Why do we use “neurospicy” and “‘tism” on social media?
I recently saw a YouTube video talking about how many terms start as words for the community and become slurs when they reach a wider cultural context. Terms that were mentioned were neurospicy (anyone with neurodivergence), ‘tism (autism), acoustic (autism), and circle (gay). I can’t speak to circle as it’s outside my experience, but I’d like to talk about the first three and would guess it has similar origins.
Anyone who has made content for social media outside of YouTube may already know where I’m going with this, but those words came from the need to mask what was being talked about for the algorithm. On TikTok especially, where these terms seem to originate from and be used most, these terms cropped up when the algorithm started suppressing the word autistic.
As early as 2020 (but maybe earlier), people started being suppressed on TikTok when they used the word Autism in their tags or captions, or if too many of the comments mentioned the word. To get around this, creators did what they do and got creative. It started with calling it ‘tism instead of autism, a shortening that was easy to understand for humans but computers didn’t recognize it as the same thing. When that began to get flagged, we started seeing neurospicy. Eventually, that got flagged and we started seeing acoustic. While I haven’t seen a whole lot of acoustic outside of this creator’s videos, I believe that it is more widely used on a different part of TikTok than I am on.
All of this is to say, that these words weren’t necessarily meant to make light of a diagnosis or make an in-word for the people who have the diagnosis, which is what the creator was positing. These words were developed to get out information and community to people who desperately need it in a world that is increasingly telling us we don’t deserve to have communities and that our diagnoses are fake.
While I agree that there is sometimes an element of shame in using these words and that there is both a “euphemism treadmill” and a “pipeline to slurs,” I also think that this entire argument seems to be forgetting or unaware of the fact that we have to speak in euphemisms and infantilized ways to not be silenced. When the world is so against people having the thing you have that they suppress the words use to describe it, you have to make new words. When people want to cure you instead of accepting you, you need to find ways to community that are not traditional.
I recognize so much of my identity is not something that anyone looks to erase. I’m a cis heterosexual white woman with blonde hair and blue eyes. None of that has ever been attacked or “controversial.” I have this one part of my identity that has always othered me though. I couldn’t understand for the longest time that those things weren’t under attack, because I was always the weirdo that had a lot of friends who weren’t close friends. I couldn’t understand when people told me I looked like a “girl next door type” but none of my fellow neighborhood kids stuck around long. Why did people think I was intimidating? Why didn’t other girls like me? I would hyper-focus on reenacting things I saw in movies or on TV for play; other kids didn’t. I was loud at times because I didn’t realize I was. I would go a day without talking because I didn’t want to come out of my book to interact with actual people. I didn’t know I was different, but everyone around me did.
Now it’s algorithms. Algorithms can tell from the things I say and do that I’m not someone they want to push content from. Those machines didn’t learn to bully me on their own, humans taught them to. That’s why I can’t say autistic on social media at times without sites asking me if I’m sure I want to upload something or having my content suppressed. It’s important to know why the language evolved the way it did, and that is the only reason I’m making this post. I don’t want it lost to the ether of time.
This post is not meant as any shade to this creator, I think they are great and I love their videos. I just saw that a really important part of the conversation was left out and wanted to add my two cents. As someone who existed in this world for 38 years without anyone knowing I was autistic or had ADHD in a meaningful way, who has struggled so much because of masking and feeling out of place in almost every situation in my life, I just hate to see that part missed. Maybe the mistake was thinking we all knew this because we knew it, that would make a lot of sense actually, but not everyone does. We need to make sure we scream at the top of our lungs until they do. If you aren’t affected by the algorithm trying to erase you, I’m glad. That is amazing! It’s all any of us want.
