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.
Too much thinking.
The right doesn’t care about accuracy, but they will pretend to to keep us busy. To counteract it, we can’t spend our time engaged in good faith arguments of carefully considered wording. We need to beat them on that flippant energy that shows we won’t take their bait and we know we’re right, so we don’t have to prove it.
Weird is perfect for that. They don’t want to be weird.
Now when they turn it around and try to call us weird? Then is the time to say ‘hey, that’s cool! I’m happy to be weird!’ and literally not worry about the contradiction at all.
They picked an arena where they can’t beat us. Let’s meet them there.
This, 100%. Did I have a hard time being called a weird kid growing up? Absolutely. I feel how this might make someone very uncomfortable. I embrace being called weird now after much struggle, and use it as a badge of honor. And currently, that exact flippant energy being used at people who can only parrot hateful things? That’s my bread and butter now, baby.
Weird is only a “weapon” if the person being called it treats it like one and for people like Trump(narcissist), being called weird is a trigger. I’m a weird person and most people who use the word are also weird. The point isn’t to make weird a negative word, but to trigger Trump and his goon and throw off his stride. That’s all it is.
Everytime discussions like this pop up, I can’t help but ponder upon how other people view language. Words are not universal. Perhaps it’s my neurodivergence or the fact that I’ve studied language, but I’ve always found it odd that others can prescribe such meaning to a single word, or for a word to have a strict definition absent context. I don’t know a single word in any language which only has a single definition- nearly every word has multiple definitions because it’s a reflection of how language is abstract. We create words to convey ideas, which are often ethereal in nature- they often lack clear boundaries.
But more than that, we internalize definitions much more often than we look them up. We use language based on how the people around us use language. We pick up their sayings, the slang they use, the way they structure grammar, the things they emphasize and minimize, and the words they borrow from other languages. Any slur that’s been used on you is something you will carry with you and will hold more weight that slurs which are used on others because the experience is tied to an emotional state. But it goes further than that, happy words which are tied to happy memories will have a different connotation than happy words which you’ve never used or never been exposed to. Language is inherently human and therefore inherently emotionally charged and socially defined.
Unfortunately you can never control how others use language. How you view a word cannot be the same as everyone else, because they haven’t lived your life. For some, weird may be empowering - a way to step into and own their eccentricity and difference; a celebration of diversity. Some may have never heard it used in the contexts you’ve mentioned. Others still may have experienced both othering and reclamation. Ultimately language will continue to be used whether you are comfortable with it or not. I’ve personally found that leaning into language which has been used against me negatively has helped to disempower it and the more I reclaim that language the less it bothers me and the more I view it as a source of pride.
This article shared by @TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org earlier today has a section where they explore this idea a little:
There are, of course, different kinds of weird. There’s good weird and bad weird, or creepy-weird and interesting-weird. Plenty of regular folks and artists are a very good kind of weird. They reject conformity in ways that make us question cultural norms and force us to face the inherent randomness of existence. Weirdness is vitally important in this way.
Vance and Trump and their foot soldiers are most definitely creepy-weird.
I guess I’m not getting what bothers you about it? I wrote most of a paragraph about how I view the word, but then I realized that we are basically on the same page. “Weird” means different things depending on who is saying it, and depending on who they are saying it to. Just like “queer” has taken on a new context, even though it was used as a slur for quite some time. You know that if a leftist calls you “weird”, they mean it in an endearing way, while if they call a right winger “weird”, they mean it in a derogatory way. I am gathering that you agree that this is how it works. So what am I missing?
I sometimes say to my best friend, among other generally inappropriate things, that something she does is gay, and she does the same to me. It is a private reclamation of the use of the word gay as a slur, but outside any context, to an outside observer, it’s just casual homophobia.
Let me go back to that child. I don’t think they will hear horrible people being called weird and see it as being bad weird. It’s just plain weird. If it’s not being different that’s the issue, but the specific bad behavior, why the focus is on weird? We know words help shape our perception, we fight for those changes. What bothers me is hearing the same harmful words I heard so many times towards me and around me being used by those who seemed to understand how they hurt. I guess it’s similar to the discussion of being okay to attack someone’s looks if they are on the other side.
I sometimes say to my best friend, among other generally inappropriate things, that something she does is gay, and she does the same to me.
My partner and I do the same. It’s to the point where i don’t even think of the original slur use anymore. This is pretty universal among all of the queer people I know IRL.
If it’s not being different that’s the issue, but the specific bad behavior, why the focus is on weird?
Because the specific bad behavior is childish and immature, but the weird people in question do not understand that their behavior is childish and immature. Weaponizing “weird”, a word that is usually only weaponized by children, brings their immaturity into sharp focus, which pisses them off because they are trying so very hard to be viewed as tough and unstoppable. Most rational adults do not mind being called weird, which is why it works as a label. It makes conservatives mad, and if they try to go, “I’m not weird, you’re weird!”, most rational people won’t really care, because weird isn’t a bad thing to be. We’ve tried other words, but they generally don’t work because they are either too academic to stick, or the Right simply “both-sides” it into obscurity.
You really should read that article I linked, it digs into this better than I can.
I read it. I was familiar with that form of activism, but I don’t agree this is it. I saw all the examples presented as forms of reframing the situations to deflate their original meaning. The author says using weird is non violent, but it’s an attack using a word. The advice is use it because it hurts, not because it makes their ideals less appealing.
As an ND disabled person who tried my whole life to reclaim the word weird it bothers me as well.but same here, not an american.
