Hi, my name is Stephanie and today I want to talk to you about the autistic dark
web, commonly abbreviated to ADW. Now, this is something I've heard only a
little bit about, mostly through Twitter. In fact the Twitter community, when
it comes to autism, is, is quite thriving, vocal, active? I don't know. So, if you
don't have a Twitter account, you might check out doing that and if you do, you
should totally follow me while you're there. Anyway, what is the autistic dark
web? So, to answer this question, I decided to look into the person that people
pointed to as, like, the leader or the person who seemed to at least be
promoting those ideals the most. Tom Clements is the self-declared leader of
the autistic dark web movement, which is basically an anti-neurodiversity
movement movement. He believes that the neurodiversity movement is too broad and
it would require people to basically celebrate people who are, like,
narcissistic and, you know, most people wouldn't do that. So, he believes that
because of that, it's hypocritical and kind of pointless and maybe just an
exercise in trying to feel like a special group. He is a big proponent for
splitting up the autism spectrum again, making sure that Asperger's is its own
thing and that making sure that stuff like functioning labels, severely
autistic, stuff like that, that they are defined clearly instead of, maybe, right
now where we have the autism spectrum and if you have Asperger's, you are
autistic and if you have what would be profound or severe autism, you're
autistic and everything in between is autistic. And he feels like that's really
too broad. He feels like it marginalizes people who experience the severe end of
being autistic. People have accused him of having alt-right ideals. They've said
that he's a bully; that he's even dabbled in eugenics. He used to be a climate
change denier but he does say now that he is no longer. Honestly, with a brief
look at his Twitter, he kind of seems like one of those people who really
likes to do the hot take on things that's against the norm. Kind of poke at
people get people kind of riled up and angry about the way he puts
things. For example, he simply condemns Greta Thunberg because of her kind of
alarmist way of going about things instead of also showing the balance of,
like, wow this person's actually, like, doing a lot to bring attention to this
issue. He's just, like, 'you did a terrible job because you are alarmist!' and so when
people do those kind of statements, a lot of people get offended and kind of upset.
So, I think he's kind of one of those people who's totally fine with starting
a fire and sparking, you know, a fire and making people mad and angry and that's
just, kind of, I think, his thing. To be a controversial person. And I think he kind
of enjoys it. And while he may have some questionable views on things, ... we're
not really gonna delve into those that are not relevant to specifically the
autistic dark web, because that's kind of what we're looking at right now. Many who
oppose him and his ideology say that he's just trying to basically re-stigmatize
autism. He published an article that was hosted on the Guardian not too long
ago that had a lot of people up in arms, where he basically said that autism
doesn't really have that much of a meaning anymore because the spectrum is
too broad and people are self diagnosing and he even basically said that people
are trying to wear it as a fashionable badge, which very much is not true. In the
world that we live in, autism is still quite stigmatizing and a lot of people
don't want to hear, like, ooh, autistic, hm. Like, eh, that's kinda... So, for him to, like,
worry about that's kind of weird, but I can understand where his concern comes
from. Either way, he made a lot of bold claims and statements that had a lot of
people very upset. He also criticized the neurodiversity movement, saying that,
basically, they deny that autism is in any way a disability. Of course, then they
clap back and said, of course, they know it's a disability and all of that jazz.
So, the movement actually used to be called neurorealism but I guess, at
some point, there was a joke about calling it the autistic dark web based
off of Eric Weinstein's intellectual dark web, and apparently the name stuck.
Now, amongst things on his feed, he retweeted an article and someone
else had tweeted that article and they said that, basically, no wonder the
person had submitted it anonymously because of those who believe in neurodiversity
would come and attack them. Basically, this article was from a family
of an autistic child who would be considered more severely autistic. He
constantly self-harm stims, constantly vocal stims, is considered kind of
aggressive sometimes, isn't very clear on communication, especially spoken
communication, and so they were kind of tired of getting all of these articles
and news things sent to them about inspirational autism stories. Stories of
these autistics who rose above and became these great people when they're
feeling like, wow, you know, what a great accomplishment of it was for him to say
the word, "drink." And so that was really rough for them because they felt like
they were being left out and they felt like when they said he's autistic, they
thought, you know, other people were thinking well, that's just a cop-out
because of all these great autistic people who've done great things. And so
they felt kind of like their voices were being shut out when other people
who were able to accomplish great things on a different part of the spectrum were
basically, maybe, misrepresenting autism or something to that effect. And I think
that's the basis of this ordeal. The autistic dark web doesn't want for
autism to become a meaningless word. They want to make sure that people who have
not been able to successfully communicate their needs and wants and
desires, etc., who have not been able to successfully go do things and do what we
would consider productive things or whatnot, the movement doesn't want those
people to be left out. They don't want them to become marginalized and their
experiences, as well as their family. They don't want people to romanticize autism
and make it seem perfect, lovely, shiny, wonderful - just a superpower and leave
out the ugly side of things. The neurodiversity movement tends to want to
de-stigmatize autism and kind of amplify the voices of those who are non-speaking
and help people understand that just because someone doesn't speak using
words (spoken out of their mouth) that that person isn't, you know, not
there or not intelligent or not worthy of being alive. So, these two movements
are really kind of on opposite ends of the spectrum.
