this is gonna be way more of a ramble than an actual post but i feel like neurodivergent people cannot win on the internet. obviously no marginalized community has it easy almost anywhere, but in this post im just talking about neurodivergent people because HOOOOLLLLLYYY shit it is BAD.

NUMBER ONE: casual ableism online is scarily normal. you disagree with someone and they ask "do you get extra time on tests??" have a genuinely reasonable misunderstanding and someone goes "are you acoustic?" i once pointed out that the actual joke of "are you/are they acoustic??" started out as a harmless in-joke for the community before allistic people (LINKED FOR CONTEXT) started spamming it relentlessly under any video of "quirky" or stupid behavior, and that "are you restarted?' was a spin on it, and someone said "no we started saying that because tiktok wont let us say the real word lol" like... thats because the real word is a slur...? me personally if i know the moderators of a platform arent letting me say certain words for a good reason, i just stop saying them! like any other good person should!!!

NUMBER TWO: we cant accommodate ourselves without getting attacked. already people hold the belief that disabled people as a whole cant expect people to accommodate their disability (which is ironic considering everyone either can become disabled through severe injury or disease, or WILL become disabeld due to aging), but whenever disabled people try to accommodate themselves, people... still complain, or worse, they find ways to render it useless. i remember when stimboard accounts became popular, and depraved edgelords started copying the same formats and adding gore to them to scare people, whixh made the people who were genuinely posting real stimboards to clarify theirs didnt have gore using tone tags... only for the SAME edgelords to start lying by doing the same thing, because they knew theyd trick less people. in addition, ive lived long enough to see two different varieties of fidget toy become viral hits before becoming a laughing stock online (fidget spinners and pop-its). the use of tone tags on the internet in general is meant to help neurodivergent people tell tone better over text, and neurotypical people either intentionally misuse them or get mad when theyre used in general. asking for a flash warning gets you a barrage of "ermmm this platform already has a feature to hide photosensitive content you just have to activate it!!!" responses, but the feature in question barely works half the time. we cannot accommodate ourselves without being atttacked for it.

NUMBER THREE: allyship towards our community only happens if it makes neurotypical people look better. a great example is when someone accused an artist of "autismbaiting" because he happens to cater to a lot of things that are common stereotypical interests of the autistic community. ill explain it in-depth in a different blog sometime soon, but autismbaiting literally canot be a thing... but of course, people just wanted to find a morally good reason to attack someone, so they agreed blindly. those people just want a new way of saying "being performative is inherently bad" by making it seem ableist. similarly most of the people siding with BAFTA right now have used some form of ableist language without caring (namely literal slurs 😭), they just want an excuse to justify BAFTA's blatant racism. even before that award show the "what if someone with tourettes says it as a tic" hypothetical has been around for a while. funny thing is, none of these people are anywhere to be found when the conversation shifts to actual advocation for the community. as soon as standing up for us has no benefit, theyre back to punching down. i remember mentioning how making fun of people who you assume are "self diagnosed" is still ableist, because it's basicallly the same thing as saying something inherently misogynistic, but saying "white women" instead of "women" to make it sound more progressive, and people were insistent on the fact that they were "just faking anyways so its fine." it really isnt!! similarly, i went on record saying that you can (and should) call out the fact that white people have a track record of being weirdly hypocritical about rap music (calling it "vulgar" and "aggressive" while listening to music that can also be considered such), but only ever making that point in refernece to neurodivergent people is ableist. people were not happy with this take, to the point where someone said neurodivergent people should be eliminated.... interesting reaction.

all in all... being neurotypical online sucks sometimes. people love to rally behind us when it makes them look better, but as soon as it doesnt, theyll find any reason to attack us. at this rate, im hoping neurotypical people dont find out about spoony- they'd basically swarm the app the second they get the chance. in conclusion, neurodivergent people have it terrible online, and it isnt much better for us in real life either.