barely had Google at that point. That’s one very clear moment where one person who had a wide enough reach said, I’d like us to redefine this word — and they did it,” Griesler says. “But it’s very, very rare. I can’t think of anything that’s worked quite that way.” 

Ultimately, she says, “Language is fun! And it’s always going to be fun. We have to be aware of what it can do that’s negative, but slang is interesting and TikTok language is interesting, and that’s because language is interesting.” 

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Mercury, a planet that’s known for impacting communication, rationality, and reasoning, is inching its way from Aries into Taurus on April 19 — the very same day Taurus season begins. This will stir up a massive dose of stubborn, yet diplomatic energy that’s sure to affect all of us, especially in the ways we talk to one another.

“When Mercury enters Taurus, the flow of communication naturally slows down,” says Narayana Montúfar, senior astrologer for Astrology.com. “Mercury enjoys a swift pace, but the Taurean energy is a bit too slow to accommodate the cosmic messenger’s preference. Expect some blocks, surprises, and delays in communicative exchanges.”

Just like Venus in Taurus, Mercury in Taurus likes when you take things nice and easy. Resist the urge to send a frantic text or a quick email, especially if it’s about something important. Take your time with your written and spoken communications, and make sure the meaning of what you’re trying to say really gets across. “We can expect our words and thoughts to feel more deliberate,” says Madi Murphy, astrologer and founder of The Cosmic Revolution. 

But the more relaxed pace won’t necessarily interrupt your effectiveness. “Taurus is a sign that’s known for taking care of business and for being super-reliable. You can expect to feel inspired to slow down and express ourselves in more productive ways,” Murphy says. “When Mercury is in Taurus, there is also a persistence that can be quite powerful. If you’ve been getting distracted or been procrastinating, this transit may give you a boost of celestial stamina.” In other words, if you’ve been putting off any projects or responsibilities (which is understandable, given that Mercury was just in fiery Aries), now’s the perfect time to tackle your incomplete to-do list.

We often equate “responsible” with “dull,” but Leslie Hale, psychic astrologer for Keen.com, says that this push toward the finish line benefits our creative spark too. “Aries season was the time we felt inspired and full of new ideas, and now is the time to turn these ideas into concrete reality,” she says. “Mercury in Taurus can give our communication and thinking a practical type of style and determination.”

The influence of the Bull’s energy has the potential to cause some tense interactions. “Mercury in Taurus can point to being so stubborn in your views that you can’t see the the outside perspectives,” says Lisa Stardust, astrologer and author of Saturn Return Survival Guide and The Astrology Deck. “The lesson here is to be more flexible in our thinking and mindset.” Try to go with the flow during this transit. Your temper will thank you.

On April 24, Mercury meets Uranus in the sky. This is notable because it will bring “unexpected developments in the form of messages, but also big aha moments,” Montúfar says. Although erratic, she says that this energy can be brilliant and creative. Hale suggests writing down your big ideas on this day — they might disappear from your mind as quickly as they come, and some of them will be worth saving. But it may be a better time to brainstorm than it is to act. “Mercury will also be squaring Saturn at the same time, so stay away from pushing your agenda, especially when it comes to career-related matters and issues with authority,” Hale warns.

Overall, Mercury in Taurus is creating a definite The Tortoise and the Hare vibe, and as the book taught us, it’s best to bet on the slower strategy. Our vision and communication during this time will be streamlined, and we’ll be able to think practically and responsibly about how to best get what we want — all we have to do is take the time to listen.

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On Friday, London-based menswear designer and 2020 LVMH Prize finalist Priya Ahluwalia announced her womenswear debut as part of a collaboration with Ganni. The result is a collection that’s both sustainable — it was designed with upcycled deadstock fabric that went unused in Ganni’s fall ‘20 collection — and the life of the party — Ahluwalia was inspired by London’s Garage scene in the ‘90s. 

