Weird aspie interests vs. hipster interests

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Where do you draw the line? I thought accordion would be a weird aspie interest, but apparently it’s a hipster interest. But sometimes when I mention that I just seem like a geek to people. It would be nice to play off my weird aspie interests as being hipsterish.

Being a hipster and being a geek has little to no difference.
The only difference between a hipster and a geek is that one 'looks good and is socially intuitive'

There is no interest that should disqualify you from getting as ASD diagnosis. It is not the nature of the interest but the intensity of it, the enjoyment of it, combined with most of the other core traits that should count.

If the "special interest" interferes with some other aspect of your functioning--such as remembering to eat---then it can be said to be a "symptom."

Rather like what ASPartofMe said.

No particular interest defines whether someone is on the spectrum.

Finally, one can be a hipster and autistic simultaneously. Those things aren't mutually exclusive. The same goes for headbangers, goths, homosexuals, priests, writers, drivers, clowns, actors, whatever. A person can be more than one of these things and have Asperger's. Or not.

What an inane question.

It could be both: your passion for accordion can be capitalized on to gain social advantage to make friends as a hipster interest.

depends on what kind of people you're around.

there's always been a very fine line between geeky and artsy. aspies almost by definition have trouble seeing such lines.

I guess it comes down being like everything else autistics struggle with. Its all in looking at the interest from the POV of other folks.

Trying to think of an example.

If you were obsessed with ants you couldn't use ants as a topic of conversation. It wouldn't make you popular at parties. And a boring textbook about ants wouldn't be a bestseller. But if you plug in your knowledge of ants into stuff folks do care about it you might be able to engage them, at least momentarily. Writing a book about ants is geeky. But writing about how ant hills work give us clues about information technology, or clues about human society, or about how alien creatures might evolve on exoplanets,it might yield you a a best seller.

Accordions are indeed rather geeky instruments. They dont compete with rock electric guitars, nor with turntable/mixer combos, nor with saxophones, or synths, as hip instruments. But there are trends in in the far flung corners of music (mainly in various types of world music) that do use accordion. In fact if you go to whole foods they see CD albums on the Putayamo label (or some name like that) with titles like "Accordion Planet" that are compilations of accordion based music from around the world. Listen to CDs like that. Get a feel for (I hate to say it this way but) what "sells". And figure out how to market yourself as an accordion player.

you know the difference because one half of the people doing these activities are cycling pennyfarthing bikes, they have huge beards and awful sleeve tattoos

I think the difference between Aspie interests and "quirky" NT interests is most easily drawn by comparing the purpose of the two. Indulging in special interests is a very personal thing for most Aspies. In my own experience, it's the best way to occupy a mind that is too detail and pattern-oriented. The accumulation of knowledge in one area or another is a way of using the dominant part of the Aspie brain that struggles with the chaotic "real world." Aspie interests are often unusual because of that fact: they fill a purely personal need. NT interests, on the other hand, fill social needs. "Will this help me make friends?" "Will this contribute towards a good career?" "Will this impress girls?" "Will this make people respect me?" That's the reason you don't find NTs with interests like the Confederacy and why Aspie interests are seen as "random" - because they're not socially significant. It's the most common protest I hear from NTs when I bring up my special interests: "Why do you care? No one else cares. It doesn't matter."

So to answer your question, the line is drawn between Hipsters and Aspies because once the Hipster scene moves on from accordions, you won't find any more accordion-loving Hipsters. The social purpose will no longer be there. Aspies won't move on with the crowd, however. You like accordions because you like accordions.

Hipsters are doing it "ironically"; they are not "really" having "weird" interests, they only "appear" to have "weird" interests while being too "cool" to have such interests, or so they say.

what? being a hipster is diagnosable?