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Social justice warrior

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"SJW" redirects here. For other uses, seeSJW (disambiguation).

Social justice warrior(SJW) is apejorativeterm andinternet mememostly used for an individual who promotessocially progressive,left-wingorliberalviews, includingfeminism,civil rights,gay and transgender rights,andmulticulturalism.[7]The accusation that somebody is an SJW carries implications that they are pursuingpersonal validationrather than any deep-seatedconviction,and engaging indisingenuousarguments.[3][8]

The phrase originated in the late 20th century as a neutral or positive term for people engaged insocial justiceactivism.[1]In 2011, when the term first appeared onTwitter,it changed from a primarily positive term to an overwhelmingly negative one.[1]During theGamergate controversy,the term was adopted by what would become thealt-right,and the negative connotations gained increased usage which would eventually overshadow its origins.[2][6][9]

Meaning

Original meaning

Further information:Social justice

Dating back to 1824, the termsocial justicerefers to justice on a societal level.[10]From the early 1990s to the early 2000s,social-justice warriorwas used as a neutral or complimentary phrase, as when a 1991Montreal Gazettearticle describes union activistMichel Chartrandas a "Quebec nationalist and social-justice warrior".[1]

Katherine Martin, the head of U.S. dictionaries atOxford University Press,said in 2015 that "[a]ll of the examples I've seen until quite recently are lionizing the person".[1]As of 2015,theOxford English Dictionaryhad not done a full search for the earliest usage.[1]Merriam-Websterdates the earliest use of the term to 1945.[5]

Pejorative meaning

According to Martin, the term switched from primarily positive to negative around 2011, when it was first used as an insult onTwitter.[1]The term first appeared onUrban Dictionaryin 2011 and on theSomething Awfulforums in 2013.[6]According toKnow Your Meme,the pejorative term "keyboard warrior",which describes a person who is unreasonably angry and hides behind their keyboard, may be a precursor to the" social justice warrior ".[6]The negative connotation has primarily been aimed at those espousing views adhering tosocial progressivism,cultural inclusivity, orfeminism.[11][1][2]Scott Selisker writes inNew Literary Historythat the SJW is often criticised as the "stereotype of the feminist as unreasonable, sanctimonious, biased, and self-aggrandizing".[11]Use of the term has also been described as attempting to degrade the motivations of the person accused of being an SJW, implying that their motives are "for personal validation rather than out of any deep-seated conviction".[3][8]Allegra Ringo inVicewrites that "in other words, SJWs don't hold strong principles, but they pretend to. The problem is, that's not a real category of people. It's simply a way to dismiss anyone who brings up social justice."[8]

The term's negative use became mainstream due to the 2014Gamergateharassment campaign, where it emerged as the favored term of Gamergate proponents and was popularized on websites such asReddit,4chan,andTwitter.Gamergate supporters used the term to criticise what they claimed were unwanted external influences in video game media from progressive sources.[1][12]Martin states that "the perceived orthodoxy [of progressive politics] has prompted a backlash among people who feel their speech is being policed".[1]InInternetandvideo game culture,the phrase is broadly associated with a widerculture warthat also included the 2015Sad Puppiescampaign that affected theHugo Awards.[2][13]A study fromFeminist Media Studiesnoted that "the appropriation of SJW as a memeticstraw manbecame commonplace during and following the upheaval of #Gamergate. "[6]

In August 2015,social justice warriorwas one of several new words and phrases added toOxford Dictionaries.[1][14][15]

See also

References

  1. ^abcdefghijkOhlheiser, Abby (October 7, 2015)."Why 'social justice warrior,' a Gamergate insult, is now a dictionary entry".The Washington Post.Archivedfrom the original on January 26, 2017.
  2. ^abcdJohnson, Eric (October 10, 2014)."Understanding the Jargon of Gamergate".Re/code.Archivedfrom the original on January 2, 2016.A Social Justice Warrior, or SJW, is any person, female or male, who argues online for political correctness or feminism. 'Social justice' may sound like a good thing to many of our readers, but the people who use this term only use it pejoratively.
  3. ^abcHeron, Michael James; Belford, Pauline; Goker, Ayse (2014). "Sexism in the circuitry: female participation in male-dominated popular computer culture".ACM SIGCAS Computers and Society.44(4): 18–29.doi:10.1145/2695577.2695582.S2CID18004724.
  4. ^Stack, Liam (August 15, 2017)."Alt-Right, Alt-Left, Antifa: A Glossary of Extremist Language".The New York Times.RetrievedSeptember 13,2017.
  5. ^ab"Social Justice Warrior".Merriam-Webster.RetrievedAugust 31,2021.
  6. ^abcdeMassanari, Adrienne L.; Chess, Shira (July 4, 2018)."Attack of the 50-foot social justice warrior: the discursive construction of SJW memes as the monstrous feminine"(PDF).Feminist Media Studies.18(4): 525–542.doi:10.1080/14680777.2018.1447333.ISSN1468-0777.S2CID149070172– viaTaylor & Francis Online.
  7. ^[1][2][3][4][5][6]
  8. ^abcRingo, Allegra (August 28, 2014)."Meet the Female Gamer Mascot Born of Anti-Feminist Internet Drama".Vice.Archivedfrom the original on January 14, 2016.
  9. ^Phelan, Sean (2019)."Neoliberalism, the Far Right, and the Disparaging of" Social Justice Warriors "".Communication, Culture & Critique.12(4): 455–475.doi:10.1093/ccc/tcz040.ISSN1753-9137.
  10. ^"social justice".The Oxford English Dictionary(3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. September 2005.
  11. ^abSelisker, Scott (2015)."The Bechdel Test and the Social Form of Character Networks".New Literary History.46(3): 505–523.doi:10.1353/nlh.2015.0024.ISSN0028-6087.OCLC1296558.S2CID146326736.
  12. ^Jeong, Sarah(2015).The Internet of Garbage.Forbes Media.ISBN978-1508018865.
  13. ^Barnett, David (April 26, 2016)."Hugo awards shortlist dominated by rightwing campaign".RetrievedSeptember 29,2018.
  14. ^Wagner, Laura (August 27, 2015)."Can You Use That In A Sentence? Dictionary Adds New Words".NPR.Archivedfrom the original on March 20, 2016.
  15. ^Steinmetz, Katy (August 26, 2015)."Oxford Dictionaries Adds 'Fat-Shame,' 'Butthurt' and 'Redditor'".Time.Archivedfrom the original on January 20, 2016.

Further reading

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