I'm not smug, I'm just annoyed that I have fewer people to talk with shit about because they refuse to branch out from media meant for literal children. Like how we're all here because it's nice to discuss socialist ideas. Having people to talk with who are on the same wavelength as you is nice. I met a guy at a wedding last month who said his hobby was watching family guy. Like what the fuck do you say to that.
i know people who literally have a special interest in barney. the fuckin' purple dinosaur. like you can't operate in an autistic space if you're unable to get on with people who don't share a show with you, so the alternative is generally learning to appreciate others enjoying shit you don't
Too bad, not gonna throw the many autistics that got shit for "age inappropriate" interests under the bus so people can make bad criticisms of something they find annoying.
I didn't think you were being smug at all, but there is a growing small sect of people on the left who believe that it is abelist or a bad thing to criticize the current obsession with pop media.
Like dog, I'll still find it an unhealthy part of capitalist and consumer culture that there are 40 year old men who do nothing but collect video games or funko pops.
Yeah you can enjoy things, but don't make media your entire existence.
Unhealthy by what metric, and how are you defining making media your entire existence that somehow doesn't apply to autistics?
There's a growing number because autistic liberation and the ND movement more generally are growing movements, and they challenge normative assumptions about things like interests. If you want to criticize mass media, you'll have to dig deeper than a surface level digust with people being "weird" about it if you genuinley don't want to give people shit for being weird.
Why do you think grown men getting lost In a world of toys and video games is a good thing? You arguing for consumerism media obsession really off putting to me.
It seems almost like you're saying only autistic people have an unhealthy obsession with pop culture.
Sorry, it's not ablelist to think grown people having an obsessive need to consume pop culture is a bad thing.
I get the feeling your defending this behavior because you probably play a ton of video games or something.
Having a special interest is not exclusive to autistics, but it does get pathologized - as you're doing here - which leads to the abusive "cures" a lot of us had to go thorugh as kids. Half of what got Chris-chan harassed and what built up Kiwifarms was their special interest in Sonic, and it's hard to imagine that shit would have ever gotten so bad if people had simply left her the fuck alone. Whether someone is diagnosed or not, that someone might get shit for passing as autistic is a problem for autistics, I'm not going back to us being used as shorthand for people with bad politics.
Again, you're not really defining what you're meaning by "unhealthy" here, which comes across as simply moralizing. What makes what you're arguing any different from a chud complaining about "removed" (edit: the d-word they call everything they don't like)? You're not even actually complaining about these people actually, materially having worse lives for really liking a specific movie or game or whatever. And you can't even draw useful conclusions about people from it, because you're stuck assuming I'm into Marvel or whatever when my special interest is specifically leftist politics. I don't watch movies or play many games, and those I do play I'm overtly critical of and am varied in my tastes like a lot of NT's - but because I am in solidarity with people who have been nearly driven to suicide over mockery for their special interest, I'm going to defend their dignity against the people who supposedly are their comrades.
Haven't even fully unpacked all he gender roles you're putting into this either - you very much are specifying "grown men" here to talk about a supposed failure to become a man, which intersects with the autistic masculine experience in a ton of fucked up ways. It's embarassing and bad for a man to like "childish" things, but I guess it's less cringe for women because it's more OK for them to act "childish?" Are autistic men not men?
I need you to actually point to a materially bad thing, and actually connect it to whatever point you're trying to make, 'cause otherwise it seems like you're trying to take a comedy bit from a podcast this website has historically criticized for having dogshit takes and present it as serious politics without even having to take the effort to criticize the obvious shit like cops being presented as heroic figures or fans excusing Rowling's transphobia. There are actual criticisms of media, like superhero movies becoming this status-quo enforcing thing that has to generate infinite sequels because that is easier for hte purposes of extracting money out of people, that aren't about moralizing the workers that enjoy it for enjoying it.
Being obsessed with pop culture is cringe because pop culture is overall reactionary. And not only is it reactionary, it will also influence your politics as well. How many people in the 2010s fell for the manic pixie dream girl bullshit? I've said this numerous times here before, but people need to ultimately divest from pop culture and find better hobbies. Your investment in pop culture should just be enough that people don't clock you as some weird ascetic climbing out of your cave to incoherently rant about why Disney movies are fascist before returning to your hole.
As far as autistics are concerned, I don't see them as somehow more obsessed with pop culture than NTs. Some autistics might be obsessed with pop culture because it's their special interest while NTs are obsessed with pop culture because they want to fit in and because of FOMO. The respective reasons might be different (special interest vs wanting to fit in), but the result is still the same: they get brainwashed by reactionary slop. Since the manner in which they become obsessed with pop culture is different, the manner in which they can divest with pop culture is also different. If anything, it's easier for the autistic to divest because it's just a manner of finding a new special interest that's not tied to pop culture while NTs who find social value in pop culture can never truly divest from pop culture.
