“The opportunity of our time is to support the weird, to sell to the weird and, if you wish, to become weird,” he writes. Marketing specialist Seth Godin promotes weirdness as a way to celebrate choice and push back against mass production and consumption in his book We Are All Weird. Weird isn’t just a way of being, it’s an economic strategy, one that has the rough-hewn, indie-rock air of an anti-strategy. From indie booksellers to microbrews and real estate, leveraging quirkiness is good for business. Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman have tracked weirdness for 20 years, with published guides to weird attractions and a History Channel series called Weird U.S.ĭespite its countercultural bona fides, weird has economic power. In the 1980s, the likes of “Weird Al” Yankovic and the movie Weird Science imbued the word with a quirkier, goofier meaning. And then weird went into hibernation through much of the 20 th century, until popular culture revived it yet again. Poets like Shelley and Keats reinterpreted weird to describe the odd or strange. ![]() To provide context for audiences unfamiliar with the word, the Bard created “double, double toil and trouble” sorts of activities for the sisters that link to the supernatural followed wyrd thereafter. But wyrd was going extinct when Shakespeare cast the Three Wyrd Sisters in the role of the fates who prophesied that Macbeth would murder Scotland’s king. In Norse mythology, Wyrd ( Urðr) is one of the three female fates who shape the lives of every child. The Old English wyrd has roots in the base wer (meaning “to become” or “to turn”) and was once connected to the idea of destiny. ![]() That cities cast their lot with weird has an uncanny connection back to the word’s origin. They all seem to have a strong sense of what makes them unique, and a grassroots urge to stay that way. Many are state capitals or county seats and most have a vibrant arts scene. ![]() What do they all have in common? The cities have fewer than 1 million people, but most are growing. Weird campaigns have spread to communities in more than a dozen states.
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