OK for starters, I’ve put together a thread of tweets that I’ve tweeted about weirdness, and I think they provide a good (if disjointed) background context for this vomit.
I’ve always been interested in weirdos. Part of this is simple self-interest. I’ve always been a relatively weird-looking guy with a weird name, and I think that’s a non-trivial part of why I am a relatively weird person. There’s quite a bit more to it, of course, but that’s another story.
I don’t think I’m the weirdest person around, but I’m like 80% certain than I’m weirder than two thirds of the general population. To attempt to be precise, I think I am 1-2 standard deviations weirder than average (in the 15.7% group), but I’m pretty sure that I’m not in the 0.1% group. (Do I wish I could be that weird? I don’t know. I don’t… think so? I don’t think that’s a meaningful question, I don’t think it’s possible to be much weirder than you are – it’s a full time job just doing justice to your own weirdness.)
I’m fairly decent at roleplaying and cosplaying a normie around other normies, but it’s something that requires effort for me. I’m conscious and conscientious about it when I do it, it doesn’t come entirely naturally. But I do it to play along for social reasons.
To quote one of my own tweets: “I am at heart a much weirder person than I present to the world. Presenting your weirdness in a palatable way requires a lot of marketing skill – in a way you need to understand people better than they understand each other, since you’re going to interfere rather than imitate.”
I think my “true natural state” is one of a irreverent bookworm and a nerd. I don’t like having to think about social norms and conventions, being polite, giving gifts, dressing up, all that stuff. Anything in that space that I’m decent at is something that I’ve taught myself to do, because I don’t want it to be an issue. (I have a feeling that 3-sd weirdos hardly ever bother with this.)
I’ve said this several times but it’s always worth repeating – the origin of the word “weird” means “one who controls fates”. The weird sisters, the three witches.
At this point I think it’s also worth suggesting that I think it’s likely true that “witches”, for the most part, were probably just independent women who chose to live lives on their own terms, and that this frightened, angered and disturbed people so much that they rounded them up and literally set them on fire for the sin of daring to be weird.
The idea that “weird = abnormal or strange” is a relatively recent one, and I think it’s probably one that normies imposed unto weirdos because weirdos make normies uncomfortable. Which is kind of tragic overall, because normies depend on weirdos for so many things. For their art, for their entertainment, for their technology, for almost everything interesting that they consume.
Weirdness is not intrinsically good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant.
Sometimes you see silly arguments about whether weirdness is good or bad. That doesn’t make sense to me. Weirdness and goodness-or-badness are orthogonal. You can be good-weird or bad-weird. And even then, goodness and badness are so often really just whatever mainstream normie attitudes dictate they are, so good-weird often really means palatable+beneficial weird.
If your weirdness extremely beneficial, people will put up with the unpalatability, and the process of putting up with the unpalatable, over time, makes it palatable. As a result, interestingly, I think there are a bunch of things about normie everyday life that are actually quite weird, because it’s built on the work of past weirdos. This is rarely obvious in your own context, in your own culture, in your own city, because you grow up with it – but people often recognize it when they travel to other places, or read history. A different space and a different time, and the entire culture can seem weird. But it certainly didn’t seem weird to them.
But, to be a little meta about it, it would’ve seemed weird to the weirdos. I’m vaguely recalling a tweet or quote now about how somebody had a friend with Asperger’s who told them, “you know, it’s normal people who are really weird – they’re so obsessed with each other, so obsessed with trying to fit in”. So in that sense we’re all weird. And yet, there are meaningful distinctions and categories to be made. You can’t just say “oh, everyone is weird” and think that sufficiently describes and explains everything. It doesn’t explain all the conflicts and confusion that happens between people who are weird to different degrees.
Weirdos tend to congregate in scenes that afford and even encourage their weirdness. And so scenes are often fascinating places, in both good and bad ways. They can be much more intense, much more textured, nuanced and complex, and they can also be full of strange drama and odd practices that can seem bizzare, anti-social, outright cruel. There are different kinds of cruelty, and we always recognize weird cruelty more than we recognize normalized everyday cruelty (eg toxic and abusive families, “benign” or “benevolent” sexism, etc).
I haven’t quite figured out the backbone of this vomit, the central thesis that everything else is pinned on. I guess it’s the “not intrinsically good or bad” thing. Weirdness is a trait, an attribute, a quality – it’s found on the fringes. Weird people tend to be found at the fringes, sometimes because they are drawn there by other weirdos, sometimes because they’re cast out by normies, often it’s some mix of the two. That’s certainly the case for me. I find myself thinking, do I want to be surrounded by more weirdos…? I think the answer is yes. But I also want to be surrounded by good people. Not all weirdos are good people. Not all good people are weirdos. So I think my ideal configuration is something like, relationships with good people only, and preferably mostly weirdos who are good.
(I use “good” as shorthand for pro-social, people who are sensitive and thoughtful and kind.)
I would like it if normies and weirdos could get along better. I think there’s a bunch of needless antagonism and suspicion going both ways. I don’t think it’s fair to either group to bear the bulk of the responsibility for improving normie-weirdo relations. I’m a bit of a weirdo myself for even caring about this. But I do. I would like the world to accomodate weirdness better, because I think weirdness is the source of interestingness. Da Vinci was clearly a weirdo. But importantly, I don’t think that accommodating weirdness means tolerating shitty, asshole behavior.
Encourage weirdos, discourage assholes.
(Quick riff on “brilliant weirdos” – sometimes weirdos come across as brilliant because their perspectives are so different and novel and interesting. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re “smarter”, and being “smarter” doesn’t necessarily make someone a better person. The realization that some weirdos are brilliant *because they are weird* should lead to a more general realization that diversity is a good thing, because you get to see and hear perspectives that you would never have otherwise considered. Whether these people are “truly smarter or more brilliant than the rest of us” is a silly parlor game that isn’t really worth playing or winning. Stop pitting people against each other, and just focus on celebrating interestingness, wherever it comes from, and even as you realize it tends to come from places you don’t expect, because… where else? It’s our expectations that are faulty, really.)