Faking autism and Faking aspergers

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As far as 'fashionable' goes... I've seen a phenomenon on the net that might explain it, mainly in watching people I knew get really trashed by others this way.

It goes like this:

1. An autistic person makes a social blunder online.

2. They get really nasty flames in reply, sometimes making fun of them for being 'stupid' and sometimes angry at them for being a 'jerk'.

3. The autistic person explains that they are autistic (often using the word Asperger, if that's their particular autism label), and therefore don't always understand certain social situations, and that this was why they were doing things that the other people found annoying, stupid, inappropriate, mean, etc.

4. The other people go "Oh, you're just making excuses for your behavior."

After this happened often enough, it changed to "There's all these people who act like jerks online and then claim to have Asperger's as a way of getting out of it." I know there are autistic people who really think this is happening everywhere, but I haven't seen it, the only version of it I've seen is people who really were making social blunders because they were autistic, and then saying they were autistic to explain why they hadn't grasped it at first, or why they took something literally, etc. And then some autistic people end up thinking they have to say "quit making excuses" etc. in order to be legitimate themselves, and not "the ones who are just making excuses" (even if few to no people are "just making excuses").

And that's when it started to be considered a "fad" or "trendy".

My guess at the motivations of some of the non-autistic people who started this stereotype, is something like this:

It is, generally, considered mostly okay and socially acceptable to pick on, demean, bully, be nasty to, and generally dehumanize people who are not socially "with it", or who make certain social mistakes.

It is not, generally, considered mostly okay and socially acceptable to pick on, demean, bully, be nasty to, and generally dehumanize people who have a condition perceived as medical, for having that condition. It happens, but it's considered "low" by a lot of people who would otherwise have no problem with it, and they'd probably stick up for someone in that situation -- there are degrees of social acceptability in bullying, and bullying people for a medical condition or who "can't help it" is considered "lower" than bullying people for a number of other reasons, so if it's done it's done much more covertly.

Additionally, the same applies to reacting in anger, even when it's not bullying. There are social taboos against getting mad at someone for "being sick". (And although Asperger's isn't a disease, it's still in the category that people are talking about here.)

Because of this, an attempt to say something like "I am doing this because I have a medical condition," can be perceived as an attempt to gain social status and lower the social status of the person who is either bullying someone, or mad at them for something.

For someone who is just mad at someone in passing, they can then become even more angry, because their anger no longer would be seen as quite so legitimate if the person "couldn't help it" or "didn't know better", and generally when people are mad at someone they don't want to have a reason not to be. So, the person can then get out of having to think about this, by going "That person doesn't really have Asperger's, they're just using it as an excuse for pissing me off," or else, "They do have Asperger's but that's no excuse to piss me off." (They don't get the difference between an explanation and an excuse, nor the fact that autistic people often want to communicate what was precisely going on at times when other people would be trying to maneuver socially in various ways. Not that autistic people can't do social maneuvering at all, but you know what I mean I hope.)

For someone who actually routinely bullies people for being different in these ways, the problem is even worse.

They know that they will lose social status majorly (at least in some circles) if that person they bullied for being "stupid" or "crazy" or "socially inept" or whatever actually has a reason for it.

They also might, if they have much of a sense of ethics, start feeling bad about what they'd done, if there's actually a reason the other person was acting that way beyond being "stupid," "crazy", etc.

And people don't want to lose social status, and they don't want to feel bad about what they've done, generally, since those things tend to feel bad to people. Some people will respond to all this with an apology. Some people will become defensive, sometimes in the extreme. (I've watched people do both.)

And that extreme defensiveness can take the form of either making sure the person is seen as "just a jerk" or "just some stupid person" or "just crazy" or something (so that bullying and stuff can be more justified), or else they will do the "They might have that condition, but they're just using it as an excuse."

The "using it as an excuse" thing in itself reflects a whole bunch of other attitudes towards disability, in which there are right and wrong ways to be a disabled person, and among the "wrong" ways are "using it as an excuse" or "only pretending to have it".

And some of the resentment people have towards disabled people is they don't really want to be required to do anything out of their ordinary way of doing things (and their ordinary way of doing things accommodates only non-disabled people and then only some disabled people). They regard disabled people as getting special favors instead of rights, and they resent this. They also often have some very weird views of disability (for instance, a common stereotype is that wheelchair users are lazy, when in fact any manual wheelchair user can tell you that wheelchairs are harder to do than walking, but most people perceive it as "resting" since it's sitting down, so they think other people "get to rest" -- I have a friend who even got that as a comment when she was so out of breath from struggling to operate her wheelchair that she couldn't even reply to correct the person), which then cause them to think disabled people are getting special advantages.

And that's part of what gives rise to the idea that lots of people want to be disabled just to get a free ride in some way (even though what disabled people get is hardly a free ride in any sense), or that real disabled people are lazy and manipulative and like using their disability as an excuse all the time so they don't have to do things (even though most disabled people are in fact so frequently accused of that that they overextend themselves on a regular basis to avoid being seen that way, which is one of the destructive effects of that stereotype).

