People really are trying to get upset over the most inane and irrelevant stuff, this shouldn't be a platform where everyone just rants about their pet-peeves - that's what twitter is for.

Pretending there isn't any condescension toward the "normies" when using the term is blatantly exhibiting the exact behavior the OP referenced. It's not how inclusivity works in a community at all. It alienates anyone that isn't already a part of it.

This is absolutely not how you approaching communities. They literally said it creates an Us vs them mentality and you claim that as a positive? Groups are not about us vs them. At all. Nor is it how you build communities. That's how you create echo chambers and cliques and lead to your own downfall as a community.

The problem is that generalization exists.

Every person that ever met or talked to a person that is part of the non-"normie" group does not want to associate with other people that might be in the same group. I've experienced it myself often enough even though I don't consider myself far gone like the people that talk to every "normie" in a condescending way, but they don't know it.

I genuinely try to hide the fact that I have fun tinkering with my PC or programming because of that. Because I do not want people that are not tech affinitive to think 'I'm probably just a stuck-up asshole'.

Tbh, it mostly sounds condescending. Like "they are the normals, as opposed to us, we are the ones that see further than them" a lot of times.

Though I did have seen things that are clearly self-aware, mostly the "NORMIES OUT REEEE"-stuff. But there is definitely both.

"Normie" is one of the few words that I cringe over everytime I read it. I consider myself to be in, or adjacent to, the group of people that would use that word, since I am tech affinitive and that group is usually the one that uses it. But I cringe everytime I see it used unironically because I don't want non-tech affinitive (or lesser affinitive) people to lump every person that has something to do with IT or similar into the group of people they don't want nothing to do with because they're always condescending towards them.

It's literally like as if you're saying "Did you know that I have an IQ of 150?".

You're not gatekeeping anyone out of your life by using that word, you're gatekeeping yourself out of every "normal" persons life by using that word.

Exactly, pushing people away is not how you grow a platform

Like, what happened to just downvoting low effort or low “quality” posts? Do we have to pass IQ tests to allow users on Lemmy now?

I’m with you on this one, in a vacuum I don’t really have a problem with the term “normie” but here it is completely being used as gatekeeping.

This whole meta controversy has really caused some brain rot, a lot of people talk about this place as if it’s better because it “gatekeeps”. They say they enjoy this place because it is niche and doesn’t have the “below room temperature IQ posters” (actual quote I saw)

I don’t like this attitude, I really don’t like it. It is way to common on the internet, especially for hobby communities to have this attitude.

I embrace it. It's my core identity. Now excuse me, I have to put up some shelves.