The collection is made up of 19 pieces, many of which were created in Ganni’s signature silhouettes, but with Ahluwalia’s unique touches, making them unlike any pieces we’ve come to expect from the Copenhagen fashion darling. Think: square necklines on midi dresses and buttery soft leather mini dresses, but with tighter fits and patchwork patterns. “To be trusted to design the collection using Ganni’s liability materials was something that was very important to the design process,” Ahluwalia said in a press release. “The project has been great in showing how leftover materials can be totally transformed and are worth cherishing.”

The Nigerian-Indian creative wasn’t kidding about a transformation. Where we often associate Ganni with cottagecore vibes — the poofy sleeves, pastel colors, and soft plaids — this collection shows an edgier side to the brand. “I looked at photography from the U.K. Garage scene, as well as photos from my own personal history and culture and wanted to create clothing that women will feel sexy and strong in whilst on the dancefloor, whether at a club or at home,” Ahluwalia said. 

Ahluwalia’s 19-piece womenswear debut, which ranges in price from $100 to $1350, will be available for purchase on Friday, April 26. In the meantime, sign up to be among the first to shop at ganni.com.

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On Thursday night, a 19-year-old gunman named Brandon Scott Hole opened fire at a FedEx Ground facility near Indianapolis, killing eight people and wounding several others before reportedly taking his own life. Hole was a former FedEx employee according to a Friday afternoon press briefing from Indianapolis Police Deputy Chief Craig McCartt. While details continue to emerge regarding a possible motive — the gunman is said to be “known to federal and local authorities, and a relative reached out to authorities warning about that person’s potential for violence,” according to CNN reporting — a clearer picture of what happened is also coming to light. Law enforcement officials are beginning to detail what is the country’s deadliest mass shooting since 10 people were gunned down at a grocery store in Boulder, CO… a little over three weeks ago. 

McCartt said that the shooting began almost immediately after the gunman exited his vehicle outside the facility. Police believe four people were shot and killed in the parking lot before the shooter went inside and began to open fire again. Two FedEx employees told CNN affiliate WISH that they heard around 10 gunshots inside the facility. Four additional people were shot and killed inside, before the gunman shot and killed himself. Five others were taken to a local hospital to be treated for gunshot wounds, while two were treated at the scene and released, requiring no additional medical attention. 

Currently, there is not much known about Hole, and police are refraining from releasing the victims’ names until all their loved ones have been notified.

The shooting marks the 45th mass shooting in the United States in the past month, and it is at least the 147th mass shooting in 2021 so far. Earlier this month, a gunman who was targeting Asian-owned businesses shot and killed eight people, six of whom were Asian American women. (According to the Gun Violence Archive, a mass shooting involves four or more people dead, excluding the shooter.)

Several harrowing details seem to have been overlooked so far by media coverage. At least some of the victims were members of the Sikh community, adding to the list of Black and brown communities targeted by gunmen and reeling from the impact of gun violence. CNN also reported that FedEx employees were banned from using their cell phones inside the facility, and therefore were not able to call their loved ones or, presumably, for help. FedEx released a statement on Friday afternoon that it is currently reexamining this policy.

The shooting also occurred the day before the 14th anniversary of the third deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, when a 23-year-old student shot and killed 32 people at Virginia Tech.

Politicians quickly responded to yet another instance of mass violence, as the country continues to grapple with the police killings of Daunte Wright and 13-year-old Adam Toledo. Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said Friday is “another heartbreaking day” and that he is “shaken by the mass shooting.” President Joe Biden tweeted, “Vice President Harris and I have been briefed on the mass shooting at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis. God bless the eight individuals we lost and their loved ones, and we pray for the wounded for their recovery. We can, and must, do more to reduce gun violence and save lives.” And FedEx released a statement saying the company is “deeply shocked and saddened.”

But in the absence of real, legislative, systemic change, mass shootings can — and will — continue to plague us. And thoughts and prayers from elected officials won’t impact the continued gun violence that is coursing through the country.

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