# The effects of kids growing up online: Autism, incels, troons, and furries



## Snuckening (Nov 21, 2018)

It has been suggested that the recent-ish uptick of autism rates might be explained by the effects of the internet on children- especially those born from about the mid 90s onwards, ie the first generation where the internet was omnipresent through-out thier childhood. How will this growing rate of autism affect society- especially in terms of autist- friendly subcultures/groups like troons, furries, incels, etc.

IMO common sense suggests that growing up with on-screen 'socializing' largely replacing face-to-face socializing is likely a big causal factor in the rise in social dysfunction ie autism. This also suggests that, because the internet is only likely to get more ubiquitous in kids lives, we should expect the rate of autism to keep climbing.

We know that statistically autism is significantly linked with trooning out. I have no stats, but i think its safe to assume autism is also linked to likelihood of becoming a furry, or an incel, too, (fuck sources: you know i'm right on that one) as these subcultures have aspects that seem especially appealling to autists (eg fursuits take away the IRL facial expressions autists struggle with and replace them with autist-friendly exaggerated, fixed cartoon heads. Fursuits also let physicallly awkward autists hide their body head-to-toe. Inceldom excuses, and revels in, the social problems typical of autism, and breaks life down into simple "male good, female evil" logic that plays well to autists, etc)

So as the internet continues becoming a bigger part of kids lives, and autism rates keep climbing, can we expect the % of young people becoming troons, furries, incels (and other subcultures where autists are over-represented- you could make similar arguments about sjws, non-binary, etc) to climb, too? Or wil autism rates drop off? Is the link between autism and these groups just a meme? Is this theory linking childhood online socialization---> autism ----> troonism/furryism/inceldom just as autistic as the groups, themselves? Discuss...



Puzzle-piece me faggots- it only makes my autism more powerful....


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## Al Gulud (Nov 21, 2018)

That just means more people to laugh at. I don't see the problem.


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## The Great Chandler (Nov 21, 2018)

Sometimes, I think the diagnosis of autism gets overblown at times. For example, you could just be a bit anti-social, but that one doctor would diagnose you with Asperger's simply because you share a few traits. About the furry/troon/incel question, probably not considering how outgoing a lot of the younger kids are at this point. At least from personal experience.


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## Sun Shihong (Nov 21, 2018)

Autism, inceldom, tranny-ism, furfaggotry... all of that shit that is there from few years even before the internet was born.

All it did was bring the swarm together into a space. Social Networking gave them megaphones.


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## Glad I couldn't help (Nov 21, 2018)

The Great Chandler said:


> Sometimes, I think the diagnosis of autism gets overblown at times. For example, you could just be a bit anti-social, but that one doctor would diagnose you with Asperger's simply because you share a few traits. About the furry/troon/incel question, probably not considering how outgoing a lot of the younger kids at this point. At least from personal experience.



Yeah, I think the broadening of the definition is probably the biggest factor in the increase in autism diagnoses , followed by higher parential ages.


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## Chaos Theorist (Nov 21, 2018)

https://medium.com/@brightsandz/emf-radiation-and-its-impact-on-autism-brightsandz-bdb3a6210f1f


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## SnowBall (Nov 21, 2018)

The rise in Autism is due to better diagnosing and the concept of a spectrum. It’s no different than saying vaccines cause Autism.


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## GodWarrior (Nov 21, 2018)

I will say that I am definitely desensitized to the horrors of the world. I think I am pretty okay as far as everything else goes. Though, I'm not cynical because of it. I truly believe that for every piece of human dirt, there are 5 righteous people to replace them.


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## Alfons Schmitler (Nov 21, 2018)

GodWarrior said:


> I truly believe that for every piece of human dirt, there are 5 righteous people to replace them.



Other way around.


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## GodWarrior (Nov 21, 2018)

Alfons Schmitler said:


> Other way around.


We can't give in to cynicism.


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## Alfons Schmitler (Nov 21, 2018)

GodWarrior said:


> We can't give in to cynicism.


Neither should we give in to naivety.


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## ES 148 (Nov 21, 2018)

Alfons Schmitler said:


> Neither should we give in to naivety.


Whyever not?


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## Cthulu (Nov 21, 2018)

GodWarrior said:


> We can't give in to cynicism.


Correct. When the fumes of hydrogen cyinide reach the the lungs of the furries in the gas vans all hope will be restored.


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## Alberto Balsalm (Nov 21, 2018)

Autism is a neurological condition with symptoms that first become apparent around the age of 3. It's safe to say that children that age are far too young to have been exposed to internet communities for any length of time.

