What is a Social Justice Warrior?
Technically it's someone who fights for social issues but the term is used ironically on people who get offended by anything.
It's a generally derogatory term for someone who is perceived to aggressively fight for equality movements online, I assume the 'warrior' part is sarcasm similar to the term 'keyboard warrior'. I've seen a few people on here try to reclaim the title but it's usually applied to opponents rather than worn by activists.
Okay, putting this in the most neutral terms I can think of, since it tends to make people get really damn angsty for some reason.
"Someone who writes stuff on the internet about social issues, usually issues related to race, gender and/or sexuality."
It's a vaguely insulting term, similar to "white knight", generally used by people who disapprove of their views.
Dissapointed in themselves so they make high standards for everyone else to live by.
So if I start a thread that wonders about a possible decline of intelligence in our modern society, I could be labeled an SJW? Depending on my wording, perhaps?
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.
I just came up with the perfect definition of the stereotypical SJW: Somebody who does all of their "activism" through posts on the Internet, and care more about excessive political correctness than actual issues.
In reality, original meaning was someone who fights for social justice (equality, rights etc)
But, this is internet
It seems to be an all-purpose derogatory term for people who call out racist/bigoted/ignorant people for making racist/bigoted/ignorant comments on the web. It probably has some legitimate definition as well but fucked if I ever encountered it.
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.
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.
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:
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:
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:
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.
leon-declis.squarespace.com/articles-on-society/sjw-definition BAM!
www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/18.856337-What-is-a-Social-Justice-Warrior
I don't personally like the term because there are (and have been) 'social justice' activists who fight on behalf of people who are truly being subjected to injustice (sometimes it costs them their lives), and in a general sense anyone fighting injustice could be labeled a social justice activist thus using the term 'social justice warrior' as an insulting term that can be thrown around half hazard seems counter-intuitive.
Or am I a social justice warrior for taking issue with the term social justice warrior