Talk:Autism and Fandom

Suggestion

I think a section discussing canonically autistic characters/fandom interpretations and reactions to them would be a good addition, but I don't have the energy to write it right now, so just throwing the idea out there. --Pegasus143 (talk) 06:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Ableism removed

I don't think I can overstate how gross and ableist it was for this article to state in its lede that the fandoms of a bunch of cartoons and video games targeted at children are known for "having many autistic fans." I don't know a single adult who likes Winnie the Pooh or Thomas the Tank Engine (although the former apparently has a fandom, since it's not a redlink). The adult fandom of MLP is infamous for various reasons, and is overwhelmingly male. Labelling these as "autistic fandoms" perpetuates harmful stereotypes of autistics as permanent children and anti-social incels. It's also largely ignoring the existence of autistic women.

There's probably some truth to the tendency toward hyperfixation/specialized interests lending itself to autistics being drawn to fandoms that have a lot of lore to learn or play with. And that may translate to autistics – or at least male autistics – being more likely to participate in the curatorial side of fandom. But there's also plenty of autistics on the transformative side of fandom. Night Rain (talk) 23:31, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Also, Chris-Chan and Enter are pretty bad examples of famous autistic "fans". Most autistic people (like myself) despise them!--LongLiveRock (talk) 23:36, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Exactly. I don't want to punch down at people who are farther along the spectrum, but Chris-Chan and her history of drama are well known, and Mr Enter has recently been spouting alt-right nonsense. They're the kind of examples of autistic fans one would give if their knowledge of autism was drawn exclusively from 4chan and Kiwifarms. They are usually named less for the purpose of documenting fannish activity than to mock and bully people perceived as misfits (to use the most generalized term). There's plenty of examples of autistics fan-writers and artists out there. Night Rain (talk) 23:56, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Back in the late 70s-early 80s, I remember Winnie the Pooh being popular with adult women (and some men), but as a media fandom this was literary and connected more to things like P.L. Travers (folklorist and mystic, not just Mary Poppins), Victorian and Edwardian fairytales, folklore, John Crowley, Hope Mirlees, Greer Gilman, Jane Yolen and Tolkien. It certainly wasn't limited to autistics, that's complete crap. --KTJ (talk) 05:19, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

This article actually suggested that sippy cups are a type of licensed merchandise that adult autistics like to collect. What fandom produces licensed sippy cups, except ones targetted at two-year-olds, like the above-mentioned ones? What adults use sippy cups, except ones with physical disabilities that impact their ability to hold objects, or maybe people with infantilism fetishes (not judging)? The author of this article has made a deliberate effort to portray autistics as adult toddlers, and they thought they were being clever about it. If I sound angry, it's because I am. This is disgusting. It's ableist 4chan garbage, and it's been allowed to fester on this site for months. Night Rain (talk) 03:19, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

The worst thing is that the original author sourced some good quotes and built the bones of a decent article just to try to slip in their dumb ableist jokes. 😩 Night Rain (talk) 04:20, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I believe the sippy cup reference is a slam at Cup for Ben, which was a serious project. --KTJ (talk) 05:19, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I'm on spectrum and everyone on the spectrum is different. We do have some common traits: childish behavior, repetition, fixations on certain things, etc., but not every autist is Chris-Chan or Rainman. For instance, people think I'm "smart" because I can remember small random facts about celebrities or who's singing a song on a radio, but I don't know anything about science, math, and stuff like that. I want to help break the stereotypes associated with the condition and teach others to do the same.--LongLiveRock (talk) 16:15, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Quotes moved from main article

My problem with “DeviantArt Cringe” videos

TW: bullying, ableism

I’m not going to name names in this post, but I think you all know the people I’m talking about.

There seems to be a new genre of videos on YouTube where edgelords like to make fun of fetish and amateurish art made by kids and teens. Autistic and LGBTQ kids seem to get it much worse. I wonder why that could be? It’s a total mystery.

I know that kinkshaming has become a meme, and people don’t take it seriously, but I still think it’s a shitty thing to do. Maybe you think it’s okay to laugh at adults who post fetish art since they posted it and therefor invite all types of feedback. Even if you think certain fetishes are weird, and are maybe even disgusted by them, that doesn’t mean you should be needlessly cruel to someone over it. You could just use your free speech to not be a giant dickbag.

Where I personally draw the line is putting a kid’s art in your video (without their permission) and making fun of it.

