Ah dude its the nature of being a weaponized autist_x000D_ It destroys sanity and replaces with raw memes Each of these posts collapse autism with both social ineptitude and technical competencies. Interestingly, the reference to the risk of being on their “bad side” enables the weaponization: it is this implied potential for retaliation along with technical skills that makes autistic people useful to the movement. It’s called weaponized autism, it’s the waxing and waning of shit posting intermixed with real life, math, philosophy, and smart LARPing.

Let us praise all the fine meme war soldiers on the Right side of history! Your weaponized autism is appreciated and will not be forgotten What makes weaponized autism so appealing to Gab posters is that it is seen as an all-powerful, omniscient force with limitless reach. It is highly prized as a sophisticated and advanced tool in the alt-right arsenal and perceived as an “unstoppable” means by which to secure the salvation of white, western culture. The Gab archetype of an autist did not emerge in a vacuum. Rather, it is rooted in some portrayals of autism in media. As mentioned earlier, a weaponized autist, as discussed within Gab, is not necessarily a person with a formal diagnosis (though it can be). The image portrayed within Gab aligns closely with the cultural figure of “nerds’’ depicted in popular culture; specifically, a person who is male, who fails to fit hegemonic standards of masculinity, a computer user, is technologically brilliant, but is socially inept (Kendall, 1999). In addition to the “nerd” stereotype, the media has offered many portrayals of autism. Journalistic portrayals of autism have tended to offer a negative or tragic view of autism and to portray autistic people as asocial, or even antisocial (Huws & Jones, 2011). Early entertainment-media portrayals of autistic people have been criticized for depicting people who were either subhuman or superhuman with nothing in between (Maich, 2014). Today, autistic characters are featured in a growing number of movies and television series (Nordahl-Hansen, 2017). Despite the growing popularity of autistic characters, autistic people are generally left out of both the production and the casting of these characters, and the characters are criticized as being archetypal rather than authentic (Nordahl-Hansen, 2017) with said archetype often matching that which is portrayed in Gab.Pearson, A., Rees, J., & Forster, S. (2022). “This was just how this friendship worked”: Experiences of Interpersonal Victimisation in Autistic Adults. Autism in Adulthood. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2021.0035 [ PMC free article] [ PubMed] Braune, J. (2020). 14 August 2020). Countering Conspiracy Theories and Youth Recruitment; Self-Care. Retrieved from https://joanbraune.com/2020/08/14/countering-conspiracy-theories-and-youth-recruitment-self-care I love this. Obama may have weaponized stupidity, but Trump supporters at r/The_Donald have weaponized autism. *NOTE r/The_Donald/ is a reference to a subreddit that has since been banned by Reddit for not conforming to their standards (Lima, 2019). Our analysis was complicated by obfuscating language used within Gab, which is among several known communication tactics in alt-right spaces (May & Feldman, 2018). Gab, like many online spaces dedicated to alt-right or white nationalist interests, deliberately use humour, sarcasm, irony, and “playful” imagery (including memes) to obscure their intentions to spread hate (May & Feldman, 2018). These so-called “LULZ” (an adaptation of laugh out loud, or LOL) tactics are employed to rebrand and obfuscate fascist ideology and allows users a level of deniability when called out for their hate. These tactics work to make their offensive material more palatable to the mainstream, enhance their recruitment of young people and people who would be repelled by overtly violent or racist material, facilitate identification of insiders (those who know the vernacular) and outsiders (those who do not), and ultimately allow groups to “hide in plain sight” (May & Feldman, 2018). These tactics also pose a challenge to discourse analysis. Humour, sarcasm, and layers of irony are designed to leave many statements “open to interpretation”. Because of these tactics, extended immersion in the data was required to develop confidence in detecting the intended message of a post. Bogerts L, Fielitz M. “Do You Want Meme War?”: Understanding the Visual Memes of the German Far Right. In: Fielitz M, editor. Post-Digital Cultures of the Far Right. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag; 2019. pp. 137–208. [ Google Scholar]

Autists can be the most fanatical people you can find. We need “Waffen-Autismus” aka Weaponized Autism. Give those people a cause and something their skills are useful for and watch things get awesome. *NOTE “Waffen” is the German word for “weapons” and is also employed in the name of “Atomwaffen Division,” a defunct neo-Nazi network. What type of “speech act” is being analyzed? What is the significance of this? What is the context in which these Gab posts are produced? Kendall L. Nerd nation: Images of nerds in US popular culture. International Journal of Cultural Studies. 1999; 2(2):260–283. doi: 10.1177/136787799900200206. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]Oksanen, A., Hawdon, J., Holkeri, E., Näsi, M., & Räsänen, P. (2014). Exposure to online hate among young social media users. Soul of Society: a focus on the lives of children & youth. Emerald Group Publishing Limited Ashburner J, Saggers B, Campbell MA, Dillon-Wallace JA, Hwang YS, Carrington S, Bobir N. How are students on the autism spectrum affected by bullying? Perspectives of students and parents. Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs. 2019; 19(1):27–44. doi: 10.1111/1471-3802.12421. [ CrossRef] [ Google Scholar]