What is a Social Justice Warrior?

[Eddie the head]

It's a term that basically become shorthand for insulting someone for holding a certain political view. It's kind of how like right wing Americans have turned liberal into a dirty word.

Personally I lose a little bit of faith in humanity every time I see the term used. The implication being that caring about race/gender/sexuality topics is a BAD thing.

That's no the implication. At least not whenever I've see it used. The implication is closer to what Queen Michael said.

It's a term mostly used to refer to people on the Internet who go overboard in their attempts to create, well, social justice. To be more precise, it refers to the kind of people who find anything and everything offensive. The kind of people who seem like they're constantly looking for something to feel offended by, just so they can complain about it and feel morally superior.

The implication is that you can go way to far with this kind of thing. And that it's not about helping people it's about feeling morally superior. You can feel free to disagree with that, but that is what most people appear to be implying when they use the term.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Do some people use it that way? Probably. What I've been noticing is that you can't seem to bring up anything about the representation of women/LGHT/non-whites in media without at least five different people throwing the term around. I guess we can add it to the pile of things that had good intentions and the internet ruined.

 

[Nurb]

The term used for over-sensitve vocal minority extremists of any group for social progress involving gender, race, or sexuality. Often associated with tumblr. Known for usually obsessing over pop-culture or blowing small issues out of proportion.

Generally they bring negative attention to whatever their cause is and act as bad as what they complain about.

For example...

Spoiler: This is a feminist

Spoiler: This is a Social Justice Warrior

OR

In my case as a bisexual that pushes for equality involving sexualities and acceptance of transpeople, we have to put up with these...

Spoiler: Social Justice Warriors

 

[Bruce]

A derogatory term used by bigots and adverts for abortion for those people who are worth having around.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Someone who cares about some aspect of social justice that you'd prefer people not talking about.

For some reason, the phrase "The PC Police" or "PC gone mad" doesn't cut it when someone says using racist slurs is a bad thing, or whatever.

 

[Twinrehz]

In Norway I've heard the terms PC Hitler and PC Mafia been used occasionally.

Either way, I'm not active enough in online forums and on tumblr or reddit, so I guess I won't be seeing much of it. Thanks for clearing it up for me though, I like to stay somewhat up to date.

 

[ChaosBorne]

a social justice warrior in my opinion is somebody who acts politically correct though it's all just to show his/her supposed moral superiority.

in contrast

a social justice activist is somebody who strives to achieve social justice and who actively tries to inform others and change things for the better.

i think it's important to maintain that difference between the terms, the SJW doesn't actually strive to better the world merely show others he's better than them.

 

[Robert Marrs]

Everyone pretty much has answered your question. I do think its hilarious that you can go through this thread and easily point out the people that are called SJW's on a regular basis and thus feel the need to defend it or pretend everyone else is the problem. Funny enough its through the same smug "i didn't realize caring about other peoples problems was a bad thing" knowing damn well that is not what people are talking about. Rule number one. If EVERYONE you come across or talk to is a bigot, asshole, racist, sexist or whatever chances are YOU are the problem not them.

 

[Lilani]

In my experience, it's a term for a person who cares about social justice issues, and wants the whole world to know about it.

 

[Flunk]

That sounds like the sort of title terrorists call themselves so they can sleep at night.

 

[Vegosiux]

It's a description of behavior, not a description of one's positions on political issue.

Person A cares about this stuff, is active in life in that regard, doesn't treat anyone like crap, is open-minded and not prejudiced. They're more likely to try and help the victims directly. They basically integrate their "social activism" into their lives seamlessly, because they're just living by their principles. Person B cares about this stuff, but their reach is mostly just being very loud on a soap box somewhere, and rather than help the victims directly, they're a lot more likely to just stay on that soap box, pointing fingers, and going "J'accuse!" at people, and act as if they're helping.

Person A: Not SJW
Person B: SJW

 

[viranimus]

I am totally disappointed that this thread had nothing to do with

https://indiegamestand.com/store/1019/social-justice-warriors/

 

[Flutterguy]

Dissapointed in themselves so they make high standards for everyone else to live by.

I'm not sure how you draw that kind of conclusion.

Being surrounded in opinionated vegans and being an opinionated dick myself.

 

[L. Declis]

Fuck it, let's try an Academic approach.