“But these kids need to learn how to take constructive criticism”, you might say.

You’re right, especially if these kids plan on going to art school. However, what these people are doing isn’t constructive criticism. They’re taking a child’s art and exposing it to a crowd of people who get off on bullying. I started posting on DA when I was 15. The stuff I made was pretty bad and got little attention, but I don’t think I would be posting art today if people like this harassed me over what I posted. There’s a huge difference between “your shading could use some work” and “your art is cringey and you should kill yourself you autist”.

“But these kids lash out at anyone who gives constructive criticism and deserve the hate they get”, you might say.

So you’re telling me that a kid without the interpersonal skills and emotional maturity of an adult gets angry when someone says their art is bad? I’m shocked!

I’m not saying it’s okay for kids to behave this way. However, I do think it’s on you to be the adult and not let these online conversations escalate into a flame war. DeviantArt lets you block people.

But what about adults who post bad art?

Not everyone has to be good at making art, and not every adult who makes art is doing it for a living. Lots of them are hobbyists. It’s okay to be bad at something. To quote Jake from Adventure Time: “Sucking at something is the first step to becoming sort of good at something.” I don’t think online hazing is going to make someone want to continue making art.

Finally, if I have to explain to you why bullying LGBTQ and autistic kids is bad, I’m probably wasting my time. I don’t know how to explain to you that should care about other people.

I’m not saying you have to like the art these people make. I’m just asking you to not be cruel to people who did nothing wrong.

Okay like… No one is going to want to hear this, but I think there is an inherent ableism in hating furries.

The people who make fursonas are the people who want to reimagine themselves as nonhuman in nonhuman worlds because they don’t feel they fit into society. They’ve been made to feel different and, in a way, making a fursona allows them to embrace being different. Now, what sort of people fit that descriptions better than neurodivergent people? People that are made to feel animalistic, people that get treated like animals…

I think a majority of those that were in early online communities like neopets and deviantart making fursonas were neurodivergent. Why? Well, I feel like most of those people started spending a lot of time online for the same reason I did: because I couldn’t make a lot of friends in real life and never went anywhere. And so that’s why like everyone in those days had a fursona or a Sonicsona or generally a reimagining of themself as some kind of nonhuman creature. And then like. Actual professional art people started joining those communities and being critical. Then everyone else that previously had no dependency on the internet for social interaction started trickling in when social media became Big. And then you can kinda get a gist of what happened from there.

And I think that’s why most franchises that involve animal characters or even just mostly nonhuman characters get kinda. Shoved into the cringe pile while people can freely geek out over superhero stuff, Disney, or Harry Potter. Because the ostracization of neurodivergent people causes such neurodivergent people to connect more with nonhuman characters and so stuff like Sonic and Undertale gets labeled cringy to weed out anyone that’s too obviously autistic from your geek community. You associate the act of simply having a fursona to the “cringier” neurodivergent traits like talking a lot about a special interest, meltdowns, having no filter, stimming, etc.

Not that all furries are neurodivergent in some way, but I still think it’s fair to say that outcasting and making fun of some guy that draws himself as a sparkly pink and green fox is a thinly-veiled way of implying that he’s a r*tard.

Allistics, don’t clown on this post.

I am autistic and I wonder if the "cringe" or "cringe culture" details should be moved to "Ableism in Fandom", leaving this article with more coverage of autistic creators, autistic fans speaking up, etc. People who don't know anything about autism or the fact that we are everywhere living like (or almost like) anyone else come in here and see that and it's like the focus of the article. Besides a lot of things about fandom probably cause non-fans discomfort now labeled "cringe" but tomorrow it'll be called something else. --KTJ (talk) 05:19, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Cringe and cringe culture probably deserve their own article. While it did start off with harassing those autistic people, even back in the early 2010s it expanded to harass the LGBT+, people with alternative beliefs, certain fandom folks, furries, etc.

Since this deals with a potentially sensitive topic, I'm going to flag this page for gardeners. Pinky G Rocket (talk) 12:19, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

I've moved the subsection on cringe culture over to Ableism in Fandom as suggested. Since that was the concern with adding the attention gardeners flag, I'll remove the flag. Patchlamb (talk) 20:52, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

"Further Reading"

I propose changing the focus of this section from general information about autism, to articles specifically about autism and fandom : https://fanlore.org/wiki/Autism_and_Fandom#Further_Reading --MPH 16:56, 29 March 2024 (UTC)