Posted this in a small community, curious to know what everyone here thinks.
Let me preface by saying, I would love to hear counter points and am fully open to the fact that I could be wrong and totally out of touch. I just want to have some dialogue around something that’s been bothering me in the fediverse.
More and more often I keep hearing people refer to “normies”. I think by referring to other people as “normies”, whether you intend to or not, you inadvertently gatekeep and create an exclusive environment rather than an inclusive one in the fediverse.
If I was not that familiar with the fediverse and decided to check it out and the first thing I read was a comment about “normies”, I would quite honestly be very put off. It totally has a negative connotation and doesn’t even encapsulate any one group. I just read a comment about someone grouping a racist uncle and funny friend into the same category of normie because they aren’t up to date on the fediverse or super tech savvy or whatever.
I don’t want to see any Meta bs in the fediverse. I barely want to see half of the stuff from Reddit in the fediverse. I don’t want to see the same echo chamber I do everywhere else.
I do want to see more users and more perspectives and a larger user base though. I want to see kindness and compassion. I want to talk to people about topics they are interested in. I want to have relevant discussions without it dissolving into some commentary on some unrelated hot topic thing.
I think calling people normies creates a more toxic, exclusive place which I personally came here to avoid.
Just my two cents! I know for most people using the term it isn’t meant to be malicious, but I think it comes off that way.
Love to hear all of your thoughts.
Ohhh I see I see! I am really glad you commented and explained that. That makes total sense and I did not think you meant it in a negative way, I think that it’s the perception of it to a large amount of people is probably negative. Including me, but I guess that’s where context comes in like some other people have been saying.
I get your point now. I just don’t like grouping the two example peoples into one category because I think they are inherently vastly different. Again, I think it really is perception.
And we are definitely in agreement with you last paragraph and the upside down social pyramid.
Hey, glad to hear that we’re mostly on the same page!
I should clarify that I’m just grouping fun friends and racist uncles together in the sense that they’re both groups of people who might only join the fediverse through threads in the forseable future. This is obviously a very hetrogenous groups so it’s not surprising that it contains very different kinds of people.