Redditors claiming to be autistic?

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Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but for some reason it seems to me that a lot of people on Reddit claim to be autistic. Whether or not these claims are valid, can anybody think of a reason why I would be getting this impression?

I don’t know about Reddit specifically but due to claims that Autism is a gift/superpower and media portrayals of savants some people want to be autistic and convince themselves that they are. For others autism provides an explanation true or not of why they are having trouble in life, in other cases an autism claim provides a readymade excuse to behave badly.

Social media is going to attract people who desire to be popular and cool.

That said these autism wannabes in these social media sites have for a number of years given damaging false impressions that there is an autism wannabe epidemic, that autism is overdiagnosed or a fake disease, that most or all aspies/high functioning are wannabes or autism supremacists, that the the core of the neurodiversity movement is Autism elitism etc.

Since autistics have a difficult time socially in the real world it becomes too easy to spend too much on on the computer in general and on social media in particular. There is often no non verbal communications involved. If one spends a lot of time there it becomes easy to get these false impressions.

I find these claims that some would stretch the truth to be credible. But is there any evidence to verify these claims? Have people said things on social media to give away their lie? I wonder if anyone would go as far as trying to be deceitful in an evaluation to get a diagnosis .

Guys, it's a meme. Lots of us on here don't pick up on sarcasm. I'm bilingual--I speak English & snark, and basically "autistic" is a meme that started on 4chan.

I don't spend much time on reddit, but I do know tumblr is riddled with self-diagnosed autistics whose "autistic symptoms" seem dubious to me at best. I think people latch onto autism because they think it's "cool" or "edgy" to be different, to have no social filter and to be able to "say whatever you want" and use a disorder to "get away with it". I know I've read many blatant admissions of people who faked ADHD to gain access to the medications. I suppose it's possible some people are doing that; I don't have ADHD but my psychiatrist put me on stimulants for my impulse control and organization problems, it's not unreasonable to think drug seekers would latch onto any label they think might help them.

I've never used reddit so I don't know about the users of that particular site, but as a whole I don't think we should suspect the word of the people on the internet who think they might be autistic. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but the same could also be said about every undiagnosed person on this forum.

If someone spreads false information about autism, call them out, but no attacking someone who suspects they are autistic, even if it seems to you that they clearly aren't, okay? If they ask for your opinion, go for it but other than that, just leave them be.