That's Deeper Than Just a Microtrend

By: Polina (Canada)

One day at school, I heard my classmates calling each other "acoustic" and then grimacing, screaming, and jumping around during recess. At first, I thought it was some type of inside joke, but then the phrase "Is he acoustic?" filled my entire TikTok feed and its comments.

Although "acoustic" refers to a musical instrument that does not have electrical amplification, that joke was not related to that meaning. It means mispronounced "autistic." No, my classmates were not experts in psychology who could diagnose each other. "Acoustic" was synonymous with "stupid" and was also mispronounced "autistic." Then I understood why my classmates screamed, jumped, or did something weird after hearing that phrase. They were laughing at autism.

This joke wasn't just for one day. I saw guys disrupting classes by shouting, "Is he acoustic?" at everything. Videos spread on social media of people grimacing, shouting, and doing something incomprehensible with the caption, "Is he acoustic?" Commentators on the platform also kept up and spammed that phrase under every video.

This joke targets people on the autism spectrum specifically. It dehumanizes them by comparing them with stupidity.

This microtrend has passed, but the disregard for autism has not changed.

Social media has an issue with how it shows autism. Often, there are two sides: contempt and laughter, as in the "Is he acoustic?" joke, or romanticizing autism as just having an intense interest in something.

The problem with this duality is that neither side possesses the whole truth.

Social media platforms like TikTok portray autism in a stereotypical way. When a TikTok viewer meets someone on the spectrum, they may dislike them because they are different from how autistic people are portrayed on social media.

Of course, there are channels that debunk the autism stereotype, but unfortunately, they often go unnoticed and are met with a huge wave of hate.

As a society, I think we need to fight against harmful jokes like "Is he acoustic?" because we control the popularity of things. If something is popular, it means that everyone agrees with it and wants to see it. We are all different. That's why the world is so diverse. We should find the desire to explore it, not to simplify it.