Beforehand, people with autism would have to either be forced to interact with people face-to-face or become recluses. The internet provides a middle-of-the-road option that's much easier for a lot of autistic people, since it coincidentally eliminates a whole lot of the things they have issue with. So what we're seeing now, essentially, is a whole lot of autistic people being able to fulfill their social needs without needing to develop the social skills required to thrive in a normal setting. It's very improbable that this _causes _autism, since the timeline doesn't match up, but it _exacerbates _its social symptoms.

Will the amount of people in these specific :autism: subcultures keep on increasing? Too early to tell, I think. Furries, maybe, since they've somehow been going on for a few decades now. But incels and troons are relatively new and are facing a considerable amount of serious mainstream backlash, which might or might not cripple their ability to attract new members in the long run. What it all really hinges on is the public's ability to identify the underlying problem and provide mentally sound solutions.


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## Tiamat (Nov 21, 2018)

Yea like the person above said, autism is less social and more neurological. From what I've heard is that it may be caused by how the gray matter neural pathways form. Though the internet does provide a place autistics can remain anonymous and not have to be face to face. It can also exacerbate the social dysfunction of autism I think, since they're able to make massive fools of themselves since they see the internet as a space to say whatever they please without much reprecussion. Idk just thinking here


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## Snuckening (Nov 21, 2018)

Sun Shihong said:


> Autism, inceldom, tranny-ism, furfaggotry... all of that shit that is there from few years even before the internet was born.
> 
> All it did was bring the swarm together into a space. Social Networking gave them megaphones.



Sure, these groups all existed pre-internet, but I find it hard to believe their numbers haven't sky-rocketed. afaik there were a handful of Furry events/conferences in the 80s/early 90s, but they wouldn't even get 3 figure attendee counts. 30 years later, furry cons get 100x as many attendees, nudging up on 5 figures at Anthrocon.  That's 2018 furry con attendees at around _10,000%_ of 1990 figures. 

And trans rate increases aren't quite that dramatic, but all sources I've seen note a definite rise, which is most prevalent in younger people- which supports the 'kids growing up online' idea, especially with the timing and demographics of the inrease.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5227946/

https://www.nzma.org.nz/journal/rea...019/2018/vol-131-no-1468-19-january-2018/7463

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...-identify-transgender-survey-finds/306357002/

And I don't know how to quantify incel numbers, but I strongly suspect a similar rise there. There were always lonely, single men, but I've never even seen an account of a pre-internet guy doing the full incel bit.


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## PorcupineTree (Nov 21, 2018)

Having known an autistic person irl for the near entirety of my lifetime, I’d say she would’ve had a shot at living without government aid if she hadn’t shut down and started living exclusively online once life got tough. 

She functioned really well until college, and then she shut down. Partly because of neglected studies, partly due to teasing (or at least , perceived teasing) from peers and partly due to a handful of people spamming her tumblr, telling her to kill herself. 

I feel like dropping out of school and continuing to live online (especially in a place like tumblr where people make a sport out of wallowing in their own misery) stagnated her progress to the point where nothing has changed in her life for several years. 

This is someone who graduated high school with honors. She had 2 more chances at college and she just neglected her classes and went back to the internet. Nobody takes her applications anymore.

[Edit] possibly relevant: the autism diagnosis  never happened until after things went south. There was always something “off” but she only got checked out after the internet addiction took over.


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## Snuckening (Nov 21, 2018)

GodWarrior said:


> We can't give in to cynicism.





Alfons Schmitler said:


> Neither should we give in to naivety.



Don't tell me what I can and can't give in to, tyvm.

I'll give in to whichever one is easier.



Alberto Balsalm said:


> Autism is a neurological condition with symptoms that first become apparent around the age of 3. It's safe to say that children that age are far too young to have been exposed to internet communities for any length of time..



I'm not saying that online exposure to the trans/furry/etc communities are causing the rise in autism.

I'm saying it's caused by young kids general exposure to the internet (or even broaden that to "interactive screen-time", internet, PC/console games, constantly playing with Mommy's Iphone etc. anything where kids are interacting with a screen, not an IRL person), through stuff like learning facial expressions more off screens than with a parent who'll respond and interact with them, or just the general trend of less time interacting face-to-face, more time popping bubbles on Mommy's Ipad.

It's only well after the autism has already set in that furry/trans etc communities come into it.

Kids interacting with screens not people is the cause, autism is the problem, and the furry/troon/incel stuff is a symptom.



