 What do denim dungarees, rainbow tights, fidget toys, experimental makeup and colorful dyed hair all have in common? Autism, that's what. I don't like where this is going. Well, sort of. Or at least you get that impression by spending large amounts of time on the Instagram online autistic communities. You may see comments from a lot of detractors online calling these individuals infantilizers, infantilizing the asphatic of autism, basically making autism into something a little bit more childish, a little bit more immature. But is that a right characterisation? Is that correct? Why exactly is this aesthetic, this aesthetic so common to the autistic community? And is this fashion trend a good representation of autism? Now I need to caveat this by saying that I'm not necessarily making a negative judgement on these fashion trends. There's this style that people have created. Particularly, I find it quite cute. I find it quite interesting, quirky, individualistic, all things that I love as a very open-minded individual who enjoys the individual side of life, the unique side of life, the quirky side of life. All I'm saying is that I'm seeing more and more creators nowadays who do use this type of fashion, who do have this type of fashion. And I'm wondering to myself, why am I not like that? I think there are some needed context here. I believe this is mostly a result of the crossover between communities. The LGBTQIA communities, or plus colon slash, I can't remember exactly what it is considered to be now. And the disability communities, which praises and encourages individuality, uniqueness, diversity, of course, like a really, really big one there. Sometimes in the form of fashion, which goes against the grain. One particular trend that I've seen in the neurodivergent communities is this idea of dopamine dressing. Using lots of flashy, fluorescent, very, very colorful things, which seem to clash together, lots of shiny items. Basically, stuff that you would want to put on or look at because it's interesting to look at. It's stimmy, it's like visually appealing in some way, is different. Now, it's not necessarily something that I do myself. And I will go on to why some individuals might lean a little bit more towards my sense of fashion. Which tends to be like the alternative, kind of goffy side of things. But we will get on to that very, very soon. Don't you worry. Don't you worry, your little socks. Sound very infantilizing there, I'm sorry. I don't mean to be. I don't know why I take this like authoritative tone. Maybe it's because I've experienced a lot of infantilization I'm somewhat like. Counteracting it in my own sort of style of humor, maybe. Like eating a spoonful of Drano. Sure, it'll clean you out. It'll leave your hollow inside. The key question here is, is this infantilizing? Is this contributing to the infantilization of autistic people in terms of the stereotypes in the mainstream? Or is this reframing how we as human beings view maturity, view fashion? Who knows? I can only suggest some things. I think the answer to this question will vary heavily depending on what kind of person you are. For myself, I can appreciate all different types of fashion. I like people who are different. I like people who are unique and show an air of individuality. I mean, diversity is probably a large part of the kind of autistic movements, the autism acceptance movement, sort of highlighting uniqueness as something that's not necessarily bad. It's kind of like a statement, kind of like a counter movement with individuality, which is very much akin to kind of the whole mission of a lot of autism creators and influencers online. It reflects a lot of the work that we do. Reframing things, understanding things, celebrating things, accepting things, being aware of things. People don't like the awareness anymore. I understand the context of it, but I still think that there needs to be more, maybe educations about a word than awareness. Because people are aware of autism. They're not educated about it though. You need to be educated about it to be accepted. So do we insert, do we like proposition society in sort of a three step model? Awareness, we need to get that. Education, really important part of that. Acceptance, yeah, totally. But I think it's hard for people to be aware of something and just to accept things if they don't understand it. Boring. Bit of a tangent. It's important to highlight, as I've said, that it's not the only asphatic that's out there. I have seen increasingly more autistic influencers, autistic people online, who are very much using kind of like the gym asphatic. There seems to be a lot of like autistic bodybuilding type creators who make some kind of funny meme content. Have you seen that guy who wears like an Elmo mask? I find his videos so funny. He's like, don't half-ass put your full ass into it. I love that. It's beautiful. Chef's kiss. We have the gym asphatic, and we also have a lot of individuals who would describe themselves as like alternative or goffy or emo or like any number of kind of counter fashions, fashion that kind of deviates from the norm. I do see a lot of autistic people who do that. And I also see a lot of autistic people and creators, particularly on YouTube, who just kind of have like what you can consider to be like normy fashion. Nothing that's too out of the norm. There may also be this fashion trend out there, you know, things related to like denim dungarees and maybe it's just out of convenience. I know a lot of autistic people who like the dungarees because it's kind of easy to pull off, you know. You just wear the dungarees and you wear like a t-shirt or something under it. Obviously, you wear underwear. Well, I mean, some people don't wear underwear, but you know where I'm going. You know where I'm going. I don't even know what that means, but it sounds almost as peculiar as you look. I think in any case, autistic people just have a very strong tendency of going against the norm, challenging the norm, what it means to be a human being. I think this fashion trend is definitely something that I've seen catch on. I don't think that it's representative of all autistic people, but it seems to be pretty consistently seeable, if that's a word, pretty identifiable within the Instagram communities. What is he doing? He's beginning to believe. Personally, I don't think that this trend is necessarily infantilizing. The infantilizing element usually comes from a judgment from other people. I mean, you can judge people about what they wear, obviously, like a little bit. We're human beings, like when we see something that's different, sort of out on the norm, we tend to draw our eyes, tend to sort of make us make judgments. You shake my nerves. For most people, not necessary for me, I guess. Maybe a little bit. What kind of person they are, kind of subculture they belong to, what their personality might be like, depending on what they dress like. But then again, there's a lot of people who I kind of see out in the gym. So some people who look like literal barbarians, like bald head, beard, tattoos, wearing a tank top has like loads of piercings in the rear, absolutely jacked out of their mother mofo mind, you know what I mean? And the most genuine kind of kind, sort of bubbly individuals. I don't necessarily know where I'm going with this. I'm just kind of thinking about like judgments and people making people sort of categorizing you based on the type of fashion that you wear and whether it is sort of tied to yourself, expression, your personality, who knows. I think it's a very individual thing. Some people like myself just like the aesthetic maybe. Other people, it's kind of an extension of themselves. But only the very strange conclusion to this video. I don't necessarily think there was a point to this video, I was just kind of wanting to talk about like something that I noticed. I don't know if you guys have noticed this too. I would love to hear what your thoughts are about it. Do you also have this type of fashion? Is it something that you kind of picked up from other people or is it just something that you just naturally gravitated to without any sort of conscious thought? Or do you wear a gym person? Do you wear the goth fielter and this stuff? Do you dress somewhat socially normative? Have you tried sexy lingerie, some lacy underwear, a black teddy? I've tried wearing them all, they don't work. You can also like subscribe and consider becoming a member. Thanks. It helps me out and it encourages me to make more of these types of videos, more of the streams, more of the podcasts, more of the presentations, more of the silly ramblings that I do on these style of videos. You get a lot of cool perks as well. It's very cheap, it's the cheapest I could make it. You get to be a part of the family, you get a little wee badge next to your name. It isn't like a little wee badge, little wee badge. Is that appropriation? Is that language appropriation? Anyway, if you have enjoyed this video, I highly recommend this one. I'm saying this right now as I'm recording it, not actually knowing which video I'm going to put up, but I imagine that the editing version of Tom in a different reality, in a different universe, will have the foresight, the intellectual ability to put a good video there. If not, I apologize.