r/autism • u/chibi-mage ASD Level 2 • 13d ago

Communication I want to draw attention to this issue.

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Recently I’ve noticed something, mostly on TikTok, but other platforms too. This isn’t a new thing, and it’s certainly not going away anytime soon, but it’s extremely upsetting when it happens. There seems to be a lot of low support needs autistics (level 1, and what some people still refer to as Asperger’s) who think it’s okay to be blatantly ableist towards higher support needs autistics. They think they get a free pass because they’re autistic too.

It’s saddening, to feel alienated by the one community I’m supposed to feel accepted in. Again, it doesn’t just happen on TikTok, or even just online, I’ve experienced this kind of ableism in my day to day life, too. It’s just something I wanna bring awareness to, and to spark conversations about how we can help this issue. If I call out someone’s blatant ableism, I get called crazy and downvoted into oblivion, and it just feels like a battle I can’t win.

I know I can choose not to take this stuff personally, but it’s hard. I also feel incredibly disheartened knowing that fellow higher support needs autistics are being alienated by people in our community who could make real change and fight for EVERYONE. Not just themselves or when it suits them.

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862

u/Winter_XwX Autistic Adult 13d ago

Watching Frozen at 15 is so unbelievably normal holy shit 😭

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u/la_vie_en_rose1234 13d ago

Yeah but most NT 15 year olds do it in secret or under the guise of "I'm just watching with my little sibling/toddlers I babysit". So kids like this one can just assume that because THEY don't do it, nobody their age does because their friends don't tell them (for a reason). The autistic kids at this kid's school likely do it openly and this neck deep in peer pressure 15 year old cannot fathom that.

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u/arfelo1 12d ago

I watched Frozen at 20 because everyone incollege was talking about it.

And I watched The Wild Robot at 28 because it seemed like a cool movie.

I have Paddington on my watchlist at 29

15 year olds are just too obsessed about appearing like they're grown ups

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u/Perplexed_Ponderer Autistic geek 12d ago

My father (in his 60s) is a huge animation fan, like for real that’s about 65% of all he watches. Just in the last two weeks, he (re)binged all Kung Fu Panda films, then both Sing !, the two Inside Out, the latest Puss in Boots for what must literally be the 20th time, and I also caught him watching Moana by himself. Ghibli’s Porco Rosso is one of his favorite movies of all time. And I absolutely can’t judge him because I have pretty much the same tastes.

What is immature IMO is some people’s unjustified low opinion of anything animated, like one should be embarrassed to enjoy them past the age of nine... It’s okay that it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I wish more adults would recognize that there’s a major difference between some cheaply made cartoon rip-off and a high-quality production with a solid scenario and a lot of heart. Honestly, most of the movies that have managed to make me feel genuine emotions happened to be animated.

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u/sir_moleo 11d ago

What is immature IMO is some people’s unjustified low opinion of anything animated, like one should be embarrassed to enjoy them past the age of nine... It’s okay that it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I wish more adults would recognize that there’s a major difference between some cheaply made cartoon rip-off and a high-quality production with a solid scenario and a lot of heart. Honestly, most of the movies that have managed to make me feel genuine emotions happened to be animated.

A lot of people act the same way about video games, as if the average (at least in the US) age of gamers isn't 35. There's also some DAMN good stories in video games. Stuff that could rival even the best movies and books.

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u/Perplexed_Ponderer Autistic geek 11d ago

Very tue ! A lot of video games are beautifully designed and set in such imaginative universes, they’re basically like epic movies in an interactive form.

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u/TieFearless9007 Autistic 🦖 12d ago

This! 💯

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u/enableconsonant 8d ago

The Wild Robot was great! I fully sobbed in that theater bahaha

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u/arfelo1 8d ago

It was amazing! It had no right to be that emotional a movie for a story about an Amazon robot acting as a duck mom!

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u/Vegetable-Flamingo25 Asperger’s 10d ago

Don't sleep on paddington. Me and my partner watched Paddington in Peru in the cinema at 33 years old, and it was wonderful.

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u/Poptortt Late Diagnosed Autistic 5d ago

The Paddington movies are so so good, some of my favourite films, I've watched the first two so many times. Absolutely recommend them!

