"That's so Autistic!"

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I've been seeing and hearing autistic used in place of "ret*d" or "stupid" by a lot by high schoolers lately. Just curious if this is a new fad, or has this been going on for awhile?

I have never heard that.

who cares?
#swag #yolo

<--- Haven't been near a high school in 30+ years.

I catch myself saying it sometimes

I have heard this said in Australia

News to me. I've only thought it - when applicable. And probably only because of reading John Robison quoting his son as telling him to "stop being so autistic!" Now when I see some, what is clear to me now, autistic behaviour (including my own) I'll sometimes think, "that's so autistic," and have a bit of a laugh to myself about it, or a smile, or w/e depending on who does what & in what context etc.

Anyways, first I've heard of it being used in this way. Possibly because of awareness of autism being so much higher due to pop culture tv shows? Or perhaps it's just a generational thing, with more and more people being diagnosed as autistic or adhd or both or w/e else vs. the blanket diagnosis of being "mildly ret*d," that would have been given to all of us in the 1950's.

_________________
No for supporting trump. Because doing so is deplorable.

Yeah, heard it.

Screw 'em-- it's nothing new.

"Stupid," "bad," "spoiled," "selfish," "evil," and "ret*d" are all pejoratives, too. What's new??

All it does is illustrate my point-- couching things in neutral language accomplishes, basically, nothing. The language doesn't stay neutral, because the societal tendency to make nasty-ass value judgments doesn't go away.

It's pretty rare, but I have heard it used in a derogatory way sometimes. Off the top of my head, I think I once heard someone criticize Minecraft as "a repetitive and tedious game that only autistic basement dwellers would enjoy" or something to that effect. This was before I really understood much about autism, but it still struck me as an odd and unnecessarily rude way of describing something.

I haven't heard it personally, but I don't find it surprising. I've heard ADD, and OCD used in a similar manner for a while now.

No idea but I've come aross people using the term 'ret*d' in the workplace and referring to peoples' behaviour as being 'as if they had Asperger's Syndrome' in newspaper articules

I challenged the person who used the term 'ret*d', saying that as an autistic person I found the word offensive and they went on to use it again at a later date when talking to me about another person, thus showing that explaining the offensive nature of a term to an NT will often make them all the more likely to use it again! I didn't say anything this time though as I realised she was just an offensive idiot trying to deliberately provoke me so I wouldn't give her her jollies!

If I'd used an ethnic pejorative term in the presence of the person using the 'ret*d' word I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have let it pass though.

Have not heard the word autistic used this way.