Autism as a superpower: Pros and Cons

Nobody was born with knowledge, so banish your fear of showing ignorance.  I'm a 77-year-old git who is just beginning to learn about myself, after a lifetime of ignorance and scraping through trials and tribulations mainly via luck.  For you there is still hope.  If I could have my "druthers" I druther have had the opportunity to embark on this journey of enlightenment as a youngster. I've shot my wad, so any corrective efforts I attempt to make at my stage in life are superficial and rather pointless. Now that ASD has finally been mainstreamed you have the opportunity to embrace it with all your efforts.  who was it who said "the world is your oyster" or have I misquoted?

That's another thing, even though it's been known for decades that autistic childeren do not "grow out of it" and become autistic adults, the autistic adults are pretty much kicked to the curb and expected to "get on with it, you're an adult now".  This is why I hide fidget toys as keyrings on my car  or motorcycle keys so it's not obvious when I take them with me or use them. (For some reason it's more socially accepted to play withyour keys that a fidget toy, but really that's pretty much the same thing anyway.)
With that said I already don't %100 look the way people expect me to look, and I'm lucky that in my day to day I mostly just deal with immediate family or other students/artists so a very accepting bunch so at home or in the studio I just bring in whatever I want with me for the day. But anywhere else I'm limited to what I can fit discreetly on my keys.

When autism first came into my world, I wanted to tell the world, I had finally realised why I’m me. I actually haven’t let many people in. It’s very easy to go from Hero to Zero, A lot of the products seem to be aimed at children, for me it would be like putting a target on my back, it would just make it even easier for people to have pot shots at me.

Really good points there, I think. :) I should've given the subject far more thought before starting the thread.

If you actually look at a lot of the original superhero stories in comics or even mythology, the thing is that it is actually a more appropriate analogy than it first appears.

The X-men were feared and faced lots of discrimination and efforts to control and normalise them, they often struggled to control their powers and had to go to a special school.  Lots of superheroes live a very lonely life, for fear of someone close to them getting hurt.

Superpowers keep people seperate from "normal" people.  There was a whole thing in Agents of Shield about people with superpowers being referred to as "Inhumans."  And there's discrimination and control and other bad things going on there too.  

It really is a good tool for satire and expression of how it feels to be different and "other."

So yes, for me being autistic is a superpower, but it doesn't always mean what other people think it means.

Thanks for your excellent responses, folks. Lots of perspectives I really should have considered prior to writing my initial comments. :) 

Wow great question, I hope lots of people reply as I would love to see the different opinions on this.

From my own experience if we are going somewhere like a theme park my younger brother will wear a T-shirt that says autism is my superpower. It means people are more aware and accepting.  Would I prefer to live in a world where we didn’t have to, of course but the world hasn’t come that far yet. I don’t mind it being called a superpower as I like the idea of him embracing it confidently and not feeling like he should be ashamed. Or change who he is because society says so. I love his unique ways and he does have abilities that are super. 

I also think I’m autistic and I have weird super abilities and that can be a blessing and a curse. For example I have extraordinary hearing, so can play music by ear, but on the same hand I have heard conversations I shouldn’t have because nobody would realise that I could pick up on what they were saying from such a distance. I’m definitely on the side that autism is a superpower, its just taking society longer to accept it.

Steven said:

I'm the kind of person who frequently needs to be told very obvious things...sometimes with finger-puppets...before I actually realise them, I went in search of autism paraphernalia on Amazon, Ebay etc etc. So, naturally, I assumed that the neurotypical world might be much the same as me: needing to be told explicitly

In my experience that's mostly just Facebook and Twitter. (I'm joking but it is also true.)

Steven said:

How do you all feel about these seemingly common (judging by hundreds of online goods at least) attitudes? And do they fittingly represent your own experiences of autism?

This is why I find Etsy much better, I find sellers that either are Autistic/neurodiverse or they live in households with people who actually are to buy from instead. Because we have been commodified and marketed now, a lot of comercial stuff supposedly about or for us isn't actually what we need/want, or made by or for, or written by us, which is a huge problem. I also like to find those small business sellers because I want my money going more directly* into the pockets of or towards the care of my fellow autists.

*alas there is the listing fee, but still money goes to them and not just a big corporation.

Books wise I prefer to buy second hand if I can so I frequently use https://www.abebooks.com/ (as a subsidiary of Amazon it's the closest I get to dealing with Amazon thesedays.)

I grew up in the States with RED HAIR (since, have moved back to the UK where my grandparents moved from), which is more of a phenomenon (as if most of us died on the boat sailing over). So these slogans exist for us there, and are also popular for those with Irish heritage. As do a grand assortment of consumer goods playing on the presumptions of associations with various genetic "Traits".  The Irish expect kisses, the Swedes should like weird fish and boring company and the Red Heads are actually birthed from fairy circles with cloaked invisible devils horns. 

The thing is, this stuff is really just a way for someone to make money. If it's an autistic individual on Etsy who's hand making cool stick-on mobius tattoos, maybe they're worth supporting?  

But many of these things just support and 'play back' in to an over-arching misrepresentation of another. While some things are playful, I think it's important to give a little more thought at what these slogans are recycling back into public thought.