Bronies, Furries and Autism

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Well, think about it. When you get into the most obsessive part of a fandom of something, whether it be furries or ponies or anything else, don't you think you will naturally find a much higher incidence of autism in that group than in a random selection of the population? Of course you will, because one of the defining traits of autism is obsession with a narrow interest. Therefore, wherever you have gathered a group of people who are fanatical about a narrow and specific topic, you'll find a higher than usual number of autistic people there. That's just logical.

That doesn't mean that if you like MLP or furry culture you are autistic or that you have to be autistic to like those things. It just means autistic people have a tendency to be obsessive, and MLP is a currently well-known fandom which a lot of people are obsessive about. I don't think there is anything mysterious about the correlation.

I'm not into anything to do with that, never have been really.

The closest I got to Brony type things is my obsession with eurobeat. It's calmed down a tad. But, yeah. Eurobeat.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Anng8Ldyxrc[/youtube]

I didn't realize how all my friends thought it was super weird I'd listen to this ALL the time. Man, I should listen to this more again. The only person I ever met who "got it" was this like 50-60 year old Italian guy I gave a ride to one day. He got in my car, heard the eurobeat, and started fist bumping and said told me to turn it up. It was the best.

I also listen to Perfume, a jpop group.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PrYKtahrWU[/youtube]

Don't know if this is particularly weirder than Bronies or not, but whatever.

I'm a cat furry as well. It all started for me years ago when I was a cat for Halloween and I liked being a cat so I never stopped doing it. I have even grown out my facial hair into tabby stripes and whiskers.

I hadn't heard of furries or knew there was a subculture for dressing as animals until a couple months ago when someone brought it up to me. I was disappointed to hear that it has been associated with perversion so much although I understand that not all furries are that way. I have since been to a furry convention and there was some perverted behavior but it also seems people are furries for all kinds of reasons.

I don't know if furries are more likely to be autistic but autistic people are more likely to have an unusual interested and I would not be surprised if most autistic furries were cats. I identify with the cat a lot as well.




I agree.
The people who are making fun of him are the ones who truly have poor social skills.
Insulting people for their hobbies and what brings them happiness is one of the most socially ignorant acts.

Causation is not caused by correlation, of course. This is actually a statistical fundamental . . or should i have said a fundamental of statistics? Anyways, I think people with autism can tend to be ridiculed for what they like, regardless of what it is, because we often behave in ways that seem odd to other people.

I love My Little Pony, Furries (not in a sexual way) and Anime and Manga.

I'm with Fnord on this one...also my daughter hates pokemon and manga

not sure how bronies and furries are,or remotely close to one another...i mean tabo was showing furries and that is like a mix of belief of almost druid like and viking (Berserkers ) and even "native americans" aka"indians". wehere one would take an animal skin and wear it...and thus taking the strength and "spirit" of the very nature of the animal.
While as bronies...they take a fantasied show representing ponies acting in human nature...but mainly distributing human "abilities" . Plus furries are of all "sex"( m/f) even "neutral"...while as "bronies" are a take off from bro(male) and Ponies(female) or in mlp sense again neutral.
Well i suppose then this is simply just a neutral topic of the relations between bronies,furries,and the similarity there of with autism..i suppose.
just try to clarify exactly what this board/chat is about so I am not as on the mlp fan base and such so i have a feeling of what exactly we are talking about here?
I mean bronies are pretty awesome and so are furries... for the common ground is encouraging a friendly environment for groups of people who are unique in there sense of "spirit" and trying to find other of which they are "at home" with and have some "bond" . Sort of like Autism it has a wide diversity of what defines it and how it effects each other in the unique way...but when it comes to society view...there is what is "socially" excepted and such and what they "judge" as the fine definition of this(mostly through their own interpretation there of). I say norm is vastly over ratted and it is the uniqueness that make human beings ....well human. So to all out there...Pony/brony furries and autistic and all the rest ...power to ya. I mean no harm no foul and as long as it not hurting anyone or thing..i see it as a great thing that everyone can feel comfortable...in their "skin" and be true to their"spirit" which make you who you are as an individual.

I watched a documentary called bronies. A few of the subjects in the film were on the spectrum. Autism was mentioned quite a bit in the film.

It's interesting how I kept being told I had poor social cue understanding in school by not acting like those who bullied me. Then when I did what they wanted to and acted like my bullies, they claimed I had antisocial personality disorder. They told me I was wrong for not being like those who tormented me, and then said I was wrong after they broke away every desire I had to be a good and kind person, because it's good social skills to see an opportunity to hurt someone and take advantage of it according to what I was taught in high school special ed. And people wonder why we have school shootings in the US, when students are told being good and kind is bad, and being cruel and manipulative is right. I was made into someone who had Antisocial Personality Disorder by my school, I was not like that before I went there.

