Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT Strips 3941-3945 (18-22 February 2019)
mikmaxs:
--- Quote from: Gyrre on 21 Feb 2019, 21:07 ---Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't clods only start using 'autistic' as an insult to replace 'retard' in the last 5 years or so? Or did it start being misused as such longer ago than that on the East Coast?
--- End quote ---
You might be right, but QC uses a sort of sliding timescale that doesn't really match up with our own. How long has actually passed in-universe since the comic started fifteen years ago? Three years, at most? I feel like even then much of that happened during timeskips, not even on-screen. And yet, early on we've got jokes about how pintsize can't handle more than 512mb of RAM, and yet he's still chugging along next to post-singularity hyperconciousnesses just fine without apparently getting an upgrade since the first few hundred comics.
The year in Questionable Content is "Now". Things that happened before happened "Then." Things in the future are "Soon."
Dandi Andi:
You see it used as an insult on the internet much more than the r-word in the last five years or so, but it was becoming more widely known about in the early 90's. Rain Man came out in '88, so people definitely knew about it. It was made a special education category in '91, so it was gaining popularity as an alternative to "special" even while I was in elementary school. I wouldn't be surprised if at least some of her classmates would have used it derisively.
mikmaxs:
Another thing I'd note is that, given what Brun says, it's unclear what the context of the original statement was. She considers the word to be an insult because of how her father reacted. We can guess that whoever called her autistic wasn't just providing a medical diagnosis, but it may have been, and if not it may have been a derisive or mean comment about her behavior, rather than being used as a pure insult in the way that the R-slur gets used on everything from people being bad at video games to "having strong opinions".
Either way, Brun interpreted her father's reaction, not the original comment - And even though we know she apparently had good parents by her estimation, it's not exactly uncommon for "good" parents to still react in gross or negative ways to the idea that their child might have a disability or disorder.
(EDIT: This is, of course, conjecture bordering upon fanfiction until we get confirmation one way or the other. I'm not sure if it's relevant to the plot at any rate.)
alanari:
--- Quote from: Gyrre on 21 Feb 2019, 21:07 ---Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't clods only start using 'autistic' as an insult to replace 'retard' in the last 5 years or so? Or did it start being misused as such longer ago than that on the East Coast?
--- End quote ---
Actually, I've never heard it being used as an insult outside the Internet. Doesn't seem to be that common where I live. Not usa though.
I'm having a weird kind of fun watching those people wiggle their way out of it when they do that in front of me. It helps that I am kind of the opposite of retarded. Still, it hurts. If I'm the one struggling with empathy, why are they the ones who don't care about my feelings at all?
Penquin47:
Because you're struggling with empathy. They just don't care about being empathetic.
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