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Dividing the world into normies and others is a very odd way to characterise widespread adoption of anything. I hesitate to use the neckbeard word, but it's got
by ggm 2y ago
Dividing the world into normies and others is a very odd way to characterise widespread adoption of anything. I hesitate to use the neckbeard word, but it's got overtones.
There are as many usefully curated sites, as sites where state actors curate content to hide the reptile led barcode truth from the normies.
- bitexploder 2y agoThe nomenclature could use some polish, but on HN we know they mean ability to bypass technological restrictions .
- aaplok 2y agoI am probably not part of the "we" you are talking about, but I had no idea "normie" means that, and I couldn't infer it from the comment. In fact I inferred a completely wrong meaning from that comment (something like "unenlightened"). Isn't "normie" a pejorative word (genuine question)?
- ggm 2y agoThis was the basis of my response too. It's almost never said by people in contexts where it's not pejorative, to my understanding. It's a staple of incels and the elite Mensa types. It dismisses the average lived experience because iamveryspecial.
- s1artibartfast 2y agoI dont think it dismisses or invalidates their lived experiences, it just recognizes that differences in interests and adoption exists.
- astrobe_ 2y ago> Isn't "normie" a pejorative word (genuine question)? It depends on the context. It can be a synonym for "average" (mostly neutral) or "mediocre" (pejorative).
- YurgenJurgensen 2y agoI suspect that ‘Normie’ is the normie-friendly version of an earlier 4chan-derived term, which was absolutely a pejorative.
- bitexploder 2y agoIt generally refers to a group of “normal” people. E.g in some context they are an “out” group that does not have some specialized knowledge or understanding that the “in” group would have. So it can be negative, but it generally just means someone inexperienced with the given topic area. There is an implication of otherness to using the term “normie” for the group using it but it is generally a pretty common term now. For example, imagine a bunch of policy wonks debating something in highly specific language and then someone asks “how would the normies react?” They mean, “how would people unfamiliar with the inner workings of political policy react?” Stuff like that. It does have a negative connotation for that group in some contexts, but the usage is pretty common and softened now.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- typewithrhythm 2y agoIf you want to split the categories between normies and neckbeards that's good enough a model of the world to understand the issue. The part that I miss is we had things in public, collaborations between everyone who was interested in spending the time to access the space. This barrier was enough to keep things feeling like a community, with most of the things like this that came up being able to be addressed by internal arguments. Now everything has to be robust to the idea that you will have neckbeards and normies interacting, and that curation is required. You have passive users, who's eyes are valuable... contributors, with divergent motivation, some pure for the joy of the project, some who want to put their agenda in front of the first group... And even external state actors pushing things at a scale that's hard to understand.
- vehemenz 2y agoWhy? It’s a salient distinction when talking about mass-adoption of technology. Social dynamics change dramatically when the ratio of neckbeards to normies is upset. I don’t like these terms either, but “neckbeards and normies” has a nice alliterative quality.