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.
Saw a comment elsewhere that someone who shrugs off being called weird is better to know than the one who gets upset by it.
The far right are seething about being called weird because they see themselves as they cool kids who laugh at others for being weird so it’s really got under their skin.
The right has made major ground the last few years because any explanation leftists give they like to provide context which bogs them down.
Calling JD Vance a weirdo couch fucker for example, is succinct, visceral and keeps them on the backfoot as the far right cannot process their emotions at the speed that the left can.