Thread by @MxBadgerNorth

“Folklore is the expressive body of culture shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group”

#ActuallyAutistic people:

What would you identify as autistic folklore?

What are our customs, sayings, objects?

The historically perceived rarity of autistic people, paints a picture of a single anomalous person, set apart from the normalised majority. Autistics become quasi-mythological beings. Like a human, not quite a human. A changeling, an alien, something else, disconnected

When autistic people gather in community, we disrupt that myth.

We learn from each other that our ways of expressing, of saying, of feeling and perceiving, are part of another mode of being, which is shared with, and connects us to others

There are in-jokes, such as playful (and sarcastic!) references to the stereotype that all autistic people like trains (whilst acknowledging that in fact, a lot of autistic people do really love trains 🤣) This is part of our community lore

Whole conversations conducted in quotations from films, or books; whole conversations where facts are exchanged (infodump); whole conversations that get straight to the point without any need for small talk or social “niceties”. This is part of our community lore

Stimming and sensory joy, fidget toys, weighted blankets, ear defenders, meltdowns, shutdowns, sensory overwhelm, autistic burnout. These are all part of our community lore

Other shared experiences that I think are folkloric are the ways that many autistics collect, display, attach meaning to, and in some cases anthropomorphise objects, in ways that differ in intensity and focus to allistic folks. This is part of our community lore

There are the villains: Hans Asperger and nazi eugenics, Bruno Bettelheim and institutional abuses, Lovaas and the creation of autistic conversion therapies. Bleach cures. This is all part of our community lore

“Samefood”, “autism mom”, “neuroqueer”, “neurokin”, “masking”, “stimming”, “loud hands”, “happy-flap”, “autigender”, “neurodiversity”, “neurotypical”, “allistic”, “infodump”

These words are all part of our community lore

So if handshaking, multiple cheek kisses, and singing happy birthday, are accepted artefacts of customary folklore...

Are autistic communication and social behaviours that eschew those traditions, in fact a different kind of folklore? Autlore?

Christmasses where the main meal is a simple collection of the everyday samefoods we love, where presents aren’t wrapped or given as surprises, but picked from a specific list of items provided by the recipient. No unknowns and expectations calmly managed

Birthdays where the traditional song is sung only on request, and sometimes not at all, where inviting 1 or 2 friends is the custom, and music played softly or not at all

Where decorations are subdued, subtle, low-key, or non-existent, so the home remains the constant and familiar haven, free from change things we might not expect

Due to the deficit model of medical diagnosis, autistic people (and consequently our culture, and customs) are sometimes defined by what we are perceived to lack. Lack of eye contact, lack of adherence to social norms etc

When autistics communicate, we aren’t failing at following neurotypical social norms and customs, we are doing something else. We are participating in another culture, that has its own social norms and customs. Maybe these patterns are part of an emerging folklore?

What’s also interesting is that there are already so many established connections between autism and historical folklore/magical thinking: superstition, fairies, potions and cures, curses, ritual and repetitive behaviours and phrases, objects, talismans, and amulets

Pop culture representations also tend towards the “magical autist” trope, which strengthens that “fairytale” connection. But really, it’s not helpful for autistic people for our role within folklore to be reduced to mythological creatures or beings

What I’m suggesting, is that by recognising the validity of our community customs and conventions, autistics become participants of folklore, instead of objects of folklore

Which in turn breaks the myth of autism as something supernatural

Another really fascinating thing (to me anyway) that happens when you think of autistic customs and conventions as folklore: you break through the walls of national identity and find connections between humans that live in many counties, in many landscapes

Folklore is often connected to a sense of place, to land, to surroundings and space. Autistic people don’t have a national identity. We don’t have a land that is ours. We are connected by our neurology. Our brains are the landscape.