After all, why shouldn’t we ask our bosses if we can go play?

I agree the way you’re using it doesn’t sound negative. But I don’t think that’s a representative use of this term. Take a look at the top few entries on urban dictionary, they don’t seem very judgement free to me…

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Normie

The point of this post is that even if you don’t mean it in the way that urban dictionary describes it, that’s how some people will interpret it.

It’s a lot to keep track of at first, and it will make your fingers hurt. The learning curve to get to playing basic songs isn’t too bad, but if you want to get good you need to put in a ton of time which is a lot easier to do if you enjoy it. If it feels like a slog, it’ll be hard to make progress, but if you love it and find it relaxing/enjoyable then it can be incredibly rewarding. I’d definitely recommend getting a cheap guitar to dink around on before you pony up a bunch of money for anything fancy. Also get that cheap guitar set up properly at a shop, it makes a huge difference.

No of course it’s reasonable that they wouldn’t understand the ins and outs. The op and commenter you’re replying to are talking about the connotation of the word, not the fact that a hobbyist understands their hobby.

Take the term Trekkie for example – people who are into star trek can become Trekkies which symbolizes that they’ve joined a community. That term can be used to mean that two people both belong to a community (i.e., “we’re Trekkies”) or it can be used to refer negatively to people in that community by those who aren’t in it (i.e., “Trekkies smell bad”).

There are (at least) two things happening here that people are picking up on. One is that context matters, and the way that the term normie is often used is not a positive one. I’ve personally never seen anyone refer to themself proudly as a normie, have you? And the other is that we’re referring to normies, a group we ostensibly don’t belong to, as a homogeneous blob which is obviously not accurate.

I doubt anyone’s feelings are especially hurt if they’re called a normie, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a dismissive and usually negatively valenced term used to refer to a massive and diverse group of people.