Theorists note a distinction within the category of generics between descriptive generics that merely describe generalizations, and normative generics, that have a distinctly normative flavor. Previous proposals have analyzed the latter as speech acts that give instructions, provide advice, or prescribe appropriate behavior. We concur that these are important and central uses of normative generics, but argue that the analysis should broaden its focus to some of the wider ways that normative generics figure in discourse. Uses that give voice to derogations or to threats, are also quite central, yet the accounts alluded to above wouldn’t adequately explain why. After making the case for these uses of normative generics, our talk focuses on bringing together resources that allow us to explain them. We argue that the metalinguistic account of definitional generics best allows us to see normative generic discourse as a means of negotiating and policing normative expectations about the relevant kinds, and in turn, to analyze the relevant uses described above as derogations and/or threats.