I think what we have here is a difference of values. I am not particularly precious about the word because definitions change over time with common usage.
The majority of people would understand, given context clues, what the phrase “the nazis ruining twitter” refers to. To those that were still confused, my examples of neo-nazi white nationalists with sizable followings (for example, the first one, who helped organize the Unite the Right rally[0]) should clear that up entirely. No one, literally no one at all would think that I meant that Herman Göring is retweeting Harambe memes.
The “are the nazis in the room with you?” joke isn’t really as much of an own as you might have thought. Instead of signaling “Get a load of this guy that thinks there’s ghosts in his computer!” you’ve kind of signaled “I would like to take this time to share with you all that, due to my specific and stubborn refusal to understand context clues or acknowledge that words can be used differently over time, whenever I see this particular word I can only envision a guy that thinks there’s ghosts in his computer! My mind can only summon the one image!”
I agree. This conversation began when you saw a word used online in a way that didn’t align with your strict and personal definition of it and exercised your better judgment to insult a stranger on the internet.
The majority of people would understand, given context clues, what the phrase “the nazis ruining twitter” refers to. To those that were still confused, my examples of neo-nazi white nationalists with sizable followings (for example, the first one, who helped organize the Unite the Right rally[0]) should clear that up entirely. No one, literally no one at all would think that I meant that Herman Göring is retweeting Harambe memes.
The “are the nazis in the room with you?” joke isn’t really as much of an own as you might have thought. Instead of signaling “Get a load of this guy that thinks there’s ghosts in his computer!” you’ve kind of signaled “I would like to take this time to share with you all that, due to my specific and stubborn refusal to understand context clues or acknowledge that words can be used differently over time, whenever I see this particular word I can only envision a guy that thinks there’s ghosts in his computer! My mind can only summon the one image!”
0 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unite_the_Right_rally