🧵 Ok so I’m just starting a thread of autism research/thoughts so that it can be muted if you want/need that:

“Many autistic people report not being able to enjoy humour if it’s at somebody else’s expense.”

This is the kind of thing that makes me worried about people as a whole, I always figured this was true for everyone and the only reason people laughed at “punching down” jokes was because they didn’t properly understand what the joke was about. I don’t know how to feel about a world where people really do understand and just, find it funny anyway…

As an example, when I was little my dad got me some books of anti-Irish jokes and at the time I loved them. I could read them out and everyone laughed, but then I grew up and realised wow, Irish people are actually people! That kind of thing just isn’t funny to me at all anymore. So I always assume laughing at someone’s expense is a result of immaturity or being ill informed? Can people learn and then still be assholes? This can’t be right, right?

Part of what I’m doing is listening to a lot of autistic people to hear about their internal experiences and see what resonates, and in the process I’m finding people I wish I knew about on YouTube much sooner. Eg, this is a great video worth watching outside the context of this thread

https://youtu.be/Nnd74yyf4nQ

You're Wrong About Autistic Emotions

YouTube
@Sophie this video helped settle me, and i quite enjoy her other videos as well https://youtu.be/1yva4RZW_s0
Autism diagnosis criteria: explained (DSM-5)

YouTube
@gureito I do normally avoid the DSM criteria (for anything really), for reasons she actually goes into in the video which I appreciate. Whilst according to that I think I’d register as definitely autistic, I think the most interesting part was her story about smiling when telling her friend about princess Diana’s death - I have a memory of telling my parents about that exact thing and they told me it’s not the kind of joke I should tell. Makes me wonder how I looked at the time…