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Autism as the new "that's so gay"
Ugh. Alright, so, by default, this is gonna be a rather hot water topic, so tread lightly, alright?
I've noticed (at least, in my own social circle at school) that the autistic are something of an acceptable target, with a deluge of jokes centered around them and a ridiculously concentrated spiteful attitude directed towards them by almost everyone at differing levels.
I really have nothing more to say at the moment aside from "what the fuck?"
Comments
How old are you, schitzo?
Because I can see both "gay" and "autistic" being thrown around by 13-15 year olds.
The thing that bothers me the most about SA is their overuse of "sperg".
23. Apparently, my social circle (aside from the people I genuinely hang out with outside of school) in college consists of 4chan goers that still think they're hot shit.
And oddly enough, I suppose our social circle seems to attract a lot of autistic folks, and these asshats just aren't having any of it.
Though in their defense, quite a few of these autistic people are pretty unrepentant about their bullshit. I mean the whole "use it as an excuse" crowd. Others I've met are for the most part well meaning. Most of the time.
Man, your friends are seriously weird
>The thing that bothers me the most about SA is their overuse of "sperg".
I don't know much about SA, but it's been pretty crazy to me to see people complain about ableism and then turn around and make fun of activities of people they don't like by calling it 'sperging'.
I came to a conclusion that there's no point in bothering oneself with SA. It's like asking why there are so many trolls on 4chan. What may bother me, is people who apparently take SA at face value (though to their credit, sometimes goons themselves seem caught up in their own act).
"I don't know much about SA, but it's been pretty crazy to me to see people complain about ableism and then turn around and make fun of activities of people they don't like by calling it 'sperging'."
More bizarre is that there are many autistic people or autistic-sympathetic people on the site. Though interestingly, when Fandom Lunacy dug up the unboxing McDonald's My Little Pony toys video, while the YouTube comments mocked him for autism, they felt genuinely sorry for him. Though that thread tended to be the less vindictive counterpart to the Tv Tropes thread (mostly because the latter is made up of disgruntled former members).
What I hate more than people making fun of autism are autism phonies who appropriate the label to justify being a supposed social cripple. I find this very offensive since I have got better at meeting people in recent years and that kind of equivalence is a damaging stereotype for obvious reasons.
Apparently I am an autismal spergdude now or whatever, so here's my personal experience with being me.
For some reason or another, I appear to be well-liked socially for most intents and purposes. I don't really understand it, since I tend towards being easily overwhelmed by what I see as an excess of socialisation. All the same, there have certainly been times where I've undergone a period of several months where I was highly socially active and generally comfortable with it.
During these periods, I suppose I found myself systemising social interactions. It was never really a natural process. For instance, I had to actively remind myself to ask questions to keep a conversation going or hold myself back when a topic of interest came up. It wasn't always easy, but it wasn't always that difficult, either, and it certainly becomes more automatic the longer one sticks at it. All the same, I always found myself socially exhausted at the end of those periods and receded into myself again.
It can be a tough balance. It's like going too far resets the process, leaving me in a position where feel confused and too untethered again. There are a lot of aspects of social interaction I still don't really understand to any significant degree; I just "fake" it and hope for the best. Although it's reassuring that I still remain well-liked by lots of people in real life, so I couldn't have been doing that badly.
In any case, I don't know much about the autism spectrum and I'm not sure if my experiences can be taken as representative of anyone else's. I've more or less been thinking about my recent diagnosis since about a month ago when it was made, and it's kind of difficult to reconcile having some kind of psychological condition with basic existence, because this is the way I've always been. The diagnosis seems to have more meaning to others than it has to me, especially given how recent it was.
During this time, I've been tossing up whether to reveal this matter to my friends or not. I can't recall a single instance of any of them mocking such a thing, but their answer to difficulties generally runs along the lines of "you just need to get out more" or "you just need a girl". While well-meaning, both answers are pretty condescending and reductionist even if they're not intended that way. I suppose that's another issue, given that these things aren't well understood. A normal friendship group isn't necessarily reliable as a form of support.
This has probably gone on a bit too long and is a bit too inward-looking, but currently my only way of providing observation is giving my own personal experiences and thoughts. If anyone I regularly interact with in real life falls on the autism spectrum, then they haven't revealed it to me, so I can't make any external observations drawn from personal experience.
Abyss, you just implied (or outright stated) that you fall on the autism spectrum. I find this amusing because apparently you and I are the "scariest" IJBM users and thus a supervillain duo was born
Either that or, you know, you actually learned how to socialise
Don't be silly, Juan, that makes no sense at all!
Yeah, I mean, it's not like you can learn social skills. That'd be crazy, right?
