Normie is a relative term, Gamers talking among other Gamers will use the word Normie of people who aren't particularly into Video Games, while others might perceive gaming itself to be a pretty Normie interest to have.
Lately Anime is the fandom I’ve been most into and so past uses of Normie on this blog are in that context. In fact it was in the Anime fandom I first heard the word and so it’s among a list of terms I at one time mistook for terms the Anime community coined. So it was jarring for a part of my brain while watching a YT not too long ago I saw someone in the context of what they’re talking about refer to Anime as being for Normies.
I'm talking about this because recently I realized some people use the word Normie thinking it has a more objective non relative meaning, that there is a class of people only into the most Mainstream things with no Niche hobbies at all. I don’t think such a hypothetical person exists, everyone is a fan of something that most people haven’t heard of.
And even when we're talking about the most Mainstream interests one could theoretically have, being a hardcore fan of that thing is still not actually normal. Star Wars movies and now Disney+ shows are normal to have seen but having read any of the books is not. DC and Marvel Superhero movies are watched by everyone but very few actually read the Comics. Even the most theoretically mainstream interest you can have in American culture, Sports, do you really think the Sports fan who can tell you at the drop of hat what happened in Games played before they were born and don’t even involve their favorite team aren’t using the exact same brain energy we Comic Book nerds are?
The reason I felt I needed to make this point is because of a video I recently watched about the Fascist adjacent thinking that has always been present in Sci-Fi fandoms even going back to its early days.
Indeed some will argue that using the word Normie at all is a Fascist adjacent practice. I would disagree, I think a group having a catch all term for everyone outside their group simply is objectively linguistically useful. In fact it’s Nazis who love to claim Jews are committing some sin against all Goyim by simply having the word Goyim.
What matters is how you perceive the outsiders that term refers to. I see them as fellow humans with different interests.
