Agreed, "normies" is a fine shorthand for "people who are not concerned with the niche thing we're currently talking about", but seeing people who think of it as an actual category that they judge people by is a dangerous mental model that a lot of people on here seem to fall victim to.

We are amall group primates, it's our nature. Us vs Them. In and Out groups. Everyone is a victim of it.

Maybe your narrow-minded group believes in in- and out-groups, but not mine!

Ahh. You mean your "in-group" of people who don't believe in "in-groups".

This is tongue-in-cheek. :)

There was a time I would lamented the need to be so explicit. But now, I'm just grateful the point got across. Communication seems to happen less and less reliably, with more error modes with greater negative emotional impact, and I worry that this implies the existence of some sort of inevitable drift between my brain and other people's brains. And I'm not sure if the solution is to bridge the gap, or just keep going and learn to accept inane resistance with some combination of stoicism and resigned amusement.

You will burn in sparrow-hell!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EF3JLYwXUAAqDPP.jpg

Not sure how it applies, but it is funny in its own right. I mean, it's a good example of in- and out-groups, but it's not a good example of a group that denies the existence of out-groups (which is admittedly more self-referential and weird. You know, like an xkcd cartoon.)

It's also our nature to beat each other up on occasion. That doesn't mean we have to be victim of it.

Yes, absolutely. People are multidimensional. Most people may not care for your particular captivating niche interest, but some will find your excitement about it interesting and enjoy your excitement about it. And you can reciprocate that feeling towards their niche interests (almost everyone has at least one). Toss everyone who doesn't care about your thing into the same "normie" pile at your peril.

Hilarious considering hackernewsians are the normies of the online world.

That’s Reddit. On HN I sometimes find people with niche interests and expertise in all kinds of fields, which I like. It’s also relatively civilized. You don’t need to be a 4-chan edgelord to be not-normie.

HN broadly participated in the moral panic over lab leak theory being allowed to exist. This place is far more 'normie' than it likes to believe itself to be and is nowhere near as independent thinking as it pats itself on the back for being. But it does exceed Reddit in the percentage of posters who confuse their wealth for wisdom.

Reddit is just HN with lower standards of communication, puns, one word rebuttals, all that stuff is fair game there.

Being able to follow cultural norms of the local group is just about the least remarkable thing about any given group of humans. HN is not special.

Reddit are the nerds/losers of the online-o-sphere.

Most people here also belong to other communities and code switch how they write.

It is an interesting comment in itself. Does HN ( and other online communities ) have their own peculiar jargon and it is used to identify in-group? I definitely noticed some recurring phrases, but it does not appear to be.. say.. as obvious as 4chan or imgur.

It's less jargon and more tone. Whereas a sarcastically snarky retort might fly on most forums, here it's more likely to net you downvotes. But the same content expressed without the sarcasm will be better-received.

What sort of online world are you considering here? Does it include facebook, twitter and reddit? Or do you mean the deep, niche autism-adjacent online world?

I thought this was used typically for people “off the spectrum”.

Which is ironic, because hackernewsians are the most conventional people this side of the Pentecostals.