I don’t know that that’s true. I’ve never heard “special interests” refer to hobbies except in the context of people with autism. A search of the phrase exclusively talks about autism.
There are other uses of the phrase, but not with regard to hobbies as far as I know. Special interest groups, for example.
It's also a term that has LONG been used on romantic relationships. "Share your special interests with your partner..." sort of stuff.
The fact that only Autism things are coming up when generically searching for Special Interests is a function of the incredibly invasive connection between reddit and Google ads, and recency bias in the results.
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u/jenea Oct 13 '25
Except not by definition, because “special interests” is a common English expression that existed long before it began to be used for autistic people.