Auties, Aspies, and other CloudCuckooLanders!

Does anyone else not take many selfies, when compared to their people they know?

I don't take many. I take a few, but only on good days.

I rarely take any, and in fact have a deep resentment for the "word".

I only took some during vacation to show to some people. I don't think I look that good, but I don't look as bad as I did in the past. I think I turn out well in some pictures.

I barely take any pictures of myself. I'm happy with the way I look, but I just don't see the need for taking pictures of myself constantly. I just got back from a week and a half long vacation and have two pictures of myself (one in the city we went to, one on the beach we went to) I have a lot of building and scenery shots though, because I like to paint those.

edited 23rd Aug '16 7:15:29 AM by Cailleach

I've been having a really good day. As you've probably noticed, I've been anxious recently about how people keep trying to shove me into the confines of Asperger's stereotypes, like there's only one way for an Aspie to be. So I've been on the "my autism/Asperger's story" part of Youtube, watching a bunch vloggers on the spectrum talk about their lives. The diversity of all these people made me really happy. The preppy teenage girl who uses a ton of emojis, the crazy cool goth chick, the cool teen from the city into rap, the polished business professional. Seeing all these people representing the autistic community made me feel a lot better about beating stereotypes

edited 24th Aug '16 2:57:14 PM by Cailleach

Hey, I'm trying to get the word out so I can increase turnout basically, but tomorrow at 8 PM Eastern, the movie group that consists of Tropers will be watching an obscure movie that I personally physically bought, called Paula Peril.

It's basically a sort of Lois Lane meets Budget Lara Croft, as a news reporter deals with all kinds of criminal and weird stuff while trying to get that all-important scoop. She also has a snotty female rival, and a nerdy male supporter. It's old-school cheese, but made in the 2010s.

I don't know who'd be interested, but turnout will be a bit lower as three of our regulars won't be able to make it tomorrow. But I'd love for anyone who can to join us.

I posted that before I read your message, Cail. I do think the limited stereotypes are a bad thing for us, and I'm glad that TV is starting to improve upon that. My cousin said during vacation that "autism is the cool new thing now on TV", basically, and it's being portrayed a lot. He met an autistic goth woman at a bar.

edited 24th Aug '16 4:28:21 PM by BonsaiForest

I can relate to so much of this. Just swap the sexes, and have me diagnosed with autism at age 3, make a few other changes, but otherwise you have much of my story.

And I definitely noticed the whole "different isn't really cool, just being slightly different within limited acceptable parameters" when I was in middle school.

Precisely. Precisely. Precisely'

What I noticed in school is that the "weirdos" and the "rebels" were just other social cliques. Where everyone in the clique was a "weirdo" and dressed and acted just like all the other "weirdos". And if you were actually "weird," you were stuck eating lunch alone.

edited 24th Aug '16 8:02:35 PM by Cailleach

Bingo.

That sort of hypocrisy always really bothered me.

I'd say it's kinda the opposite of how, pre-Trump, you could get away with being racist, so long as you didn't look racist.^note I say "pre-Trump" because now people just don't care. Here, we're talking about it being cool to look weird, just as long as you don't actually come off as weird.

It's not really a "section of You Tube" so much as it is a bunch of videos of that subject.

So basically searching for things like "my autism story" "my aspergers story" "how I found out I had autism" "my life with aspergers" etc. will show you these videos and bring up others on the side of the screen as recommendations. I've seen a few of these before. More women than men seem to make these kinds of videos, which may say interesting thing about gender differences in autism.

I just made it through my first class of the new semester!! I have a few hours until my next class, so I'm in one of the disability accommodation private study rooms. Oh private study room, how I missed you so...

I just took my first cultural anthropology class, where we discussed the syllabus and whatnot. I thought it was just going to be another class that discussed race and gender, maybe some sexuality stuff, and completely ignore disabled people as an oppressed group. But I was wrong! There is going to be a unit on autistic culture. Albeit a very short one, but we are actually being presented as a group of people with a unique culture! Yes!! I am so pleasantly surprised!!!

A unit on autistic culture? I'd love to see what that says. I'm really interested. Let us know!

We have a culture ?

@Cail Oh that's neat, I'm glad.

I'm thinking there's two possibilities for what "autistic culture" could mean.

The less likely possibility, as I see it, is how autistic behavior tends to create the appearance of a unified culture, when really, it's just people whose brains work differently from most people, but more similarly to each other. Like how many autistics relate better to the opposite sex than the same sex (I see that all the time), many autistics love thunderstorms and rain (I also see many people who say "fuck yeah, there's a big storm in my area!"). And the assumption that other autistics feel the same way or think the same way.

But that's not likely.

The more likely possibility, I think, is things like how we've created our own language and terms. Aspie, autie, allistic, neurotypical, NT, "spoons" (I hate that term; it refers to the amount of mental energy you expend by faking normalcy, making eye contact, etc.). How we've created things like "stim toys" for autistics who very much need to be stimming. The autistic blogosphere. The self-advocacy movement, and the fight for understanding and acceptance of our differences that we never chose to have. The You Tube videos about living with autism. Those kinds of things.

It's not until December, but I'll be sure to give you updates then!

But here's my prediction, given the topic of this class: This class is about cultural norms and how they're learned in different societies. It assumes all people pick up on these cultural norms easily, but autistics don't. So the unit might touch upon this. The "autistic culture" I think they might cover is kind you see at autistic conventions and whatnot, where everything is catered to the social norms of autistics. People are allowed to stim, people are allowed to be nonverbal, people try to be literal when they speak so everyone can understand. Since "mainstream" culture isn't catered to us, when we're around others like us we create our own with our needs in mind.

edited 26th Aug '16 10:55:17 AM by Cailleach

That might be it, yeah.

You know, Cail, you're probably right. I hadn't thought of that. My first description was meant to get to the idea that autistics don't naturally think like allistics do, so we have certain things in common that we instinctively know about. My second description was meant to get to the idea that, as a result, we've created a bit of a culture.

But you unified those ideas perfectly in a distinct way that I assume is probably the case. I'm very curious what it says, and I'd like the public to know.