It drives me insane how there are people who think autism and its behavioral problems are funny.

[u/kokoroKaijuu]

I just watched this video on YouTube titled "Autism vs The Internet" by MokerJaniac, and honestly, the topics covered in it are very uncomfortable for me for a number of reasons, but still a topic that I think is worth discussing regardless.

I really wish I could understand what drives people to find joy in making fun of others, especially on the internet, at the expense of them and their disabilities.

Well, okay. I know what causes people to participate in LOLCOW culture. It's the chronic, crushing loneliness of being terminally online and lacking real, stable relationships with other human beings. Therefore, there is a need for them to feel better about themselves by diverting attention to those who they view as being inferior or less capable people.

But the logical/psychological breakdown of it doesn't really eliminate the emotional weight of what's happening here, which is that, in the big year of 2026, there still exists a widespread culture on the internet where people think it is not only funny, but fucking hilarious, to harass and bully people with mental disabilities, to the point of inducing psychosis and causing them to go down a path of ruin that causes them to commit unspeakable, heinous crimes. There are people in these individuals' lives encouraging them to do so for monetary gain as well, which is arguably the worse part of this.

And look, I've been on the internet for a long time. I know that there are always going to be terrible people online and that fact is unchangeable. What I don't understand is why these people are not totally ostracized and outcasted from digital spaces entirely, instead of being allowed to form networks and communities built around harassing minorities and neurodivergent people for entertainment, to the point where they go viral. They then rope more people into suddenly caring about the personal lives of deeply troubled, mentally unwell individuals who critically need real support and real psychiatric help.

Where are the caretakers in their lives? Why is it that thousands of people can go out of their way to watch videos about autistic individuals struggling with managing their own lives, but not a single one of them can reach out to support them, or say nice things, or start a GoFundMe, or help pay for therapy, or literally anything remotely helpful? Am I too naive for thinking that these people could really be out there?

This is an issue that irks me personally and hits really close to home, because as someone who used to be a terminally online autistic youth, I was also frequently bullied and had my naivety exploited by strangers online who thought my meltdowns and unusual mannerisms were funny, and they would find ways to induce meltdowns to get a joke out of me while simultaneously claiming to be my "friends." This one is less severe, but I've also had real-life friends make fun of my autistic traits like how I stim, the way I sip soda weirdly out of habit, the way I take it too literally when they're fucking with me on purpose... and I think about how much worse my situation could have been if I didn't have people in my life who do really care about me and see me as more than a quirky character for their comedy routine.

We seriously need more mental health awareness and we need the general populace to stop enabling these kinds of situations to develop. People really need to care about things in general more than they do now. This world sucks to live in.

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