Autism influencers on IG, X, TikTok, etc.

Post Reply New Topic

Of the 3 platforms identified in my subject line, I actually only use IG but I think a lot of what happens there also happens on the other 2.

I started by looking at some things posted by people from Love On the Spectrum. Somewhere along the way, a bunch of other what I would call autism influencers started to show up in my feed. All of them relatively young (early 40s or younger) women who would be considered attractive or at least know how to make themselves attractive i.e. to men. A lot of them seem to be recently diagnosed.

What I mostly notice is that they talk about autism as though they are experts on the topic, as well as implying that all autistic people share their particular experience, or at least all autistic women. But I also think they do it in a way intended to attract male eyeballs. A lot of it doesn't seem all that impactful.

Just wondering if I'm imagining all this?

Most of these influencers are full of s**t and make up entirely new concepts that have never been part of the autism "canon" as most people know it. They're hopping on the "neurodivergency" trend and would be claiming some other disorder if autism weren't currently cool.

The spectrum is too wide as is and this lot have rendered the label completely meaningless and I dislike them for that. They did snap me out of my own denial though, by being nothing like me or any legit aspies I've met.

I haven't studied this phenomena in great detail (and Chatgpt won't help) so take this with a grain of salt. but young female influencers who seem to have the most male (and female) followers appear to my eyes to be coming across like cartoon Daria or her friend Jane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daria

"unintentionally" petite quirky (mixed in with being a little bit oddball and unconventional - could be Goth/emo/punk/tattoo chick spends her day podcasting and/or playing video games like a cosplay/gamer girl), quick witted and (crucially) comes across like a confident introvert who (despite not trying) are attractive and hot but in a understated way like they don't really care or it doesn't matter to them.

I think that type of profile for a young female throwing in they are also a little "neurodivergent" is kind of rebellious and cool.
However, this doesn't work as well for male Aspies.

I don't know ... but I'm gonna snap if I read anymore more articles about looksmaxing

Those are very young, good looking girls. They also think that everyone's experiences are similar to theirs.

Other factors being equal, young attractive folks are more likely to get attention in a visual medium like YouTube. And the more attention they get, the more likely they are to show up in your feed, in the first place. Video intrinsically tends to favor attractiveness over real expertise.

I *DON'T* think most of these influencers are fake, though. I think they may just have a tendency to over-generalize from their own experiences, and also to over-estimate their own expertise.