Rise of Nerd Culture and Autism

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Is nerd culture just autistic culture in disguise? If not, how much overlap do you think there is? Do you think there's a connection/correlation between the rise in autism diagnoses and this current cultural shift? Finally, do you think it's a permanent shift or a passing phase?

"Nerd" culture has autistic people within it--but it's not "autistic," per se. Plenty of non-autistic people are into "nerdy" things.

Star Trek, perhaps an integral part of "nerd culture," is a fad which has lasted 50 years. Star Wars has lasted almost 40 years.

Other fads might merely be "passing phases."

The "furry" thing seems to be something that will last a while, though.

I, myself, am not part of "nerd" culture, and never have been.

I think nerd culture is much more strongly linked to the technological advances of the past few years. I don't think that autism itself is linked to rise in technology so much as technology has given more people, especially social outcasts, more of a place in society than they have had before. That said, a lot of nerd culture is about bringing the imagination to life, and imagination is something which many autistics are supposed to be poor in. (ostensibly)

And yet as someone who was running a 'nerd' store, it absolutely attracted people on the spectrum to it in greater numbers than what's representative of the ratio in the general public.

There is definitely a correlation as both have grown in prevalence over the same period of time, but I'm not sure there is direct causation.

There is a "nerd culture".

But I dont see how there is an "autistic culture". There is more opportunity for autistics to interact because of the internet than before. And more folks get lumped into the ASD spectrum than before. But I don't see much of "culture" evolving out of that yet. Not that it couldnt happen in the near future.

Check out 50 Shades of Nerd on Twitter.LOL!! !! !!

Exactly. As someone who's both spectrumy and a huge nerd, I can tell you I've always felt a sense of being with my "tribe" when I'm at a comic store, a convention, a renaissance fair, or a midnight Star Wars screening. I'm just wondering what accounts for the connection between nerd culture and autism, because I definitely feel there is one.

I found "Fifty Nerds of Gray" on the Twitter page.

Pretty funny.

I think there is definitely an overlap, as most Aspies just naturally fit the qualifications of nerddom, but not all nerds are Aspies. Just the same, thanks to nerd culture, we Aspies have somewhere to fit into, finally.

I'm not sure if I quite buy the Neurotribes argument that autism is essentially getting too much of the nerd gene, but there does seem to be quite a lot of overlap. As the rise, I put that down to the internet allowing subcultures to coalesce that might not normally if it hadn't been so easy to find other people with similar interests.

Nerd culture is just people liking some topic, little to do with autism, although it may include autistic people who like some topic.
At places with high concentrations of BAP people, there may be some cultural differences, but these are not nerd culture.
It is more like people speak their minds more and pay less attention to social norms in the larger world and are more accepting of each other's individual weirdness, but I wouldn't say this is an autistic culture.
In my experience, autistic people still stand out in nerd groups or BAP groups, although they may also have greater sense of belonging than in other groups.

I feel like a lot of the 'nerd culture' we see know is just the same as any other NT fashion trend, are people considered nerds thought of as any cooler or treated better? It's just such a commercialized term now, it really is meaningless.

There are two ways people use "nerd culture" that overlap - one is computer geeks, and the other is comic/culture oriented. Sounds like you mean the latter, but in either case there's tons of overlap...

"Is nerd culture just autistic culture in disguise?"

No, if anything I still see 'autistic' used as an insult/slur on websites such as reddit, which is a very nerdy and geeky one.

"If not, how much overlap do you think there is?"

None whatsoever.

"Do you think there's a connection/correlation between the rise in autism diagnoses and this current cultural shift?"

No. The only correlation is that some men, the overweight/obese one's that like anime, fedora hats, reddit, sci-fi/fantasy, costume-play, My little pony, and Japanese culture, tend to have a high Autism/Asperger's rate.

Perhaps we're more likely to be nerds/geeks than jocks or such, but that has been true across all time and not just modern ages.

"Finally, do you think it's a permanent shift or a passing phase?"

Hopefully not permanent. Hopefully it's one of those sub-cultures that has already peaked and will still exist but be less popular.

Jocks, skaters, goths, etc. have existed for a few decades now and nerds have too.

Copy&Pasted from an older thread, additions in bold.

Worst of all, these 'neo geeks' (my word for modern nerds/geeks) claim they're "so awkward lol" with their big 10-20 person geek crowd while us genuinely awkward aspies struggle to even befriend 1 or 2 stoner/drug dealers. They're also 'so weird' and 'crazy' when they have the most mainstream taste of millenials while we continue to have genuinely obscure interests and can never find anyone yo get along with.

I see a lot of neogeeks use this a kind of self depreciating humor when its unwarranted. The ultimate insult o us aspies who genuinely know struggle.

So if anything they only make me feel even more alienated because they are nerds/geeks, apparently you'd think they should be easier to connect with, they should have maybe slightly poorer social skills than the average N.T. meaning we'd relate to them better, etc. but it's all an illusion and under the facade are just trendy millenials and the product of their current generations ideals...

They are more foreign and difficult to understand than 'average'/basic people or jocks or such.

then again, I'm not a nerd/geek, at least I don't consider myself one, so maybe I just can't connect with them in general.

But then again, my best friend is the biggest nerd/geek and very into all this trendy stuff.

I think an aspie nerd/geek is a world of difference to an N.T. one. Aspie ones seem more authentic in their interest and less 'liking it because it's cool.'

See, I grew up in the 80's, when there was nothing cool about being a nerd. It wasn't even a thing people said about themselves out loud, and there were definitely no posers.

Ditto for the Seventies era I grew up in.

But in the Seventies there were Science Fiction Conventions, and Trekkie conventions, and comic book conventions were starting. And there was doubtless a large aspie/autistic component to the population involved in those subcultures (even though the individuals would not have known that they were aspies/HFA autistics in that 1994 era.

I don't think so. I don't identify with the nerd culture and I don't like the things that people in nerd culture usually like.