Glow in the dark, Glowie, Glows, Glowfag, Glownigger:

The term was coined by Terry A. Davis, a computer programmer diagnosed with schizophrenia, who allegedly believed that the CIA was stalking and harassing him. "Glowie" is often used in online forums to refer to government agents, especially undercover operatives who infiltrate online extremist spaces.

"Glow in the dark" and its derivative terms have been used to refer to various groups: newcomers that do not fit in with the culture of certain forums and are thus suspected to have bad intentions, journalists who report on extremist groups, tech companies that collect users' personal data, and others.[1][5][6][7]

I looked at the explanation there, which mentions shizophrenia and IT origins.
I see now that the list of words contains racist etc. variations, which I'm guessing is what you are referring to?

Personally I have seen glowie used in "shizophrenic" places worrying about privacy and government surveillance and the likes, but I have never seen the questionable variations nor seen any racist people or content in combination with "glowie".

Is this a guilt by association thing? Where the inventor of the word was racist and used it in racist variations so the base word itself is taboo somehow?

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's safe to say that the vast majority of people using the term know about its origin, and it's not mere association, but literal origin (see the video above), and also the original form "glownigger" is still widely used (it's bizarre that it's on the end of the list on Wikipedia, in fact, after some forms that are probably barely used). Otherwise "glowie" doesn't make much sense at all, doesn't it? It's a softened version pto avoid the overt racism, but it still gives a wink to it.

[–] Redjard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

safe to say

That's why I'm asking, I have not seen that usage, and prior to this I was not aware of any problems with the term.

literal origin

I don't really care how a word was created, I care how it is used and percieved. Words can fall into and out of bad association, and massive raging assholes can coin words without problematic meaning.

Otherwise "glowie" doesn't make much sense at all, doesn't it?

I don't see a problem with it, I thought it was a great short word to describe a specific problem (surveillance) with a specific vibe (shizophrenia).
There are plenty of words of similar shape, like buddy or goalie, sometimes abbreviations sometimes created like that. Never felt glowie was missing anything, if you asked me to come up with a term for "someone who glows in the dark" I may have arrived at the same word.

the original form "glownigger" is still widely used (it's bizarre that it's on the end of the list on Wikipedia, in fact, after some forms that are probably barely used).

This is probably what it comes down to. Clearly we must frequent different places, so where did you see that and what makes you think this association extends into the wider world?
And then also how is it bridged to glowie? I have seen the old r/waterniggers and that hasn't affected the words hydrohomie, water, and water utility worker to my knowledge.

[–] antonim@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 6 days ago

And then also how is it bridged to glowie?

Just like how you have "newfag" and its more civilised equivalent "newbie" (though the two terms are more independent from each other, the latter is older).

where did you see that and what makes you think this association extends into the wider world?

Youtube, 4chan and similar shithole sites that directly followed Terry Davis, and which initially formed and adopted the lingo. Many such people are also in the circles that focus on privacy, distrust of the state and big tech companies bordering on paranoid, etc. (4chan's /g/ in particular)

I have seen the old r/waterniggers

It was just r/waterniggas. And IIRC it wasn't generally meant to be racist, so the shift to r/hydrohomies was tolerated. They got banned just due to the name, not behaviour of the users. It's really not equivalent to people laughing at and making memes out of a schizophrenic man spouting racism.