They're both concerned about not including certain people. They're both
concerned about what autism means to them and what autism means to the
general public. Both are concerned about having the needs of autistic people met
and having all the voices there and participating in the conversation. Now,
part of the reason why Clements is so, maybe, active in this idea is because he
is on the spectrum or he says he is. A lot of people keep saying that. I mean, I
feel like if we believe people, that we should give him that benefit, too. So, he's
autistic but he also has, I believe, a younger
brother who is autistic and he experiences what people would consider
the more severe end or the negative things more frequently and so he feels
like, we are, you know, we're definitely experiencing autism very differently. So,
this can't both be "autism." So, he's trying to say, like, what his brother has is
autism. And he loves his little brother very much and doesn't want his voice to
be left out. Now, these two groups, the neurodiversity movement and the autistic
dark web, they kind of clash at each other in very childish ways. They go
after each other on Twitter, make, you know, shocking comments to each other,
block each other, you know, do all the things people do when they don't agree
with each other. And so, really, I think both sides can be accused of that
bullying. A lot of people try to say that this person makes life difficult for any
autistics who are self-advocates. I just wanted to add, really quickly, that one
such example of this did happen pretty recently. Where, basically, people who
consider themselves a part of the autistic dark web went ahead and found
documents online to do with, like, court stuff of an individual who is considered
an autistic advocate, ... also a parent of autistic children, and basically
spread it around online, you know, with that person's name attached and
everything just to damage them. Just to hurt them
and just to like, I don't know, just to be awful human beings, basically. It wasn't really
relevant to what was going on or anything. It wasn't like they were trying
to debunk claims. It was just out of malice. So, this kind of tactic is what I
would consider bullying. Obviously, this could have occurred in different ways on
both sides, so if you're a person part of the autistic dark web or neurodiversity
movement, or any person anywhere, let's not be total jerks ... and do things like
this. This is considered bullying in my opinion. ... Doing things just out of
malice, just out of spite, just to hurt people and is really not doing anything
productive or helpful for anyone. Just to cause harm. So, don't be like that.
... There are documented cases like this with people in the autistic dark web,
but again, jerks and bullies can obviously be a part of any movement. But,
either way, I, I think it's frustrating because we're all working for kind of
the same thing. We want everyone's voices to be heard and everyone to be valued
and taken care of, but we don't always manage to do that because we, we're
autistic. And we have a bit of a problem with that black and white thinking and
that tunnel vision. So, we think, you know, like, if this is my experience or the
experience of someone with me, then everyone is like that and then we also
tend to think that if you're not 100% for us in this one thing, then you're the
enemy or a bad person. So, a lot of times ... neurodiversity, a lot of times, it
does leave out the parents and blames the parents for not accommodating enough
or not doing enough and where maybe the autistic dark web might say the parents
are just fine, the autistic needs to be fixed. And so, like, everyone's just, like,
at each other and it's terrible and I don't like it. I think there are valid
points on both ends. I'm probably more of a centrist when it comes to this issue. I
think accommodations are definitely something that should be a thing. After
all, autism is a disability and it's okay to
have accommodations, but it's also okay to understand that the people who
love those people, the family, the parents, are probably trying to do their best
that they know how and they love their children. I just think that coming at it
from a neurotypical perspective of, like, fixing them or they're broken or
they're just diseased freaks, I don't think that's a productive way of going
about things and we also don't see that scientifically supported. So, it's
interesting because everyone has an argument and everyone has a little bit
of science to back them up on their particular arguments, but I wouldn't say
that Clements is a wonderful person,
but I also don't think, like, he's the worst person on the planet Earth, like
people might say. So, the autistic dark web, even though it has kind of an
ominous sounding name, I don't think it's, like, the actual, like, dark web like some
people kind of try to put it to be. I think it's more just like an anti-neurodiversity
movement basically being very critical of anything that is a flaw in
neurodiversity and again really wanting to bring voices out for those who they
feel are being possibly marginalized by just highlighting the good parts of
autism. At the end of the day, let's not be stupid about things. Understand
that we think differently. We see the world differently from person to person.
Yes, in general, autistics do from neurotypicals, but also autistics and
neurotypicals are all individuals and we all have different perspectives and
ideas and beliefs and just attacking each other without understanding the
whole picture isn't going to help anybody. So, there you go. That's what I've
learned about the autistic dark web. It just, it's just a thing that was made in
reaction, really, to the neurodiversity movement. Thank you so much for watching.
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