this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2024
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It bothers me seeing weird used as a weapon (beehaw.org)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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I really tried to ignore it and let it go as just another passing trend. It’s not my language, not my culture and not my battleground, but it’s hard. It hurt me seeing it slowly spreading and getting bigger. What made me decide to vent was reading someone talk about their struggles and seeing a familiar sentence that might be familiar to all: “I was a weird child”.

Being weird is not usually a problem, the issue usually is people being incapable to accept what they consider weird. Different is not wrong, queer is not wrong, expressing yourself and living the only way you know when it’s not hurting anyone around you is definitely not wrong, even if it doesn’t conform with society.

All these horrible people hate being called weird because it’s what they having been calling us the whole time, but in more specific ways. I feel using it as a slur now just reinforces the negative connotations and validate their view.

Update: semantic satiation to the rescue. Weird became a meme and a trend everyone wanted to take part and use regardless of it making sense.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

There's weird as in unusual, which I appreciate. Then there's weird as in creepy.

If you see two people in a park and one is an adult skipping around catching butterflies and the other one is trying to follow women around without them noticing, that is two totally different genres of weirdness going on. I'll happily skip around with the person following their passion without fear of judgement, but the other weirdo needs to be kicked out of the park.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 months ago

That sounds like the difference between weird and creepy. Why not just say creepy? I suppose 'weird' may be a more effective insult, but I don't feel like it fits as well.

Republicans are creepy. I'm weird. There's very little overlap. I actually don't even think Republicans are that weird, they're just boring yet emboldened creeps.

It's not something I really thought about before reading this post, but I actually do think that 'weird' as an insult is kinda harmful, especially with how it overlaps with queerness and autism.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I think people should stick to using more specific/descriptive negative language like creepy and vile against them instead of using more generic language like weird.

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