Tiamat said:


> Yea like the person above said, autism is less social and more neurological. From what I've heard is that it may be caused by how the gray matter neural pathways form.



Social factors can affect neurology, and neurological factors effect social skills. Severely socially neglected kids have clear, permanent affects on their brain structure, so less severe 'neglect' (or shitty socializing) could easily be the ultimate cause of the neurological effects linked with autism.


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## Old Wizard (Nov 21, 2018)

I don't think autism rates have gone up due to the internet, but just like any other weirdo, autists are now posting and over-sharing about themselves on the internet in horrible, disgusting detail.  People might be more likely to take their functional child to be tested due to neuroticism learned from the internet.  Sometimes your kid is just weird, and unless they're being exceptional or are hurting themselves or others there's no reason to try and get them diagnosed.

Early exposure to Mannosphere pundits on YouTube might be a gateway to being an incel as opposed to a normal high school virgin.  It's easy to blame society for your personal failures, and the idea that "it's not me, but _women_ who are the problem!" is easily sucked up by vulnerable minds.  

I've heard plenty of theories on troonery.  I've seen some MTFs on the internet explain that their "egg hatched" due to sissification porn, or other related fetishes.  A good number express imagining themselves as the female while watching porn was when they first started questioning their gender identity.  I've also seen lesbian porn cited (can't find the video but it's the one where the MTF says that he realised he was a lesbian when he became aroused by two cis women making out).  Some cite anime, which I understand less than the porn thing.  I think that the internet has definitely caused a rise in heterosexual MTFs (attracted to females)- before "the Internet" transsexualism was exclusively a gay male thing.  

For FTMs, it could be anime (yaoi) or rapid onset gender dysphoria.  Even trans people note that groups of people troon out at the same time, so it could be a social phenomenon.  

Of course it could be less nefarious reasons like lack of positive non-conforming influences, or not wanting to be gay/lesbian, or mental illness (sex dysphoria) but I know for a fact some of the most exceptional troons definitely didn't troon out for those reasons.  None of those things have anything to do with the internet.

No idea what makes someone a furry.

Edit:

Read the OP again.

Autists are more likely to struggle with "normal" behavior and "normal" gender roles/behaviors probably don't come as easily.  Hence the troonery.  Or it could be from lack of critical thinking skills.  Or it could be mental illness co-morbidity.  

Nobody wants to fuck autists so that's probably why incels are autistic.


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## ToroidalBoat (Nov 21, 2018)

>inb4 internet lumberjack related posts


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## Alberto Balsalm (Nov 21, 2018)

Snuckening said:


> I'm not saying that online exposure to the trans/furry/etc communities are causing the rise in autism.
> 
> I'm saying it's caused by young kids general exposure to the internet (or even broaden that to "interactive screen-time", internet, PC/console games, constantly playing with Mommy's Iphone etc. anything where kids are interacting with a screen, not an IRL person), through stuff like learning facial expressions more off screens than with a parent who'll respond and interact with them, or just the general trend of less time interacting face-to-face, more time popping bubbles on Mommy's Ipad.
> 
> ...





Spoiler: big graph











The problem here is that the rate of autism diagnosis began increasing far before it was common for people under the age of 3 to use electronic devices. Alarmist sentiment about the rise is the exact reason why antivaxxers became a thing in the 90s, after all.

A lot of the earlier research surrounding autism was in fact centered around whether the mother's parenting decisions made kids autistic, but there's still no solid proof of anything. From what we know right now, genetics and prenatal conditions are the most statistically predictable causes.


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## queerape (Nov 21, 2018)

I think it’s really too hard to tell anything about autism rates. The definition of autism changed with the 2013 DSM 5, any data before that would have used the DSM IV terms autism and Aspergers, but now it’s all ASD. So, rates may appear lower in the past but the definition was a lot more strict for autism, and the diagnosis of Aspergers no longer exists today. Thus since the definitions changed any data comparison of rates must at the very least be taken with a serious grain of salt.


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## booklover (Nov 22, 2018)

The Internet allowed specialized communities like furries and incels to find each other.  Pre-Internet, we had things like the Society for Creative Anachronism, and that allowed people who were interested to be themselves in a relatively safe environment.

There do exist people for whom socialization is defined as "yet another way to meet more people who won't like me", or at least have nothing in common with them, and the Internet can help them find SOME kind of community.