Frankly, I had to go through an 8-year course throughout elementary and middle school in order to better handle myself in public and actually socialize. From what I see, it worked.
I do this a lot, since autismal is a nice shorthand to slap on anything, from socially clueless to too uptight. Then again, PDD-NOS sorta gives me privileges. It's undergoing the same dilution as emo and hipster as meaningless label.
I wonder where the SA derail came from. But good thing for the rerail:
I don't know why our spot at the student lounge seems to be a magical place where all the people of the internet gather. Maybe it's just word of mouth, or some creepy hivemindy crap. Maybe nerds attract other nerds?
But yeah, all these people branding autism and the autistic as some kind of plague really make me embarrassed to hang out with the whole group. Especially because some of my better friends are in that group (but not part of the shit talkers).
Some bizarre lines i've heard:
- Sonic created Autism (insane troll logic stemming from coincidental history)
- "I was working with two asians, a mexican and an autistic" (yup, Autism is its own race)
Despite being able to socialize, there is plenty a night where I just go, "...I feel too drained, fuck interacting with people, I want to curl up and game or watch a movie"
It was only recently (within 12 months) that I had learned that knowing how to socialize is not that unusual for an aspie (I was always told before then that I was highly unusual in knowing how to interact with others at any level >.>)
^ CLEARLY Sonic was framed by Dr Eggman!
I love how Asian and autistic are two separate entities. Does that mean I have to wear two minority name tags?
Seriously, I hate being seen only as a race. How would people react if I referred to them as "whites"?
We do have like, one bad apple autistic that hangs out with us. This 35 year old guy who plays children's card games like they were the most important shit in the world (Magic The Gathering for those interested. Sorry, Juan.) He tends to butt in and be a backseat driver to games he's not even playing. When called out on it, he says "well, sorry, I'm just in an impatient mood."
At one point he screamed at everyone to shut up so they can hear his two cents on his strategies. It freaked EVERYONE in the lounge out, not just our circle.
Guy reminds me of Rottweiler in that he is just so fucking misdressed sometimes. He brought a kilt to school with nothing else matching. Another time he brought the thing, he brought a fedora.
And yes, um... sometimes, he just... creeps out our female folk, almost deliberately. Like, he kills his jokes and does the whole elbow dig "geddit geddit?" stuff. Of course, when he hears vulgar jokes he didn't make, he gets pissed.
The rest of the autistic people that hang out with us are much well better kept by comparison, and they're not even 20 yet.
^ =/ I don't think I was ever that bad at my worst (...I try to forget my worst years
Is he actively trying to look and act ridiculous in public?
My friends have said that in honor of him, they want to start a rock band named "Autistic Andy" (real name withheld). This is the only joke I've ever sincerely laughed at, and I wonder if I'm an asshole for doing it.
I don't know much about SA, but it's been pretty crazy to me to see people complain about ableism and then turn around and make fun of activities of people they don't like by calling it 'sperging'.
There's more than one person on a website, you know.
I've never heard of anybody using "autistic" as an insult, but "retarded" is a pretty common way to say that something or someone is stupid, much like "that's so gay."
I'll take that as a-- ... fuck i don't know.
>There's more than one person on a website, you know.
And this changes a single thing I said... how?
That the people calling things spergy aren't the same ones talking about ableism.
Except they are. I'm talking about people I've met online and offline doing this. Try actually reading my posts.
Sorry, it seems I misread your post and confused your point with Irdgk's. My bad.
Not really. It's not that hard to see Aspie A trying pretty admirably to adapt to that quirk and not be an awkward social wreck, then getting fed up with Aspie B who obsesses so endlessly over something that he turns into a caricature of the condition that's not only irritating to be around but also reflects badly on A.
Bonus points if B's obsession happens to be something really creepy, which SA makes a habit of hunting down.
Malkavian,
I don't know much about SA, but it's been pretty crazy to me to see people complain about ableism and then turn around and make fun of activities of people they don't like by calling it 'sperging'.
Yeah, I think it is pretty unnecessary to use words like "gay" or "sperging" or whatever to mean "something I dislike." Especially since from what I can tell, there tends to be little to no connection between the thing people think is dumb and people who are gay/people who have Asperger's syndrome. It seems like other less prejudicial words could be swapped in without losing the meaning at all.
I find it unfortunate that random teenagers would view the autistic as an acceptable target, but I suppose that is not too unexpected. It catches me more by surprise when I see people talk about Asperger's syndrome like that outside of certain forums, especially when it gets mentioned offline. This probably sounds dumb, but I just did not realize that kind of talk was widespread at all.