#but from my (very non-statistical) sample - aphobia is one of the clearest uniting threads

[anistarrose]

there's a type of tumblr funnyperson who's never posted explicit hate/exclusionism towards asexuals and other a-specs... and yet, they like to make up a guy. where the type of guy they always make up undermines any trust a-specs might've otherwise had for them. for example, a common post format is making up a hypothetical tumblr user's bio that's obviously just so cringe, according to the sensibilities of everyone reading — wherein the implied joke is how we've all seen someone in the wild who's cringe like this, right?

these posts always feel the need to slide some a-spec microlabel in there. a lot of the time, it's specifically an ace-spec microlabel plus "heteroromantic," especially if they think that the guy they're making up is trying to be a real special snowflake. to round out the "cringe," they usually pepper in at least one element from the set of: neopronouns, a namedropped mental illness, and a piece of media that's targeted at children/popular for tumblr to hate at the time.

then a zillion people reblog that post, all agreeing haha that's so cringe, and a million a-spec people (and nonbinary and autistic people) shudder — because are they the butt of the joke, to the people reblogging it? or are the people reblogging just laughing about a different element, like a comically long DNI or something, which has distracted them from noticing the fact that OP clearly associates a-spec identities with "cringe"?

if any a-spec people point this out about OP, or ask a reblogger if they support ace people, they are inevitably accused of overreacting — which is great for the aphobes, because they get a new "cringe" a-spec person to point and laugh at. it's just such a nasty cycle, and even people who wouldn't consider themselves aphobes aren't great at noticing and interrogating it.