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## ghostmice (Nov 22, 2018)

A big reason why theres more autism diagnoses is the increase of awareness 100% but another huge reason is that nowadays theres so much more happening that its easier for them to get overwhelmed and spaz out. Back when we all lived in quiet shacks most autists(the minor/mild ones) wouldn't flip their shit because its all calm. When you put those same people in a city though and theres noise and lights and lots of shit happening they tend to be more, autistic. The internet acts as a condensed version of this I think, since social media is created to increase engagement and they hyperfocus it makes sense that they latch onto being a furry, or being trans, or whatever the fuck.


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## Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost (Nov 22, 2018)

I wouldn't necessarily say that autism is the main cause of the problem, though it certainly is probably one of the biggest contributing factors. Rather it is a wide variety of neurological ticks that is ascribed to Autism because it fits the bill in terms of a diagnosis. 

As for the internet being a huge factor in the growth of these online communities and there proliferation, I'm inclined to agree, and add that I don't think they would have nearly the amount of numbers they hold today if they didn't have the ability to communicate with each other. 

My reasoning is as followings, in a normal age before internet, a person who decidedly had tendencies towards being a furry, or one of the other movements, would go through a phase where they began to explore an interest in that particular idea, thoughts, fetish, or culture. Without any positive feedback loop from the society around them, they would either entrench themselves and become isolated within that community, or seek a level of normalcy which in turn would lessen or lose the attraction for that particular fascination, unless there existed a community of which they had access to that gave that behavior a positive feedback loop. 

The internet with it's various hugboxes has become a giant positive feedback loop, where  several small online social communities can share their interests and further indoctrinate people into that movement. If you see the almost cultish affection that people have for their particular online communities, then you can see the power that this social acceptance has on people. People at a basic psychological seek a level of acceptance from their peers, that is how and why communities are formed, however in the case with these degenerate communities, instead of forcing the person in question to either modify their behavior from social pressure and thereby adjust into a level of normalcy, or fall outside of it. With these online communities there is no need to adjust to the greater external social community, as long as those within the smaller collective community accept the individual. 

The danger that then comes with belonging to one of these communities is that they do not just normalize behaviors outside of cultural norms, but they encourage further behaviors which in turn can be dangerous to the individuals involved. 

I knew someone who was well adjusted, just a little bit odd. A mutual friend who was basically a sperg showed them self harming stuff online, and from that point on they started discussing self harming over forums and then participated in self harming, because they had been encouraged to do so by the community that they were now a part of. 

After a while they refused to see the behavior as abnormal, and now I was the one who was the weirdo because I actually had concerns for the person in questions well being, and refused to listen to their excuses for cutting themselves. They wouldn't stop, and wouldn't seek psychiatric help for their "problems." Years later they're basically functioning as normal, because their parents took action out of concern, but the person now has to live with the multiple scars from self infliction, including some assholes name carved into themselves, because they admittedly went through "a phase" as a teenager.


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## booklover (Nov 23, 2018)

I also believe that there are people, especially disillusioned young people, who start using opiates because the media has made heroin addiction out to be something that is cool and fun, as long as you eventually give it up, and think it would be great to be a part of that.

I don't see how going to a "furry convention" would hurt anyone, as long as it remains a hobby.  

One other thing.  I can think of several people I grew up with in the 1970s who were probably on the autistic spectrum; they were considered slow, painfully shy, weird, etc.  Two of them were from a local facility for "emotionally disturbed children" which nowadays is another name for Reactive Attachment Disorder (a devastating condition that is very common in foster children) but in this case, I really believe their primary disorder was autism.


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## MysticLord (Nov 16, 2021)

This thread hits different in 2021. Imagine how bad the socially isolated mask kids will be in 20 years.


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## Farmer John (Nov 16, 2021)

I've been thinking a lot lately on the idiom "it takes a village to raise a child" and the alternative saying "it takes a village to raise an idiot" 
The Internet has given the entirety of the human race a chance to be a village, and it's a village where we cannot shun or cast out the troublesome members.
Also take into account the fact that youth often participate in counter culture and we have a perfect storm the degeneracy we are seeing.
In the 80's and 90's Homosexuality lost it's taboo.
In the 00's and 10's it was accepted.
And now we are seeing the next push, where it is not only accepted but flaunted.
This isn't the tightest timeline and I know there are exceptions, but it is a generalization.
Each step has been in contrast to the generation that came before, even if in the end it has played out in a pretty standard progression.
You add in the effect of the Internet allowing bad actors to praise poor decisions, and echo chambers for peers to give ass pats and here we are.
The Internet is and also isn't the problem, it is a key factor and certainly exacerbates the problem but even without it we would probably still have the problem.


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