So if someone really has a need to trash a disabled person, those are some of the angles they'll go for, and wanting to not seem or feel like a jerk for bullying a disabled person, is one of the reasons people will want to figure out some way to feel better by making the person bully-worthy after all.

...and all that is probably part of why Asperger's is seen as a "fad" or "trendy" in a really pejorative way -- because for many people, if people had to accept autistic people as we are because we're just like this, literalism and bluntness and all, then they'd feel bad about getting mad at us for these things, or about bullying us for having various traits, etc. And so it's far, far easier to just deny the reality of the situation. And then autistic people become desperate not to be seen as "one of the ones using it as an excuse," and therefore instead of challenging the stereotype head-on, they tend to go along with it to a point but then complain about "the ones who do that and give the rest of us a bad reputation", in order to say "But I'm not like that, I'm not lazy and manipulative, I'm not fake, etc." So it seems to be perpetuated by, on the one hand (the non-autistic people who generally started the stereotype), a fear of having to deal with having done something wrong (or that's usually considered wrong, anyway), and then on the other hand (the autistic people who sometimes perpetuate it), fear of being stereotyped as lazy/manipulative/fake.

There is another way in which Aspergers and the Autistic Spectrum are "popular." Just look at all of the books that are being published on the subject and that are selling very well. AS and ASD are becoming a significant topic of public interest and thus can be called "popular" or "fashionable."

Other evidence of this - do a search for Aspergers or Autism on National Public Radio and see how many shows there have been in the last year. Google the term Aspergers Syndrome and see how many hits you get.

Z

Thanks Anbuend for that explanation in response to Merle. I was out and missed the question.

It sure doesn't feel fashionable if you happen to be the Aspie making the blunders or struggling with one of your own traits

My main struggle seems to be eye contact, I either don't do it or I seem to do it for too long or just outright stare. I have tried faking proper eye contact but I have to concentrate so hard that the conversation becomes hard then or I miss other things going on.

Me too. I either stare and people misinterpret that or I look "shifty" because I don't look enough.

I was actually wanting to hear autism0 defend him/herself.

Sinsboldy,
dont waste effort on the original poster wondering if it is self or not,if have been through something-have been through it,nothing can change it-unless they know self away from internet they cannot judge from anything but what has been written,if they cannot cope with the possibilities of fakes on the internet,then they should not be using forums.

Am had known who it was being wrote about as the posts went on-they described with the exact same words what has been wrote about her on other forums,if it's the same person am think it is,they have bullied other WPers to on other forums for same reasons,could call her the autism police,she goes around ASD forums looking for people to denie their autism or AS for any of her reasons,saying everyone is copying her autism and are fakes,and also hates aspies for 'taking all the support away from the real autistics'.

I know who you mean, and autism0 is not that person, but she and autism0 do have some allies in common.

Like Dave, I know who you are talking about as well - and the person you speak of is in desperate need of help. A good start would be to get her off the Internet. She's making a fool of herself with trying to imprint her LFA fantasy world on the rest of us (the copying is a part of that - no one can touch her world or else). And yet she claims to be a member of Mensa (I mentioned this on another thread). Complete and utter garbage, and the curebies love her because she hates her Autism and paints it as 100 percent bad. We know it's not....and if she wants to know why she isn't getting any support, she should look at herself and accept who she is. Then she'll get it.

Sorry - off topic rant.

Ha. This is pertinent to my entire "life" online and off-; before I had a label, I was an "insensitive jerk". Now, I'm still an "insensitive jerk", but I'm hiding behind the label.

Thanks for your post.

oooh!
Well it won't be the first time I have been hornswoggled into someone else's comorbids. Thanks for letting me know.

Merle

Why I love WrongPlanet #23: The members use words like "hornswoggled" in everyday conversation.

Yes, we are damned if we do and damned if we don't.

If we try to fake anything, then its not possible anyway and we still mess up.

All the more reason to just be yourself - and if anyone gives you static about it, shovel it back while you give them a double dose of the bird!

I think your post was well written and thought out (in its entirety, not just the part I quoted). I also think that all of us have to be careful not to fall into a "us vs them" trap.

What if the above bolded section had some words interchanged to read:

"That person isn't really a neurotypical, they're just using it as an excuse for pissing me off," or else, "They are NTs but that's no excuse to piss me off." (They don't get the difference between an explanation and an excuse, nor the fact that neurotypical people often want to communicate what was precisely going on at times when other people would be trying to maneuver socially in various ways. Not that neurotypical people can't do social maneuvering at all, but you know what I mean I hope.)

All types of brain wiring can be offensive, given the right motivation and circumstances.


2

To me fashionable is what trendy, cool people want to have or to be. There's also something false and superficial about it. I don't think of autism or Asperger's syndrome as being fashionable. Maybe if film stars, models, sportspeople, royalty and other fashion setters came out as autistic or Aspie, then autism or Asperger's syndrome would be fashionable.

Although for the last 48 hours I have been questioning whether or not I should get an official Dx, you can rest assured that were I to decide to do it, it wouldn't be just so I could hang out here. I'm hanging out here without the Dx, because I like the logical thinking of most of the posters here.

Well, I'm not even sure what a "comorbid" is yet, but I was believing the original poster was talking about me too.