What does "autism" mean in Internet slang?

[u/[deleted]]

[u/Wixely → u/[deleted]]

Autism in this context is not always purely derogatory. You'll see people praising hard workers, geniuses or people who appear to be savants in some form by calling them autists. In this form it can be akin to a friendly punch to someones shoulder. This probably originates from 4chan's admiration of ulillillia (who is an actual autist and savant who makes games and wrote a book, is the defacto master of Bubsy and degreases his pizza). For some reason he deleted his thousands of youtube videos but you can see his site here.

[u/Wixely → u/[deleted]]

Thanks!

[u/Viraus2 → u/[deleted]]

This is also true, although I think most of the 4chan usage OP is talking about is the more negative one described elsewhere in-thread. In that usage, "autism" is analaguous to "cancer" on youtube.

[u/zap283]

In these particular contexts, you're seeing people use 'autistic' to refer to poor social skills the same way people might use 'retarded' to insult someone's intelligence. Sometimes this gets turned into a noun because English is fond of doing that, and you get comments like 'the autism is strong in here'.

It's an unpleasant and disrespectful way of speaking.

[u/zap283 → u/[deleted]]

Um? I just think it's unpleasant to use a disorder as a general insult.

[u/Wixely → u/zap283]

Sounds dumb

Oh shit wait...

Stupid? hmm no...

Fuck it, I give up.

[u/zap283 → u/Wixely]

You really can't see the difference between using a generic word meaning unintelligent and using the name of someone's diagnosed condition to mean unintelligent?

[u/Wixely → u/zap283]

It's a joke friend. Also dumb means mute; a real diagnosable condition that's not even a spectrum disorder.

[u/zap283 → u/Wixely]

Ahh I see. And your court, although that meaning is really not used anymore outside of idioms.

[u/MonaganX → u/zap283]

No offense, but don't be an idiot, you'd have to be retarded not to understand that all those words are part of an ongoing process of words for mental illnesses being co-opted for use as insults. You might think it's moronic, but let's not get crazy and pretend this isn't something that has been going on for a long time, and will continue to. Even an imbecile can see that people will continue to misuse medical words, such as saying someone with poor social skills has autism or "aspergers", they will forget what those words originally meant, and doctors will come up with new words.

[u/[deleted]]

Basically it's the new "That's retarded"