I started Weird Pride Day in 2021: it's the fourth of March (March 4th) every year.
It's a day for celebrating weirdness, because far too many people seem to have got the idea that normality is somehow good, and people being different from each other is somehow bad. I'm tired of people being ashamed of things they've been told are weird. Weird Pride is about rejecting that shame, embracing our harmless foibles and ridiculing pointless stigma.
The fact is, there will always people who can't help but chafe against social norms: people who find their society's conventions oppressive or just baffling, who can't be themselves without troubling those who expect folk to be a particular way. It can also be a lot of fun to push back against conformity! That's all healthy, for the most part. It's often good for people to be jogged into seeing things differently, but it's something that conservatives are forever pushing against; people get very attached to conventions.
The more that conservatism and conformity dominate a society, the greater the toll on those who don't conform - whether that's by choice, or by virtue of who they are, or both. It becomes all the more vital for people to be reminded of the value of difference, and for those who are able to, to stand up and say that they're weird and they're proud. There's safety in numbers, and a deep vulnerability that comes with thinking it's just you.
I think a lot of us are drawn to subcultures where some degree of noncomformity is expected - although it's not uncommon to end up getting burned by the old 'Be Yourself'/'Not Like That' bait-and-switch. That was a huge part of the pull of the early internet: sites like Everything2 were successful in large part because people found a community of people they found relatably weird. Internet early-adopters were disproportionately people who struggled to fit in socially, out in 'meatspace'. There was a lot of crossover there with roleplayers, for example, which helps explains some of this site's dynamics. Queer and trans people were also heavily over-represented, drawn by the internet's promise to allow us to connect with like-minded people and learn about how things are for them.
Neurodivergent people were also heavily over-represented on the early internet, as we still are among those who work in IT. It is tempting to think that this can be explained by autistic people in particular being unusually likely to be adept with technology, and there is some truth in that - being monotropic and being good with systems are often assets in this kind of work - but I think that mostly, it's really about the same reasons as all of the above groups. We often struggle to fit in, and we crave connection with people who get us. It has not come as any great surprise to me to find that so many of the connections I made here on Everything 20-25 years ago later realised that they (we) are neurodivergent. I'm actually writing this on my fifteenth autiversary, but I knew I was weird decades before that.
Many neurodivergent, queer and/or trans people can pass as 'normal', at least some of the time. The same goes for people in other stigmatised minorities. It takes a toll, though, hiding things about ourselves that people see as weird - and for some of us, it's totally unrealistic. For some, it might seem easy, but even then, burying your weirdness often means concealing some of the most interesting and joyous things about yourself.
Weirdness is not a choice. Being proud of it is.
This year's Weird Pride Day is the fifth one. I'll be celebrating by chatting in a public video call with Robin Ince, Josie Long and Kate Fox, about weirdness and what it all means.
You are invited to mark the day in any way you see fit. What makes you weird? Have you learnt to be proud of it yet?