Autistics aren't born with their special interests just waiting to be discovered within them. The special interests are cultivated through their experience in society and exposure to that special interest. Since special interests are externally acquired rather than internally discovered, if a special interest proves to be deleterious for whatever reason, a new special interest can be acquired to replace the deleterious special interest.
I'm not saying it would be easy, but it's at least a path forward compared with NTs who continue to consume pop culture slop because their entire social group does so too.
Since special interests are externally acquired rather than internally discovered, if a special interest proves to be deleterious for whatever reason, a new special interest can be acquired to replace the deleterious special interest.
I spent close to 20 years trying to force myself to stop being a furry because mockery from other people made me so ashamed that
CW: suicide
there were times when I literally wanted to kill myself because I thought I was so horrible I didn't deserve to live.
Guess what? It didn't work. I'm still a furry today. The only thing that helped was learning to accept it as part of who I am.
There's nothing shameful about being a furry but I don't know what that has to do with autistic special interests. I've had several come and go over the years.
Ultimately, the final judge of whether a special interest is deleterious is the autistic themselves. I personally wouldn't find being a furry to be particularly deleterious. The community is full of ND and queer people on top of having pretty progressive politics. I'm merely pushing back the idea that special interests can't be criticized or are entirely immutable. People can add or drop special interests. A special interest can also evolve over time so how a person experiences and understands their special interest as a 10 year old is different from how they experience and understand it as a 40 year old even if the actual special interest itself is still the same.
But it's not something that can - or should - be dropped because some Chapo dickhead thinks it's "cringe." Chapo is always going to find an autistic cringe, we are defined by how we annoy and inconvenience allistics, that is what gets pathologized as arrested development.
Media can and should be criticized, as I keep bringing up, but that isn't what is happening here. The very act of hyperfixation is what is being moralized here, that doing so makes you fail to be a man, that doing so makes you a reactionary (which was exactly what I had called out, because leftists still use autistic caricatures to talk about chuds), that someone here literally cannot connect with someone who is into Family Guy of all things because the idea of being into something in a way that even resembles autism is seen as abberant and creepy.
Now, I don't listen to CTH, but my guess is that this treat and slop meme had a lot more to do with talking about the bad shit people actually do to protect creature comforts at the expense of others like ignoring the pandemic to crowd into theaters. If you're losing that focus to just complain that people act and talk weird, like yeah the people who are always going to be treated as weird are gonna push back on that sort of reaction and call it out for what it is.
I'm not smug, I'm just annoyed that I have fewer people to talk with shit about because they refuse to branch out from media meant for literal children. Like how we're all here because it's nice to discuss socialist ideas. Having people to talk with who are on the same wavelength as you is nice. I met a guy at a wedding last month who said his hobby was watching family guy. Like what the fuck do you say to that.
Idk, I like both dumb anime and artsy films, you can do both
Mind you, I think bad media should be ruthlessly criticized
i know people who literally have a special interest in barney. the fuckin' purple dinosaur. like you can't operate in an autistic space if you're unable to get on with people who don't share a show with you, so the alternative is generally learning to appreciate others enjoying shit you don't
I (neuroatypical) would rather you didn't hold us up as a shield against criticism of Disney adults.
Too bad, not gonna throw the many autistics that got shit for "age inappropriate" interests under the bus so people can make bad criticisms of something they find annoying.
I (neuroatypical) would rather they do, actually, and actually have solidarity with people who are blatantly being hit with barely disguised ableism
It’s such a small jump from “marvel special interest is reactionary” to “furries are bourgoisie decadence” that it’s deeply concerning to me
Lmao
I didn't think you were being smug at all, but there is a growing small sect of people on the left who believe that it is abelist or a bad thing to criticize the current obsession with pop media.
Like dog, I'll still find it an unhealthy part of capitalist and consumer culture that there are 40 year old men who do nothing but collect video games or funko pops.
Yeah you can enjoy things, but don't make media your entire existence.
Unhealthy by what metric, and how are you defining making media your entire existence that somehow doesn't apply to autistics?
There's a growing number because autistic liberation and the ND movement more generally are growing movements, and they challenge normative assumptions about things like interests. If you want to criticize mass media, you'll have to dig deeper than a surface level digust with people being "weird" about it if you genuinley don't want to give people shit for being weird.
Why do you think grown men getting lost In a world of toys and video games is a good thing? You arguing for consumerism media obsession really off putting to me.
It seems almost like you're saying only autistic people have an unhealthy obsession with pop culture.
Sorry, it's not ablelist to think grown people having an obsessive need to consume pop culture is a bad thing.
I get the feeling your defending this behavior because you probably play a ton of video games or something.
Having a special interest is not exclusive to autistics, but it does get pathologized - as you're doing here - which leads to the abusive "cures" a lot of us had to go thorugh as kids. Half of what got Chris-chan harassed and what built up Kiwifarms was their special interest in Sonic, and it's hard to imagine that shit would have ever gotten so bad if people had simply left her the fuck alone. Whether someone is diagnosed or not, that someone might get shit for passing as autistic is a problem for autistics, I'm not going back to us being used as shorthand for people with bad politics.
