Are special interest frowned upon as you get older?

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What use to be embraced.

Oh she's into Dodge Viper cars. Models/toys/researching EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM! Wanting one for ages!

Reading up on Golden Retrievers and finally getting one.

basketball Michael Jordan Space Jam led to collectibles watching NBA and a hoop!

As an adult:

researching killers behavior for psychology looked at as creepy! Weird! PSYCHO! (So I took note and outside of a few classes kept that interest low key and didn't really make it a focus for my Criminal Justice degree).

A good book or computer programming or Mario game you are into

OH THAT'S NOT NORMAL TO BE THAT OBSESSIVE THAT'S WEIRD!! !

So I shun from these activities at times.

Most therapy sessions (for depression/anxiety mood issues) = oh cute you like crime shows *facepalm* so I've looked towards dropping the topic outside of my WP friend who is a professor in Criminal Justice. She understands! Family just watches the news and OMG! over it like typical SOCIETY IDIOTS!

The best thing about getting older is not giving a single f@ck about what people think about what you do with your private time. Yes, I keep my weird under a bushel at work. But at home, I do what I like. Even it that involves telly tubbies and dashing up and down my hallway.

Not if you get academic degrees in them and use those capacities in productive ways, or develop new technological advances and make a fortune. As some do.

"A good book."
Someone would object to that?
Really??

Anyways, as long as Green Bay Packers football fans can paint their bodies green and not wear a coat in the middle of winter when the temperature is below zero and jump up and down screaming for their team until their throats are sore (or in Cleveland Ohio, fans bark like dogs and eat Brownies) ...

... then I can attend a Star Trek convention dressed as Q
and have a drawer filled with tribbles.

This is an excellent point.
I'm an artist.
It started out as a hobby or interest.
It's now officially a business
because the government wants to tax what I sell.
Am still waiting on the making a fortune part ...

You sound to me like someone that is informed about what it is you like. Maybe people frown upon it because as they have gotten older, they have lost sight of what it is that they like or want to be informed about. (At 43, I started collecting comic books again. I get some strange looks from my friends, but that won't stop from being at the comic store when it open's at 10 a.m. every Wednesday to get new books ) There is so much crap to wade through in adult life, I say if it's not causing you or anyone else any harm....go for broke. (I with you on the killer front. From a phycology stand point I find it fascinating how an individual can justify that action in their mind, and then act on it.)

My mum didn't want me wearing a German helmet as a way of celebrating Sgt. Schultz, the very first character on any size screen to show an autistic mindset. She kept on telling me not to wear it. She tried to shame me into not wearing it by asking, "Do you realize how many people still hate Germans today because of that stupid war?" Good. The haters will leave me alone when I'm out in public for tea to get my artwork done. Anyways, I took my own advice and I'm giving my inner child all the German things he could possibly want. At least I'm not dressing like The Kinks anymore, mum!

I have often been shamed by my family and friends for having special interests. I get on a daily basis things like "Shut up about that show!" and "Nobody cares!". I don't think people realize how much it hurts. I have cried over it before. As I've gotten older, I hear those things even more often.

I am currently studying my special interests in college and I plan on working in fields that can make use of that. I was lucky to have special interests that I can make a pretty god career out of like computer science and physics.

I suppose it depends what your special interest(s) is/are. If they are what society deems to be "age appropriate," legal and they're not controverial then I doubt that they would be frowned upon. At worse they might be sniggered about or though of as eccentric. The difficulty lies in the fact that some autistic people do have special interests that are considered to be age inappropriate or controversial and those interests, and consequently those who hold them, do tend to be frowned upon.

Sometimes special interests are useless to have because they won't give you any benefits in life. If your special interest was let's say London. How is that going to help you in life and what does it benefit you? Unless you can move there and get a job there but the only way to do that is having a professional job and then move there because their immigration laws are very restrictive and you have to prove your own income will support you and you won't need to be on any benefits. Now I wonder what happens then if they lose their job somehow or fall on hard times by getting sick or becoming disabled, does that mean they would have to move back to their home country?