Social Justice.
Line breaks: so¦cial jus|tice
Noun (mass noun)
Justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society:
individuality gives way to the struggle for social justice
Source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/social-justice?q=social+justice

Now, I can't find a solid dictionary definition for Social Justice Warrior, but I did find several sources which gave an attempt at a definition. Here is a relatively unbiased one:

Social Justice Warrior
Noun
A Social Justice Warrior or SJW is someone who takes to heart various causes that pertain to Social Justice. Be it fighting for People of Colour (PoC) or Gender/Sexual Minorities (GSM), the Social Justice Warrior usually believes in intersectionality, the idea that oppression occurs in society across a variety of mediums and is all controlled by a central systematic culture, or Kyriarchy. SJW are most prominent on their safe space, the internet, normally using either tumblr or live journal to blog on.
Source: http://internetobservationproject.com/social-justice-warrior-definition/

Between the two above, I have provided what can be seen as the basis of a Social Justice Warrior. However, you want the meaning of slang, every day term. I have some more sources, but these will seem biased, but all semantic meaning is. I have chosen a very popular source which would have had the most public scrutiny; Urban Dictionary, where it is the public who submits the definitions and effectively edits it in "trial by fire".

Social Justice Warrior
A pejorative term for an individual who repeatedly and vehemently engages in arguments on social justice on the Internet, often in a shallow or not well-thought-out way, for the purpose of raising their own personal reputation. A social justice warrior, or SJW, does not necessarily strongly believe all that they say, or even care about the groups they are fighting on behalf of. They typically repeat points from whoever is the most popular blogger or commenter of the moment, hoping that they will "get SJ points" and become popular in return. They are very sure to adopt stances that are "correct" in their social circle.

The SJW's favorite activity of all is to dogpile. Their favorite websites to frequent are Livejournal and Tumblr. They do not have relevant favorite real-world places, because SJWs are primarily civil rights activists only online.
Source: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=social%20justice%20warrior

Now, Know Your Meme does cover the criticisms of the Social Justice blogging movement.

However, the group has been criticized for propagating unreliable information and espousing slacktivism and herd mentality, as reflected in the pejorative term ?social justice warriors.
...
Criticism:
The concept of social justice blogging been criticized by outsiders of the community as being overzealous and self-righteous. In response to the pervasive nature of social justice bloggers on Tumblr, anti-social justice blogs had begun to surface by early 2011, including Fuck No Tumblr Social Justice Warrior[8] in May 2011, Shit Social Justice Allies Say in May 2012, Silly Social Justice in June 2012 and Fuck No Social Justice Warriors[9] in July 2012.

To summarise an actual answer to your question, I shall try to provide a definition to Social Justice Warrior.

Social Justice Warrior.
(see: Social Justice, Social Justice Blogging, "Check Your Privilege")
Noun
1. A person who takes it upon themselves to actively campaign for issues of social justice, meaning the imbalances of sex, race, gender, wealth and other possible privileges.
2. (Pejorative in nature) A person who is seen as overzealous, unreasonable, uneducated or hypocritical in their views or statements in regards to support of social justice
Source: I thought of it, so I'll write it up later and slap on a source. See below.
https://leon-declis.squarespace.com/articles-on-society/sjw-definition BAM!

 

[SacremPyrobolum]

Whatever you want it to be.

 

[Twinrehz]

Fuck it, let's try an Academic approach.

-snip-

Thanks, that was very informative. I think that about covers the entire topic, though I'm sure you could say a whole lot more about it. Also a joke about "check your privilege" just made a whole lot more sense...

 

[Ickorus]

The term used for over-sensitve vocal minority extremists of any group for social progress involving gender, race, or sexuality. Often associated with tumblr. Known for usually obsessing over pop-culture or blowing small issues out of proportion.

Generally they bring negative attention to whatever their cause is and act as bad as what they complain about.

For example...

Spoiler: This is a feminist

Spoiler: This is a Social Justice Warrior

OR

In my case as a bisexual that pushes for equality involving sexualities and acceptance of transpeople, we have to put up with these...

Spoiler: Social Justice Warriors

This is an excellent post, and I must say; I've never seen nor heard of The Factual Feminist before but I really respect her after watching those videos.

The second one in particular should be noted as it describes exactly why I'm so against SJWs: They claim to be for equality and yet everything they do reeks of bigotry and deceit.

 

[wadark]

As most have said it kinda has double meanings, one positive, one not.

In the derogatory sense, I've always had the impression that it's a term used to characterize someone who 'falsely' stands up for social issues, but in actuality does it less to further the actual cause, and more to be 'seen' as someone who stands up for issues to make themselves morally superior.

 

[Twinrehz]

-snip-

-doublesnip-

What the actual fuck, cisgendered? What kind of douchebag asshatry word is that? Why is this even a thing? And where does this word come from?

EDIT: Purrently it's latin. Whatever, still sounds dumb.