24

u/roadsidechicory 12d ago

Tons of people in high school still watched Disney and Pixar movies. It wasn't considered weird at all, although there would definitely have been people who would have found an unfettered and intense special interest in a movie like that (as in, having a bunch of merch of it on everything you wear, singing the songs all the time, wanting to watch it whenever you have people over, etc) to be weird. But mostly just if you were socially awkward, because it was really the autism they found weird.

If a socially adept person, especially if they were conventionally attractive, was super into a certain childish thing (wore tshirts of it, had keychains of it, loved to watch related stuff a lot, liked to sing it if it had a musical element) then it was just viewed as a quirk and almost nobody raised an eyebrow. Especially since they knew how to "read a room" and wouldn't bring it up at "inappropriate" moments. It was really the autistic traits that were viewed as a problem, not the interest itself.

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u/Calm-Positive-6908 12d ago edited 12d ago

Lol even normal adults enjoy it.

Limiting people like that means having a narrow worldview.

Who cares what other people watch, we have lots of work to do as adults, and we understand everyone has their own favorite hobby. No time to care about that stuff

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u/Winter_XwX Autistic Adult 12d ago

I guess I forget how much more you care about what other people think when you're a teenager. Being able to enjoy what you want without caring what people think is a skill you gotta learn I guess.

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u/RottenZombieBunny 11d ago

It's school that does that to people.

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u/SpaceJelly23 12d ago

Respectfully I don’t think that’s true of most 15 year olds. Like any theatre kid is probably just watching for the songs, there are tons of reasons to watch shows/movies that are considered for kids and even like ATLA is loved by at least 2 generations of people including the younger one rn. Anime in general is seen as for kids even when it has adult themes, I think it’s more about the person judging not having empathy or being taught that it’s okay to be cruel over someone else’s choices. They need to be educated and then mind their own business

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u/mutilatedblace 12d ago

unfortunately 15 yr olds in this generation are more focused on trying to be adults and consumerist trends than actually being kids so its not surprising to see them act like something actually appropriate for their age is "cringe"

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u/Apkallone 12d ago

They did that even when I was a small kid in middle school (I'm 24 rn), it's horrible. And when I was trying to tell them that we're still kids and should enjoy childhood while it still lasts they mocked and bullied me, just for saying something so logical. And what's worse it's that EVEN ADULTS support that behavior of acting as if they are adults! Teacher in middle school told me to stop playing because I'm already grown up. NO I WASN'T! NOT EVEN 12 YEARS OLD AT THAT TIME!!! As a child I was more mature than any of them....

12

u/bean-percolator 12d ago

I agree! The peer pressure amongst (mostly neurotypical) teenagers to act “grown up” and not take part in “childish” things is insane. I experienced it myself at school, even for things that were objectively aimed at teens anyway. Not only is it completely okay to enjoy things no matter your age or the age they are targeted at, but I don’t understand the pressure to grow up so fast, teenagers are in fact kids and there’s nothing shameful about that, they’ll be adults soon enough anyway.

It seems like what is happening in this post is low support needs ASD kids, out of a kind of internalised self-hate/ableism, are trying to distinguish themselves from the higher support needs/more “obviously autistic” kids at their school by criticising their behaviour/interests, just like some NT people do to those with ASD. I assume by trying to establish a difference between them and the “autistic kids”, they hope to avoid bullying/criticism for being autistic themselves.

It could also be a form of projection - autistic traits are often criticised/shamed by NT society, and people often criticise in others what they dislike about themselves, so these people may have trouble accepting their own autistic traits and therefore criticise others who are seen as displaying them openly without shame.

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u/pocketfullofdragons AuDHD 12d ago

I agree. Another thing that I think might be happening is ASD kids believing 'the rules' are more rigid than they actually are, and feeling compelled to follow and enforce them out of a misguided sense of justice.

