Definition and diagnosis within the vernacular architecture of the r/autism subreddit

Abstract

Emerging from the whirlwind discussions of the r/autism subreddit is the centrality of one’s own autism diagnosis as a key to better navigation of the world. With diagnosis as an entry-point, this research ethnographically examines how vernacular understandings of autism and diagnosis emerge through the sociality of the subreddit’s mostly autistic users and the temporal and spatial relationships that exist within and between them. Through the everyday performances that take place within the semi-ephemeral postings of the subreddit, users narrate and construct their own vernacular understandings of autism by recounting their lived, embodied experiences, commiserating with others, recirculating and repurposing memes and quotes from other websites, and sharing funny artistic renderings from autistic eyes and minds. Together these creative iterative performances work to commandeer the medical definition of autism—while utilizing, modifying and expanding its structure—and create new understandings of it, while simultaneously creating new sets of community values and offering new insights into their lives. This research complicates our knowledge of autism and its production—as conceived by science and by society at large and how it is experienced and conceived by autistic people. It also explores the emergence and importance of seeing the vernaculars that arise and form through minds and bodies, and in and across the spaces and places we inhabit with others—that we dwell within, move through, and bring forth, as we make and remake them, becoming and knowing ourselves better within and through our relationships with them.