The neurotypical listening subject in autistic young people’s accounts of participation in online affinity spaces

Abstract

Abstract Autistic communicative practices are frequently judged as disengaged or inappropriate. Focusing on how such evaluations are described and contested by autistic users of online interest-based groups, this article theorises a neurotypical listening subject—an ideological listener that recognises communicative engagement primarily through the signs of orientation to the interlocutor. We develop the notion of ‘attentional asymmetry’ to describe the unequal judgments that arise when autistic modes of attending, often oriented primarily toward objects or topics, are evaluated against this normative expectation. Based on survey data from 144 UK residents, we show how young people navigate this asymmetry by avoiding particular semiotic practices and platforms, and repurposing digital affordances to resist anticipated judgments. Extending work on crip linguistics into digital interaction, our findings demonstrate how digital architectures reconfigure criteria for recognising engagement and motivate research on how digital platforms may institutionalise evaluative frameworks that marginalise autistic participation. (Language ideologies, autism, metapragmatic awareness, affinity spaces, masking, social media)