I realize autistic people often have trouble with tone and having people interpret things the way they meant it to come across – lord knows it took me took long enough to develop that skill – but good grief. I’m on the spectrum, and if I were a mod who had just read the comment in your screenshot, I’d’ve banned you too.
Now that you’ve explained you meant it in a positive way, I completely understand what you meant, but nothing in the comment you wrote makes it clear that you think of autism in a positive way or, in fact, as anything besides “lol nerd emoji”. The fact that you had just finished going on a seven paragraph infodump (I’m guessing) unfortunately does nothing to prove otherwise: an unfortunate number of undiagnosed autistic people spend their days getting into online fights, writing said seven paragraph comments, and calling anyone who disagrees with them autistic because they want to feel superior and “autistic” is a handy epithet. I don’t think anyone would argue these people should be welcome in our communities just because of autism they themselves don’t know about.
To be clear, I’m not saying that last statement applies to you. I’m saying if I didn’t know anything about you except that you had written the comment in that screenshot, I would have assumed it did and not given it a second thought. I can almost guarantee that’s what that mod did.
While that term is slowly but surely being reclaimed, and I’m glad that it is, at present, it still holds the status of “insult unless explicitly stated otherwise.” Now that you’ve told me what you meant, I can see where you were coming from, but as that comment was written, “spread some weaponized autism” implies you’re prepared to call anyone who disagrees with you a slur. Your comment seems to be saying “only an idiot autistic person would miss the sarcasm in this comment and bother to respond.” It’s not what you meant, but it’s how I (and no doubt plenty of other people) probably read it.
Please learn to use qualifiers and/or tone indicators, for the sake of your own reputation. If you’d said “Can’t wait for all my autistic friends to chime in with a seven paragraph sales pitch for their niche chat platform of choice” or even just replaced “weaponized autism” with “weaponized autism (affectionate)” and left the rest of the comment as is, I guarantee you’d have been fine.
I feel you,i had to learn to feel context (vibe) too, however, from my own experience i can tell that no qualifiers and explanations would prevent previous me from getting everything wrong
I get that you’re trying to use it in a positive way, but in my country that first word you used is a slur that has not even attempted to be reclaimed, so it instantly makes me start reading your comment with an ableist tone.
Now that I know you’re trying to frame it in a positive way, I can force myself to read your comment in a positive tone. But it’s difficult because the language chosen still makes me read it like you’re annoyed that autistic people will miss the sarcasm and take it too seriously.
The other day I used the term weaponized a*t*sm in a positive way, and I got site banned for a day for ableism.
I’m on the spectrum. I’m also the one that ended up going into weaponizrd detail in that thread.
Semi-related, only because if you used the title you actually wanted to, you probably would have been banned too.
Mods are weaponized.
I realize autistic people often have trouble with tone and having people interpret things the way they meant it to come across – lord knows it took me took long enough to develop that skill – but good grief. I’m on the spectrum, and if I were a mod who had just read the comment in your screenshot, I’d’ve banned you too.
Now that you’ve explained you meant it in a positive way, I completely understand what you meant, but nothing in the comment you wrote makes it clear that you think of autism in a positive way or, in fact, as anything besides “lol nerd emoji”. The fact that you had just finished going on a seven paragraph infodump (I’m guessing) unfortunately does nothing to prove otherwise: an unfortunate number of undiagnosed autistic people spend their days getting into online fights, writing said seven paragraph comments, and calling anyone who disagrees with them autistic because they want to feel superior and “autistic” is a handy epithet. I don’t think anyone would argue these people should be welcome in our communities just because of autism they themselves don’t know about.
To be clear, I’m not saying that last statement applies to you. I’m saying if I didn’t know anything about you except that you had written the comment in that screenshot, I would have assumed it did and not given it a second thought. I can almost guarantee that’s what that mod did.
While that term is slowly but surely being reclaimed, and I’m glad that it is, at present, it still holds the status of “insult unless explicitly stated otherwise.” Now that you’ve told me what you meant, I can see where you were coming from, but as that comment was written, “spread some weaponized autism” implies you’re prepared to call anyone who disagrees with you a slur. Your comment seems to be saying “only an idiot autistic person would miss the sarcasm in this comment and bother to respond.” It’s not what you meant, but it’s how I (and no doubt plenty of other people) probably read it.
Please learn to use qualifiers and/or tone indicators, for the sake of your own reputation. If you’d said “Can’t wait for all my autistic friends to chime in with a seven paragraph sales pitch for their niche chat platform of choice” or even just replaced “weaponized autism” with “weaponized autism (affectionate)” and left the rest of the comment as is, I guarantee you’d have been fine.
I feel you,i had to learn to feel context (vibe) too, however, from my own experience i can tell that no qualifiers and explanations would prevent previous me from getting everything wrong
I get that you’re trying to use it in a positive way, but in my country that first word you used is a slur that has not even attempted to be reclaimed, so it instantly makes me start reading your comment with an ableist tone.
Now that I know you’re trying to frame it in a positive way, I can force myself to read your comment in a positive tone. But it’s difficult because the language chosen still makes me read it like you’re annoyed that autistic people will miss the sarcasm and take it too seriously.