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 4 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.