But if you have a special interest in movies, you could try and be a screen writer or a film maker or a director let's say but if you have no way in getting any career regarding your movies interest, it will be seen as useless.

The only thing I see good about special interests is they give you pleasure and comfort and help you relax and if they make you happy, I don't see the harm but if they keep you from getting employment and keep you from taking care of your kids and your own needs, then it becomes a problem but I don't think it's the special interest itself that is the issue, it's about how you're letting it over rule you is what it is. Plus no one wants to hear about it all the time. My family didn't like hearing about Home Alone or Dalmatians or London and so on whenever I got obsessive. My mother also wouldn't want to discuss the same things with me over and over so she refused. She also thought taking away my obsessions would stop them but it didn't. She would also get mad at me for looking up Dalmatian stuff online and I didn't see the big deal about it and still don't and she didn't like me reading the movie novel over and over.

But yes it is seen as cute when a toddler talks about the same things over and over and sharing facts about it and being imaginative about it but when an eight year old does it, it's not seen as cute and it's frowned upon.

I don't think a special interest necessarily has to lead to a career or something "useful" in life. My special interest just makes me happier than I've felt in a long damn time.

It contributes to my knowledge. I've become an expert in something that might help the things I've become expert in one day. I've already contributed help in fact.

Within my special interest are reasons that make me not want to move away from the specific area in which I live, but what's wrong with that? That's not necessarily harming my life or restricting me -- lots of people desire NOT to want to leave the area they live in, for lots of reasons, some which some people might argue with, yet who has the right?

I'm happy staying put -- I've already done TWO international migrations, how many people can say that? So I'm GLAD to stay put and it doesn't matter to me that it's my special interest that causes me to stay in this particular area. And it's not London it's something else. I was born in London to start with.

Some of my special interests are very helpful to me academically and they are certainly not frowned upon. Likewise my athletic interests are generally praised by others. I do still buy playmobil and play with it, not just collect it; that's considered weird but I don't care, and anyway I make stop motion films with them too which I think gives it some artistic credibility .

If anything I get criticised for focusing too much or too intently on my special interests, even the beneficial ones. I don't talk about them much because I'm not very talkative, but the time I spend or the intensity of study, say, is usually pointed out as a bad thing. I very frequently get told 'nobody expects you to be perfect at that/know everything about that', but they're wrong, because I expect that of myself .

Good thing I don't care what people think about my interests!

Allow me to play devil's advocate here for a moment, if I may.

My Background: I love performance art, including dressing up in costume and portraying a character. I do not always portray heroes. I love historical re-enacting. Ethnically, I am part English and part German, among other things.

Back before 9/11, I used to be much wilder when I portrayed the mischievous Q at Star Trek events. I would go so far as to zap people with actual sparks flying from my hands. But after that particular terrorist attack, I immediately stopped the pyrotechnics ... even though it had always just been completely harmless, innocent fun before. Because in today's world, shooting sparks from your hands could get you kicked out of a hotel or convention, arrested, or worse.

I happen to think of Q as being autistic (in fact, the whole Continuum is). That said, there are many ways to celebrate it, so in the name of peaceful coexistence, I'm fine with giving up my Q power of zapping people in public.

Now sure you have the right to wear the German helmet. And if I saw you sitting in a cafe drinking tea and working on artwork, I might even ask to join you for tea. Now then, how would you feel if I snuck up on you unawares, dressed in my full set of red judge's robes, and zapped you with smoke and sparks and an accompanying dramatic noise for my grand entrance while popping in as Q, as you were intently gazing down upon your artwork?

I think that would be very groovy.

There is a subgroup of Asperger's Syndrome who are fascinated with words as symbols of meaning from very early ages, and that continues throughout life as a special interest. Some of us become writers in adult life, (a few much earlier) and create an income stream from it.