On Being Weird
Being weird is a very difficult thing to overcome in life, leading those weird folks who become successful in one area to believe they can be successful in another.
Dear Friends,
Let us begin with a truth that you may already know.
I am weird.1
Wanted to get that out of the way before we have an essay about Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, and Blake Masters.
Weirdness is a kind of abnormality, quite literally being different from most people in some way.
If most people like chocolate, and you can’t stand it, you’re weird. If most people hate homework and you love it, you’re weird.
Growing up, we weird ones found solace in popular movies like “Revenge of the Nerds”2 or “Hackers”3 that showed weirdos winning. Cult films that showed a way to create a group where what was weird in the wider culture was normal in the smaller tribe and use that solidarity to succeed in spite of being outside the norm.
Back to Thiel, Vance, and Masters.
These are three guys who are weird in their own ways, often bullied for how they were different, looked down on for believing, saying, or doing things that are well outside the normal. They have all found ways to succeed in spite of that, one attaining phenomenal wealth and using it to give aid and comfort to other people who are like him, but not like the wider American people.
Democracy is not kind to the weird.
If you have a vote, the weird ones don’t win.
Some weird guys are very personally charismatic. Steve Jobs was weird, but he could use the charisma to make others want to be weird with him and weird in beautiful, elegant ways.4
That charisma can be very powerful in business, especially when used in a boardroom or a courtroom, funded by the very best advocates money can buy. The life of a criminal defense lawyer is one of telling the story of a person who is accused of abnormal behavior in a way that allows a juror to consider the accused as a person of equal dignity, “created equal” as Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence.
We have a Bill of Rights to protect the weird ones from having their rights to be peacefully weird taken from them, to maintain their ability to meaningfully pursue happiness any way they choose. The courts should be there to protect those rights from the abuses of those who would use the power of government to oppress and control.
Tyrants, to be succinct.
There is a temptation for the nerds to seek revenge, but revenge doesn’t hold up in America in 2024 where we have learned to embrace the weirdness of each other, to cherish the prosperity and happiness that peaceful diversity brings.
Thiel, Vance, and Masters have a revenge fantasy.
It’s deeply weird.
And not in a good way.
Yours truly,
Nick
P.S. A television presenter is often the epitome of normality, conventionally attractive and well-spoken.
Kari Lake was the image of a normal Arizonan when we used to watch her on the news. But now she’s embracing the weirdest of the weird. Arizona deserves better.
You may also be weird, but I hesitate to presume.
A comedy with humor that is very much a product of different norms about sexual consent than are normal in 2024. Still funny, though.
The cyberpunk aesthetic holds up, but not a lot else.
Apple is a triumph of beauty in technology that you either love or think is valueless. Not a lot of in-between feeling about Apple or Jobs.