Autistic as an insult

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Romanian PM apologizes for autism comment

I see lots of people saying "Do something autistic" or Autist. Not sure if it's a meme.

But I'd joke around and say "that's my autism kicking in" because if you can't make fun of yourself then you have a serious self esteem issue.

People often joke about having OCD (when they don't). I think everyone has eccentricities, and no one is truely 'normal'.

If someone is truely being mean and using Austism as an insult, then they won't stop there (they will be hating on everything & everyone), and it's good to just stay away from these people.

During my high school freshman year, I took P.E. with a group of boys known for using autism as an insult. I heard them exchanging these slurs with each other when in the gym once, and I let some adults know so that they could keep an eye on them.

To me, the use of autism as an insult is, at most, annoying. It is only a show of immaturity and ignorance. If you are autistic and somebody calls you autistic in a seemingly offensive way, take it as a compliment and thank them with a smile.

On some other forums I've seen the world Autism used as slang for troll. I've seen mod posts in other's treads "User was banned for autism" & other members have called trolls Autistic.

I think this thread is starting to get a little off track and misses the OP's point somewhat, at least in my opinion.

This is about the use of certain terms as insults.

YES, there was a time that "ret*d, ret*d, idiot, imbecile, moron, negro, queer, etc, ad nauseum were all perfectly acceptable terms. Heck, let's be honest, even n****r was commonly used in "polite society." Yes, even here in the northern United States where where the abolitionist movement was born, sometimes even by abolitionists.

It's never the word that's the problem, it's how the word is used.

n****r is simply a mispronunciation of the word negro. It came from the french word negre, meaning black. Southerners often used the word "negre" which sounded to northerners like "neegra" and may have morphed from that to negro. Said quickly it sounds a lot like n****r. Today, not one of those terms are widely acceptable anymore. I find it pretty weird that old movies that used the word n****r a lot to portray ignorance and stupidity in the characters that used them, are now censured so that you never hear it anymore. I find it weird because the scenes where that was done years ago have lost their impact and power directly due to this censorship.

My point is this. Autism has a meaning. It has had a meaning from it's inception. That meaning doesn't change simply through misuse. It can only change when society slowly decides the word is no longer acceptable due to rampant misuse.

Look at the word "abnormal." On it's face the word has a dictionary meaning that makes perfect sense. The only reason a lot of us hate the word is because of it's misuse.

I would ask one simple question.

What word would you change it too that would not then be picked up and misused eventually so that we have to change it again?

Right! Can't be done!

Idiot was a medically acceptable term once. Now it's just an insult.

But what actually caused it to become an insult? Wasn't it society itself that slowly decided we didn't like the way the term was being used so we should stop using it?

What sense does that make? It doesn't stop the misuse of words. Come up with a new one and people will just start using THAT as an insult.

Somebody on this thread said we can't stop people from thinking stupid things and can't stop people from using words as insults. And they were right. The only thing we have any power over is how WE react to the misuse.

Changing the status of a word from "acceptable" to "unacceptable" isn't the answer. All that does is erase all legitimate use of the word, so we have to come up with another one (and usually more than one - how ridiculous is that?) that will eventually be misused and the whole idiotic cycle goes on forever. Then our own grandchildren look at how we used to speak and think, "How ignorantly awful the older generation was."

I refuse to get on that treadmill to nowhere.

If someone calls me autistic and I know it's an insult, I refuse to accept it as one. I respond as if they didn't mean it that way. And you know what? It works. It makes most people pause and think twice. And those that keep looking at me like I'm stupid don't matter.

Remember, "Those that matter don't mind. Those that mind, don't matter."

Autism means something! And STUPID isn't part of it's definition!

EDIT: OMG, you see? I can't even post the word n****r as part of a perfectly legitimate discussion about the evolution of language without it being censored. That's just stupid.

It's really prevalent on the internet nowadays to call people autistic/autist when trying to insult them, but rarely does the person doing the insult have any clue what Autism actually is, and so I personally find it hard to be offended by it when it's so laughably off-base.

A thing I found funny in my competitive gaming days, was that Autist was super commonly used to describe somebody who was a bad player, yet it was very clear that people on the Spectrum, like myself, were actually significantly advantaged and better on average in this regard (and highly over-represented at the highest level) , so if anything it should've been a compliment. Similarly, to think that stupidity has anything in common whatsoever with Autism is ridiculous. I mean if you're using it to describe socially awkward behavior or problems understanding other's behavior at least that's somewhat easier to understand, but at the end of the day, just like with any term, its a gross over-generalization because all people on the Spectrum are unique and diverse!

P.S. a popular meme nowadays is the "autistic screech" written as "REEEEEEEEEE", I'm sure some people might actually do it, but I hardly think everyone does, and I'm pretty sure NTs can do stuff like that just as often.

I just saw an account entitled 'Autism WatchDog' on twitter that literally just calls people that it doesn't like autistic because they think the person is acting slow. God, I hate ableism.

Of course calling someone Autistic is an insult. Even if you don't see it as such, they person calling you that is issuing an insult. As so confrontation and obtaining consequences for them is the correct response.

I do not go along with the idea of diability labels or this ~neurological difference~ or ~neuro diversity~.

As I see it, these are only negative, nothing good will ever come from them.

I say we have to build our own institutions, and these kinds of labels should not be in anyway a part of them.

Likud lawmaker’s suggestion that Gantz is ‘autistic’ leads to uproar

Yeah autism as an insult is really rude.