Again, you're not really defining what you're meaning by "unhealthy" here, which comes across as simply moralizing. What makes what you're arguing any different from a chud complaining about "removed" (edit: the d-word they call everything they don't like)? You're not even actually complaining about these people actually, materially having worse lives for really liking a specific movie or game or whatever. And you can't even draw useful conclusions about people from it, because you're stuck assuming I'm into Marvel or whatever when my special interest is specifically leftist politics. I don't watch movies or play many games, and those I do play I'm overtly critical of and am varied in my tastes like a lot of NT's - but because I am in solidarity with people who have been nearly driven to suicide over mockery for their special interest, I'm going to defend their dignity against the people who supposedly are their comrades.
Haven't even fully unpacked all he gender roles you're putting into this either - you very much are specifying "grown men" here to talk about a supposed failure to become a man, which intersects with the autistic masculine experience in a ton of fucked up ways. It's embarassing and bad for a man to like "childish" things, but I guess it's less cringe for women because it's more OK for them to act "childish?" Are autistic men not men?
I need you to actually point to a materially bad thing, and actually connect it to whatever point you're trying to make, 'cause otherwise it seems like you're trying to take a comedy bit from a podcast this website has historically criticized for having dogshit takes and present it as serious politics without even having to take the effort to criticize the obvious shit like cops being presented as heroic figures or fans excusing Rowling's transphobia. There are actual criticisms of media, like superhero movies becoming this status-quo enforcing thing that has to generate infinite sequels because that is easier for hte purposes of extracting money out of people, that aren't about moralizing the workers that enjoy it for enjoying it.
Being obsessed with pop culture is cringe because pop culture is overall reactionary. And not only is it reactionary, it will also influence your politics as well. How many people in the 2010s fell for the manic pixie dream girl bullshit? I've said this numerous times here before, but people need to ultimately divest from pop culture and find better hobbies. Your investment in pop culture should just be enough that people don't clock you as some weird ascetic climbing out of your cave to incoherently rant about why Disney movies are fascist before returning to your hole.
As far as autistics are concerned, I don't see them as somehow more obsessed with pop culture than NTs. Some autistics might be obsessed with pop culture because it's their special interest while NTs are obsessed with pop culture because they want to fit in and because of FOMO. The respective reasons might be different (special interest vs wanting to fit in), but the result is still the same: they get brainwashed by reactionary slop. Since the manner in which they become obsessed with pop culture is different, the manner in which they can divest with pop culture is also different. If anything, it's easier for the autistic to divest because it's just a manner of finding a new special interest that's not tied to pop culture while NTs who find social value in pop culture can never truly divest from pop culture.
…
Autistics aren't born with their special interests just waiting to be discovered within them. The special interests are cultivated through their experience in society and exposure to that special interest. Since special interests are externally acquired rather than internally discovered, if a special interest proves to be deleterious for whatever reason, a new special interest can be acquired to replace the deleterious special interest.
I'm not saying it would be easy, but it's at least a path forward compared with NTs who continue to consume pop culture slop because their entire social group does so too.
I spent close to 20 years trying to force myself to stop being a furry because mockery from other people made me so ashamed that
CW: suicide
there were times when I literally wanted to kill myself because I thought I was so horrible I didn't deserve to live.
Guess what? It didn't work. I'm still a furry today. The only thing that helped was learning to accept it as part of who I am.
There's nothing shameful about being a furry but I don't know what that has to do with autistic special interests. I've had several come and go over the years.
Yeah, so have I. Some come and go, others stick around, and I've never had any real control over which ones do and don't.
Ultimately, the final judge of whether a special interest is deleterious is the autistic themselves. I personally wouldn't find being a furry to be particularly deleterious. The community is full of ND and queer people on top of having pretty progressive politics. I'm merely pushing back the idea that special interests can't be criticized or are entirely immutable. People can add or drop special interests. A special interest can also evolve over time so how a person experiences and understands their special interest as a 10 year old is different from how they experience and understand it as a 40 year old even if the actual special interest itself is still the same.
But it's not something that can - or should - be dropped because some Chapo dickhead thinks it's "cringe." Chapo is always going to find an autistic cringe, we are defined by how we annoy and inconvenience allistics, that is what gets pathologized as arrested development.
Media can and should be criticized, as I keep bringing up, but that isn't what is happening here. The very act of hyperfixation is what is being moralized here, that doing so makes you fail to be a man, that doing so makes you a reactionary (which was exactly what I had called out, because leftists still use autistic caricatures to talk about chuds), that someone here literally cannot connect with someone who is into Family Guy of all things because the idea of being into something in a way that even resembles autism is seen as abberant and creepy.
Now, I don't listen to CTH, but my guess is that this treat and slop meme had a lot more to do with talking about the bad shit people actually do to protect creature comforts at the expense of others like ignoring the pandemic to crowd into theaters. If you're losing that focus to just complain that people act and talk weird, like yeah the people who are always going to be treated as weird are gonna push back on that sort of reaction and call it out for what it is.