The online world at the moment

Hills and tress in ink by me L.D

Anyone else notice how awful it is online right now? So much anger, so much hate. I post and leave because scrolling is upsetting. Last week I came across this video making fun of autistic people, and I was hurt by it, the comments were so hateful. People saying that autism is just trendy, that people fake to be “quirky”. I’m not saying people don’t ever fake but why? Why would someone fake a disability? Autistic people have what some might call quirks, so do non autistic people. What people don’t see are the challenges, the meltdowns, the real life bullying that happens. It’s incredibly hurtful to see so much misinformation and devaluation happening online towards the autistic community. Why is it so hard to accept that people experience life differently, why is it so hard to accept that people don’t grow out of autism, and that autistic adults aren’t faking.

The world seems uglier these days and it can be hard to see how things will get better when people still spread so much hate. Making fun of others is elementary school bullying behaviour, and seeing it in adults online has an impact, especially on younger people.

We have to do better, we have to be kinder. As a person who strongly suspects I am autistic and has an autistic child it’s become nearly impossible to talk about online without someone, mostly some adult mocking. The only solution I’ve been able to come up with personally to combat the online awfulness is blocking, I’ve never blocked so much in my life.

Words online count, words online have an impact, and words online can be damaging, remember that before you carelessly post a comment, there are real people with real feelings reading these things and your words can have the power to make or break. Choose wisely, and lead with kindness, the words of hate you choose to spew may hurt someone, may create a situation where your loved one is struggling and doesn’t feel safe talking about it with you because of your behaviour. Before you post think, and use empathy.