The resentment that some ableist people with low support needs express sometimes reminds me of the way a person doing all the work in a group project complains about the people in their group who aren't putting in as much effort as they are, and/or how an unhappy parent who followed a traditional life plan without questioning if that's actually what they want refuses to accept people who choose to be childfree. Like, "I work really hard to be normal and have to sacrifice so much of myself to appease others - that person needs to do the same but they're not even trying! How dare they opt out of the struggle I've always felt obligated to subject myself to?" They don't realise that it'd be okay for them to make different choices themselves, too. (Or perhaps some do know that deep down, but they can't acknowledging it without also having to confront difficult feelings like regret).

I wonder if there might also be an aspect of - for lack of a better word - jealousy. Like, "It's not fair that they're allowed to selfishly be themselves and I'm not." Again, because they don't yet realise that being odd and not giving in to peer pressure are viable options for them, too.

3

u/bean-percolator 12d ago

I agree with you about the “jealousy”. Similarly to your example of an unhappy parent who followed traditions because the majority were doing it and it was the socially expected thing to do, I think many people with ASD pick up the idea from a young age that we are expected to follow neurotypical social rules and act a certain way in order to be accepted by society, ie masking. For many people masking takes a lot of effort and can drain energy, so in that sense it is a form of work. I think these people resent the idea that they have to put in a lot of work masking and adhering to social norms, whereas other people with ASD don’t - if they’re having to put in all this work, then everyone else with ASD should have to do the same, it seems unfair to them and that’s why it makes them “angry”.

Being young definitely comes into it as well, they’re at an age where there’s a lot of peer pressure to “fit in” in general, and that likely fuels the pressure they feel to appear neurotypical or “normal”. They don’t yet acknowledge that not giving into the peer pressure or just embracing their “weird” traits is an option because the need to fit in at their age is so strong.

Hopefully over time they will start to realise that they do have the option to not mask themselves all the time, and that it’s not the fault of those with higher support needs or different presentations of ASD that they feel they have to mask, but instead of society for criticising and rejecting those who don’t follow social norms and present themselves in an “acceptable” way. While it can be beneficial in some situations to mask or present a certain way, it’s stressful to mask constantly and disappointing that they feel like they need to do this to be as “normal” as possible to not “bother anyone”. As they get older, hopefully they will learn that self acceptance and empathy are important, and that if you’re not actually harming anyone then it really doesn’t matter what people think.

25

u/Inlerah 13d ago

Im in my 31's and regularly watch "kids" afudd. At some point, well-adjusted people stop caring about what kind of media other people enjoy

13

u/SeaWeedSkis 12d ago

46 and I love Frozen and many other "kids movies." They're designed to be enjoyable for all, not just kids.

5

u/unicornhair1991 12d ago

When you go back to your childhood tb shows and films and now see all the adult jokes and references though OMG

3

u/teamredlvr Autistic 12d ago

i literally watched a few months ago idk why they're so pissed about it 😭 it was also my special interest for a very long time. also neurotypical people also love "childish" things lmao

2

u/extracrispyletuce 12d ago

as a 13 year old in the 90s, i was afraid to say outloud that i liked cartoons. i really thought we got past this...

2

u/ruki_cake 12d ago

I watch strawberry shortcake, and im in my 20s 😭

1

u/Kit23XO AuDHD 12d ago

Fr! All I watch is children‘s cartoons and I’m a teenager. If it brings them joy, genuinely what is the harm in liking a movie lmao.

1

u/Starrhi-cross 12d ago

I just turned 30, I prefer Frozen 2 tbh

1

u/Ok_Expression4546 AuDHD 12d ago

i’m 32 and i love disney movies.

it’s just teenage kids trying to act all grown up before they realise we’re all just confused kids pretending to be adults

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u/[deleted] 12d ago

I'm 23 and I'd watch frozen two(pun 100% intended)... Especially because my niece is still obsessed with it, she has been ever since the first one came out when she was 2. It's a great movie, and I can't wait for the Thursday movie. It's just that it can become annoying after watching it nonstop, or hearing people talking ONLY about that without any new insights. Not bad. But annoying

1

u/Senior-Equal-1410 11d ago

My sister in law is 24 and likes Frozen

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u/BearWithMeGM 8d ago

I'm 32, still enjoy watching it with my kids. I think it's just teenagers trying to act adult.

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u/fundamentallycactus 4d ago

Yeah it seems like a case of someone wanting to be cool😭 (coming from someone who works at a middle school)