Yeah, that's the Linus "hard R" (he thought "hard R" referred to "retard"), but it's just wrong. "Hard R" is "nigger", in opposition to soft r ("nigga"). I don't think there's even a question, that's how hard/soft has always been used. Anything else is just confusion, I think.

That would be the “Linus Sebastian misconception”

Ok, but I can't possibly be the only one who has no idea who that is, let alone what misconceptions they have.

There is a thing called Google, "Linus Sebastian Hard R" is full of information.