On a forum I go on for MLP, I had posted a topic about people with autism who were also bronies. A huge number of them said they had a form of autism, mostly AS. So, I think it's true. I've considered myself to be partly furry because of my obsession with cats and also wanting to be a cat as well. I think it's more common than we think too, but it's really hard to say why. I am obsessed with MLP, but I don't consider myself a brony/pegasister.

I don't even know what bronies and furries are. Maybe it's something to do with today's younger generation. I grew up with Sing Along with Mitch.

I attend a monthly meetup for Furries and Bronies and a fair few do appear to have consistencies wit the ASD spectrum, usually in the way they speak, behave and conduct themselves compared to the general public I observe. That though is just observation, but not going to ask everyone if they are on the spectrum, id say its awkward even for me.

I find being ASD don't mean anyone is more likely to have an interest in MLP of Furry. It may simply mean groups like this "collect" more unusual and different people, give some a platform to formally meet and greet people sharing the same interest. Though at this meet i go to, that interest is usually shared between the younger, about 17-20 bracket, I'm often one of the older members that attend being in my late 20's and many are of the less typical personal identities, most belong to the LGBT, have often strong political and religious ideals as i observe typically.

Plus I am Furry, involved with Yiff and have a minor interest in MLP, diagnosed as described as severe affected Aspergers Syndrome amongst others. I can regularly attend with my alternative Fursona and my imagionary friends/Tulpas Gwydion and Rhoslyn in a usually safe place, mingle and be the "Fox" i am more so. Some suitup, some regularly wear collars and tails like I do, and some are there, simply to enjoy a meal and drink with others as the meet i go is hosted in a Gay bar and club.

In the end, fandoms like this attracts whom that are different.

I don't know if I'd consider myself a brony, but I've seen every MLP:FIM episode there is, as well as both Equestria Girls movies. I also know a number of autistic male friends who love MLP.

Not as much as therians. Really, look at the stuff they say on their discussion boards:

Therian 1: "Hey, is it normal that the way I swing my arms is in the same motion as my legs?"

Therian 2: "Well, I do the same, but I read somewhere that wolves do the same thing. They walk in a diamond pattern."

Therian 3: "And do you do the toe-walking thing thing?"

Therian 2: "I don't, but a lot of people here do that. Maybe it's the digitigrade gait?"

Therian 1: "I do that, too! And I flap my hands in front of me sometimes like I'm trying to walk along the ground or something!"

Therian 4: "I noticed my senses are more sensitive, sort of like a wolf or something. Sometimes, I get overloaded, and I start acting like a wolf, and I'll be snarling and then scared, like instinct has taken over."

Therian 5: "Umm, does anyone else have experiences where they start hearing things that aren't there, and then they black out for a while and they wake up lying down and feeling like crap? I'm scared, and I wonder what I could have done."

Therian 2: "No, dude...that's probably more like an epileptic seizure."

Therian 5: "Oh, no!"

Therian 2: "It's okay! It's treatable, but you might want to see a doctor, like...BEFORE you end up in a hospital. And don't drive."

Therian 5: "I'm 14..."

It is really like that on their discussion boards, like, constantly. You also have a lot of Otherkin who are the same way, and they are convinced that their meltdowns are some kind of "inner dragon coming out" or something. They explain their differences as, "The reason that nobody understands me is that I wasn't meant for this world," or something like that. We might have one of those types here. He comments on the politics, philosophy and religion forum pretty often.

It can be kind of tricky to deal with some of them because they can be pretty headstrong about their beliefs. Meltdown fuel, and it's completely unnecessary because it usually takes only a few minutes of talking to them frankly, without forcing them to agree with you, before they adopt a sort of agnostic posture on it and go, "Well, however you explain it, I've always been like this," yadda-yadda-yadda. They are consistently pretty reasonable if you don't force them or threaten them. That doesn't mean pretending to agree with them, but it means you don't back them into a corner where they have to make a commitment to changing the way they perceive their situation. I recommend staring at one of those "COEXIST" bumper stickers for about 30 minutes before engaging in conversation with them.

Compared with Therians and Otherkin, furries can be pretty NT, but they're probably slightly more likely to be on the Spectrum, all told, than the general population. This is just a consequence of it being a relatively narrow interest that a lot of people spend almost odious amounts of their time on, to the point of it being their entire lives. They end up not KNOWING anybody personally who isn't into the same thing. They often think that non-furs are crazy.

What are bronies and furries?