we had to turn round up the road and he was walking the way we were originally going, lookin grumpy. and i am sorry mister
longish, meta
@kass lots of good points here, it's something i've thought about a lot since joining. one of the ones i always remember was when seemingly my whole timeline joined an hour-long dunking spree on a sub-50 follower account whose bio mentioned they were autistic, for the crime of being, like, arguably a bit insensitive and blunt.
other times it's been like, misinterpreting a joke or not understanding sarcasm or taking things overly literally - all responses common to people on the spectrum, as you say. absurdly minor shit that does not need a popular user and their whole discord server to laugh at for half the day.
sometimes there's barely any pretense that the replier has done something wrong and it's just openly 'lol why is this peasant trying to talk to me'. i hate it. people just wanna give themselves permission to be cruel while still feeling like the hero.
calling someone like that a 'reply guy' was ops way to immediately dehumanise them so they could proceed to pick them apart like a high school bully.
If I see something that severe- especially being done by a neutrotypical grown adult- i'll probably up and leave
since I'm on the subject, there's this one screenshot dunk that I'm unable to erase from my mind, where the op made a harmless and silly joke about something inane, and the person replying added on to it with the same.
the reason the op screenshotted it was because the person replying had 'he/him' in his bio, a picture of a cartoon parrot as his profile picture, and a bio with a silly joke in it you might find in a cheap joke book.
a few people joined in the dunk on this 'loser' before I pointed out the guy hadn't done anything at all... like, at all, and might be on the spectrum, or might not, but like...
others corrected themselves, said they didn't think of it that way. but the op subtooted me and unfollowed.
I see something like this happen too often.
it is not your place as a neurotypical, to casually and flippantly group someone who can't function well socially in with others trying to mess with you, just because it's uncomfortable for you to deal with both. they are not connected by anything other than your discomfort, which in this case, I don't think is important.
Again, if this doesn't apply to you then it's not something you do. I have to put this because one of the reasons it's difficult to talk about this sort of thing on here is because a lot of people want to say 'but i don't do that'. ok good for you
like i wanna be clear about my reply guy post earlier, i know there are people who are absolutely dreadful here who reply with the intention of dragging you down and/or being wildly reactionary for their own benefit- whatever they get from it.
but what I'm saying is, autistic people who can't mask well have been so often thrown in with this lot solely because interacting with them, or having to see someone being quite awkward, is uncomfortable to neurotypicals.
I'm saying it's important to understand there's a sizeable difference between someone in your replies being socially awkward/naive/unaware, and someone in your replies with negative intentions.
One of the reasons this happens is because the mean repliers know this, and try to prey on your patience and use the assumption of them replying in good faith.
This doesn't mean this assumption should be thrown out all together just because someone is not performing well socially.
"goblin saint bitch puppy" - mads
"unrepentant blogger" - annika
"ur sweetie friend who posts like a terrible fiend" - triz
"kass nice" - best friend, under duress
"heinous cherub" - aleums
she/her. trans
25
funny