And I use “normal” in scare quotes, because, according to whom, exactly, capitalism? Society? Yourself? Some of the “weirdest” people I’ve met in my life where also some of the nicest and actually helped me out. People you’d peg as “normal”? Well I’ve had my fair share of shit with them. I’m not about to put up with some reddit lord trying to score points with cool kid podcasters by throwing people who feed the homeless under the bus, fuck you very much.
I was recently typing up a write-up that I’m yet to post — assuming I ever do post it — and I found myself falling into this exact trap while writing it. I don’t even follow any “cool kid podcasters” so I must’ve just learned the “be normal” rhetoric through osmosis, maybe a site tagline here? In any case, immediately after I’d typed the words, I thought, “Where did I even learn this line from?! I’M not normal, for chrissake! I’m autistic and go by neopronouns, and somehow I have the audacity to call other people weird?! Guess I’ve got some more internalized prejudice to unlearn…”
…I mean, my write-up’s point about being in touch and loving your fellow human being and all is still valid, but the way I was framing that argument with these loaded terms definitely came from a place of internalized ableism. But hey, at least there’s a lesson about the importance of self-crit to be learned here, right?
There’s quite a history of people on the site using the term (only encouraged by their favorite streamer doing it), so it easily could have been from that.
I think it’s a great thing that you identified a concern, thought critically about it, and changed your behavior. The above-mentioned users predictably only seem to do so when they feel they are losing the room, so the only thing to be done about it is to make sure they do lose the room, because what is considered acceptable or unacceptable can and sometimes must be changed.