Why are so many people making fun of autism/ASD?

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It makes no sense. I was on a website, and I stood up for a kid who had just ventured to the wrong part of the internet, he made a stupid comment, and two users just attacked and berated him. I asked them if they had anything better to do with their lives than to just bully little kids online. After a whole storm of them cursing and me using my wit. One of them PM'd me and said, "You know, I think I've learnt my lesson. Never bully people with high-functioning Asperger's online. They could take it the wrong way haha!" I couldn't believe what I was reading. They had either just said it as a joke, but I think people have crossed the line. I don't want to start a war with any other website, but there is this website called Encyclopedia Dramatica, and they had a whole article on Asperger's. The writer(s) said that "people with Asperger's use it as an excuse not to do work because they are lazy basement-dwellers". What is wrong with this world? Why do people think this is funny? Even my normal friends thinks both of these examples have crossed the line, and they have told me pretty bad jokes. I was always told by my mom to ignore bullies and they will ignore you, but I can't just sit back and say,"Oh this wasn't sent to me, so they can't bother anyone." It just really upsets me. I don't know if it's my Asperger's that makes me this mad, but if normal people think that's not funny, why do people still do it?

Because they are a**holes. Forget them (in the CeeLo sense).

I checked that place out once and it made me think of Obi Wan:


I don't see any point in going back there. Life's too short to waste any of it on that sort of muck.

I didn't go to the site myself, I was showed by my best friend. Why he wanted to show me I do not know.

Nice Star Wars reference by the way

I'll give you the direct and simple answer here:

It's the internet.

I absolutely 100% guarantee you that if those guys had not been picking on someone for being autistic, they would have simply chosen a different target at that point.... possibly even the same target as it'd likely be pretty random.... and simply bullied them over something else.

They're on the internet, so they're "anonymous" *snort* and thus, they CAN. So they DO.

Absolutely braindead behavior, no?

There's one really big rule to always always always always always follow with stuff like this:

DONT FEED THE TROLLS.

You respond to them, with things like what you said, you're giving them JUST what they want. The PM in particular was a bad idea... you shouldnt do that. Never do that.

My own way of dealing with this sort of thing involves one of 2 possible actions: 1, absolutely and completely ignoring them. As if I literally do not know they are there or see their posts. Or 2, be as unfathomably annoying as possible towards them in response to everything they say at me. Last time I dealt with this, I dont remember just what the guy was doing, but whenever he made a jackass post towards me, I would quote him in my next post, followed by nothing more than a photo of a cat. No words, just cat. Always the same photo of the same cat, always after quoting him. Didnt matter WHAT he said. The result was always cat. If others on the forum asked me why I was doing that, I'd happily explain it to them, even in the very same topic/thread. If the guy called me out on it in that same way.... more cat. This eventually got a couple of others reposting the same photo at the jerk. Eventually, he left. Never came back, which said alot about why he was there in the first place.


And really, more effort or thinking than that isnt necessary here. I did the cat thing because it was simple, easy, and amusing. No thought went into it. The guy wasnt deserving of it. And neither are the ones you mention in your post there, really...

it's live that everywhere on the internet. People are very blatantly sexist, racist, and just plain intolerant because they hide behind their username and their little shield of a computer screen. Such people should be reported and blocked. In fact it's best to do that, and not reply to them at all because that's just what they want.

It's funny about posting the cat photo at the annoying jerk. I do something similar and just copy/paste the entire conversation from the start as often as he messages me. At first it's one line, then two, then his screen begins to fill with spam of everything he's said so far. And that's all, no comments, just a paste of everything he said from the beginning. The more he argues the longer it gets.

Blame the 4chan community, and the widespread influence it has had on the Internet as a whole. Now, I'll admit, I spend a good amount of time on 4chan, since there are a lot of interesting topics and discussions in the "special interest boards", but the community there can be quite toxic because of the relative anonymity users there have.

Ironically, I'd say that probably a good portion of the userbase are on the spectrum themselves, since the site tends to attract a lot of "nerds" and people who are otherwise "outsiders" from society. A lot of these people probably don't even realize they are autistic, and they just throw around "autistic" as a synonym for "ret*d". I'm not saying it's right, but give people a space where people can vent their honest thoughts and feelings about things without even having to have an actual screenname, and you're going to see a fair amount of bile.

As far as sites where people do have to use actual screennames, well again, there's still a degree of anonymity, just a little bit less so, so people do tend to hold back more, but again, for many people this is enough for them to say what they honestly feel about things, without any regard for decency. YouTube is a notable exception, because despite the requirement for a screenname to post comments, and the recent changes that have encouraged people to use their real names to post comments, the comments section on many YouTube videos is an absolute warzone. Why? An absolute lack of moderation, combined with an extremely large volume of users.

On a particular note, Encyclopaedia Dramatica is a wiki written by as*holes, for as*holes. They claim that their goal is satire, but I'd argue that much of what's written on there is outright hate speech. There's a difference, and the writers there have no clue what that difference is.

TL;DR: It's the Internet. When you take millions, if not billions, of users and give them even the slightest illusion of anonymity, you're going to hear people say some pretty nasty things. The best thing to do is to ignore it, and if the site allows, report it and move on.

"Why are so many people making fun of autism/ASD?"

Because people are f'ing stupid, and 90% of the people that do this are pathetic pieces of crap who have little else to do aside from j*rk off while making fun of people who are better than them. The other 10% are just flat out a**holes who think it's ok to demean people who aren't just like them.

If you're taking ED seriously, you're doing life wrong.
They WANT you to rage.

But why should they?

I'm not taking any of that disgusting place seriously, but it is just ridiculous the steps that they will take to make you mad.



I didn't PM him, he messaged me and I just never replied after that. (a tactic used with my bullies)

Don't go on Encyclopedia Dramatica. That is a horrible website that should be banned.

They make fun of us because they're weaklings who need to feel that they're stronger than someone.

Encyclopedia Dramatica? Sounds like Polish Nonsensopedia.

You don't take those websites seriously. They are satirical! They are made to make fun of everything and everyone. Try reading other articles. All are the same. Some more fun, some less but none is serious.

I didn't read the whole article on English version but in the Polish one there are some smart things between the lines. It does say we live in basements covered by anime-lolita posters and don't give a damn about society too but at the same time it says something quite interesting: "Aspie in society is like the para-olimpian trying to run together with healthy athletes. And now the wise sentence; not always the person with AS is the para-olimpian.". So in satirical article about Aspies they make fun of healthy people too!

Really, there is nothing to make fuss of. You don't like such article - don't read it. It is not knowledge base and everyone who visits the website does (or at least should) know that.