"Everyone On The Internet Has Aspergers."

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This bothers me, and I need to let it out.

I have a couple of friends that I talk with. We used to go on a forum a couple of years ago, and one of the members on said forum had Aspergers. This member did absolutely nothing to me; I thought he was a pretty cool guy, because we had similar interests (like cartoons and such).
However, said member had gotten so angry at one of my friends that he made death threats towards him. My friend, from his own standpoint, did nothing to him to make him that angry - and, I have yet to bring up the subject to the other party.

Now, what does this have to do with anything? Even though this happened a few years ago, this member is still brought up in the company of my group of friends when the topic of Aspergers and Autism is brought up. If I bring up wanting to be tested for Aspergers, I'm told that, "Oh, no, you don't have Aspergers, unlike X." If I bring up how people with Aspergers have one focus, and that want to talk about it with others, I get, "Oh, well, I don't view the disability: I just see them as boring, like X." I've even been told the phrase, "Everyone on the internet has Aspergers."

These statements bother me, extremely. I feel like, every time I bring up Aspergers, it's being compared to this one example, this one forum member, that we all knew from years ago. I want to tell my friends about Aspergers, and what it really is, but I'm afraid that I'll start an argument with them. In the end, what I want is to stop these comments, because I think they're unfair and rude.

What do you guys think?

Well, you could just show them this website and...oh, never mind.

Sadly, you're probably not going to change their minds on this one. They're royally PO'd by what that one person did, so they're making gross generalizations about everyone who has Asperger's. That is how stereotyping gets started, and it's a hard thing to undo.

Maybe you could talk to just one of them (not the one who was threatened) and try to have a calm conversation about what Asperger's really is. With just one, maybe a full-on argument won't start.

In this case, maybe a book on the subject would help.

That's a pretty broad generalization.

I would like to think that most individuals with AS are far too logical to make death threats.

Perhaps "X" did not have AS and was actually a psychopath?

First of all, thanks to the people who replied to the thread.
I think I am going to go with what Conundrum said: I think having a one-on-one talk about Aspergers with one of my friends would be a good idea.

Yea, but it's because many people don't know much about Asperger's or haven't known any Aspies( I haven't). It's frustrating but it should start to get better once Aspies become more accepted and well understood. If the diagnostic stat continune to rise this shouldn't be an impossibility.