I was reminded today of the belief that Autistic people don’t do sarcasm. This is completely, utterly, and totally true.
Yeah, right.
While it’s true that many Autistic people do in fact enjoy being sarcastic, there are some reasons why someone, especially a Neurotypical person, might wish to be careful.
One: It depends on the install
As with so many things, how you interact with a specific Autistic person depends on the specific installation of Autism they have. It’s not a single operating system. It has lots of nuances and different features and bugs.
There are Autistic people who do not get sarcasm. They take almost everything at face value, at least until they figure out that the Normies don’t always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
My personal installation has the Sarcasm Subroutine installed, but…
Two: Autistic Sarcasm doesn’t always look like Neurotypical Sarcasm
We tend to be blunt rather than cruel.
That’s not to say that Autistic Sarcasm is never cruel, or that Neurotypical Sarcasm is always cruel, but… in my experience, in the main, overall, yada yada yada.
We also tend to be more overt (again, stereotypes), because…
Three: Other Autistic characteristics can get in the way, particularly RSD
For many of us, rejection sensitivity (RSD) causes us to get hurt more easily than the average Normie. So sarcasm works best when it’s obviously sarcastic. I have a signal with a colleague so either of us can indicate when we’re being smarmy. In my case, it’s so that I know that sarcasm is happening for sure. I can’t speak for her case (not my story, y’know).
I’ve been hurt too often by truth hidden behind “I was only kidding” or something similar, so I really need to trust someone to accept that their sarcasm is meant without any sort of malice. Or it needs to be very clearly marked as sarcasm.
Just to be safe, I often use the /sarc tag myself, online. Even if I think it’s painfully obvious.
So…
In summary
If you’re Neurotypical and you want to use sarcasm around an Autistic person, be mindful that we don’t always read it the same way. Feelings may get hurt. Misunderstandings may occur.
But if you know an Autistic person well enough to get their vibe, and they do have the Sarcasm Chip installed, have at it.
(This has been a completely impromptu post and may be superseded by a more thoughtful one in the future. But probably not.)