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Notes -
Even Wikipedia admits that
(after describing it as a "perjorative term and internet meme" in the first sentence, naturally)
A quick Google Books search by date (yeah, I know, but searching web pages by date is a lot more error-prone) also shows a positive use by the author of Doonesbury, a positive use describing a deceased activist, and a positive use in a book describing conflicts between different ideas of social justice, and only in 2015 does the perjorative use case appear in print.
And ... doesn't this make sense? "Social justice" is still used as a positive phrase by progressives. "Warrior" is much more mixed to the left, but it's not an utterly negative term there (e.g. the first two Wikipedia diambiguation hits are Native American groups), and it's a positive term in general: the Golden State Warriors were never in any danger of getting cancelled, the Wounded Warriors Project wasn't mocking its beneficiaries, and if you keep scrolling down that Wiki page you'll see dozens of proud self-applications of the word.
Personally, I thought the phrase SJW was pretty apt, because "applying attitudes extreme enough for war to social justice problems" isn't too far off from what the "No Justice, No Peace" crowd would admit to but is also a good summary of what I think was wrong with the movement. But IMHO the most typical right-wing perjorative use wasn't criticising extremism, it was just sarcastic about the juxtaposition of a violent-sounding name with the heavily keyboard-based "activism" it gets used to describe, so I can't say I'm upset that its use went out of fashion.
I had written this:
but hadn't yet posted it and more comments came in.
The Doonesbury use isn't purely positive, it's the (what I would call) "traditional meaning" (that I described above). Your link is to a compilation introduction which mentions "Rev. Scot Sloan, social justice warrior." Here's Scot Sloan:
"Reverend Scot Sloan's the name. Perhaps you read about me in 'Look' [Magazine]. I'm the fighting young priest who can talk to the young."
Guy introduces himself with his press clippings. He cares more about his image than actual social justice. That's (the old meaning I remember for) an SJW.
You're making me nostalgic for my childhood here. :/ In the '80s liberal bubble I grew up in, people like that were seen as "obviously grifting or at least on an ego trip" but treated with amused tolerance, "hey they are officially on our side"--see also the portrayal of Richard Henry Lee in 1776. My dad similarly always referenced Jesse Jackson in that way, with amused tolerance (and in Jackson's case even affection). Still, it's not something you'd really set out to be; an SJW in that subculture was a figure of fun, not someone respected. Another example would be Gilderoy Lockhart.
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This was almost explicitly the rationale for the people who called themselves "SJWs" back in the day, from my memory. It was that the position of Social Justice is so obviously and overwhelmingly correct compared to the mountains of social injustice that goes on every single day without people even noticing it that fighting for it as if you're a literal soldier in a literal war is not only justified, but virtuous.
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I suppose that fits since it covers the time when I wasn't aware of politics much / the tech to plug in to the American culture wasn't quite available to me yet. Though I'm not sure they're not picking up some extremely obscure examples here. I think I showed up on some New-Atheist forums in the early 2000's and that kind of language just wasn't there yet, and it was very noticable when these kind of people did finally show up (2008-ish by my reckoning).
Yeah, there's the problem - the compliment already contains the insult. "Warrior" will make you sound like someone who takes themselves way too seriously, to anyone who doesn't share your views on the importance of the problem you're fighting for.
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