hi! sorry if youve been asked this before or if this is insensitive but it used to use the term "kinnie" in relation to characters that I've strongly related to before (ex: I'm a "x" kinnie) and I was wondering if that was offensive? I don't use it anymore since finding out it's a term for otherkin (I thought they were two separate things) but I really wanted to know since my friends still use it! thank you and sorry to bother you!
Hi anon! Sorry for such a long time before responding, I’ve been dealing with a lot of real life nonsense lately.
For starters, the term “kinnie” is kind of hotly debated.
You’ve got a lot of older (and/or more serious) otherkin and fictionkin who hate that word, and consider it tantamount to an extremely offensive term considering its history (if I remember correctly, the term came about initially by trolls who mocked us with it, and I’ve heard rumors that it’s based off of the t-slur as well - though that’s just conjecture on my part), and are vehemently insistent that no genuine ‘kin would use it to refer to themselves.
Then you’ve got a younger generation who more or less grew up on Tumblr, which... is a bit of a warped facsimile of other alterhuman online spaces. A lot of them use the term “kinnie” to refer to themselves, either because they think it’s cute or they just don’t take being ‘kin all that seriously. Often people who don’t really know what being ‘kin means will use it to say “I relate to x character” - but that’s not what its original purpose was, and I’ll be honest, it is close enough to “kin” and other such variations that if you use it to mean “I relate to” then you’re going to deal with a lot of confusion from other people.
“Kinnie” is referring to otherkin and/or fictionkin. That’s what it initially meant, though it’s really not a popular word in more serious alterhuman circles. It doesn’t have an actual canonical definition, that I’m aware of, and the more I see it, the more I personally want that word burning in a ditch somewhere.
So, I wouldn’t say it’s exactly offensive to use that term. You have to know your audience, really. There are going to be people out there that like it, who use it to refer to themselves and others, and there are also going to be people out there that hate it, who will get angry about it, who will not take you seriously if you use it.
I wouldn’t say I’m in either camp, really. I know that some people may not know or understand why the term sucks, and I know that some people like it, and may consider using it a way of reclaiming it. I don’t really care, it just grates on my eyes, lol.
