this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2025
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Memes

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Post memes here.

A meme is an idea, behavior, or style that spreads by means of imitation from person to person within a culture and often carries symbolic meaning representing a particular phenomenon or theme.

An Internet meme or meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. The name is by the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972. Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations.


Laittakaa meemejä tänne.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Autism has always been here. But instead of labeling someone as autistic and trying to improve understanding and communication, people were like, "That's a weird dude."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Or worse yet, they were interned on an institution all their lives or were killed by police during a misunderstanding.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 days ago (1 children)

My grandfather was different, he said "okay" for my diagnosis, read up on it, and when he read that Albert Einstein was suspected to have autism, he thought he had a bloodline of future scientists. Also he had a great trouble with saying "it's enough work for today", and was stubborn enough to work on something 18 hours if it meant it could be done under one day.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

The "enough work" problem is the story of my childhood... I have way too many memories of sitting in the garage, or on the driveway, either freezing to death or being eaten alive by mosquitoes, at 2:30 a.m. while trying to hold a light absolutely still in just the right position...

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

“Puts some hair on your chest”

Me chest hairless at 40. What a lie.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

To be fair, I often stay up too late trying to find some bugs in my OpenGL pipeline, so I likely inherited a lot from him.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Knowledge of sports statistics is a socially acceptable autistic hyper fixation.

Ever talked to one of these people? You mention a baseball player and they can tell you what their batting average was for each year of their decade long career, or they can tell you where every NFL player went to college; meanwhile I have trouble remembering my own phone number.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

I was eccentric when I was seven years old. They had meetings about me.

Was diagnosed with ASD around 50 years.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

God damnit. Now I'm an autistic grandpa.

[–] [email protected] 93 points 3 days ago (2 children)

My father had a workbench drawer marked "Pieces of Wire Too Short to Use."

Mind you, he was an electrician.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Those are for special occasions, like when you're doing electrical work in someone's house who you don't like much and feel like splicing 10 short wires together instead of using a long one.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago (1 children)

He also had a drawer labeled "Plastic Shark" that contained one of my old toy sharks.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Hahah that is so wholesome.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 3 days ago

I had to clean out my uncle's house when he passed away suddenly. Among many other things, this man had a box full of gum wrappers perfectly folded into little triangles. But don't worry, I've been assured he wasn't autistic, he was just a little antisocial and odd.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 days ago (2 children)

After reading these comments, I have concluded that everyone's grandpa is autistic.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

As someone with two autistic boys people really be stretching on their undiagnosed definitions of autism.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

You know how neurodivergence is one category with a lot of different and diverse conditions and spectrums. Neurotypical is that as well. Not all neurotypical people are alike, there's diversity as well.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 days ago (4 children)

I mean, I think the count of neurodiverse people on lemmy is likely very high (for various reasons). And since it's highly genetically correlated, likely also the grandparents.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Also if we could diagnose the entire world we would find many people who would fall on the high-functioning side of the spectrum. Many people just go undiagnosed for their entire lives. I bet autism is way more common than the science tells us today.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Pretty sure the first dude to collect dead bugs and put them on corkboards with pins probably was on the spectrum. Also geologists. I can't think of any other reason a person would be super into rocks.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Jesus Christ Marie, they're not rocks. They're minerals!!

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[–] TriflingToad 37 points 3 days ago (13 children)

my grandpa has a collection of those glass caps they use on power towers

after searching for an image the correct term is "glass insulator for power lines" but I think "glass cap for power tower" sounds funner lol

I have a collection of those silica gel packets I find at clothing stores and supermarkets

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

My grandpa was very smart but seemingly clueless about the world. A lot of people said that he was a 12 year old in an adult body

He couldn't of possibly been Autistic...

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (11 children)

One way I look at historic figures for who might and might not been a high functioning autistic individual is to look at how well they may have functioned socially vs. How technical they were.

Take William Bligh for example. He was the captain of the Bounty when the famous mutiny happened. Contrary to popular belief, he wasn't some tyrannical captain who was so monstrous that his crew were pushed beyond human dignity. He actually was milder than most captains and had unusual methods of keeping his crew in shape. For example he ordered his crew to dance on a daily basis. Why? Because for prolonged periods of time there was actually minimal activity needed on the ship, so many sailors would be lazy and get out of shape. By having them dance he was trying to keep them in shape to do their jobs when needed.

It worked and it was practical, but it made everyone hate him. He was a highly socially inept man and the mutiny on the bounty was NOT the only mutiny or rebellion he had to deal with.

But... as a sailor he was brilliant. He really did manage to keep his men healthier than normal, and as a navigator he was probably one of the best to have ever lived. No joke. When the crew set him adrift on a raft with the few loyal members with him. He navigated across the open pacific without a map and nonexistent tools, working only by memory and the stars that he had memorized and managed to make a trek of thousands of kilometers to the nearest safe port.

That kind of obsession on detail is not something that comes without being somewhat on the spectrum.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago

It was a longboat, not a raft, and he had a sextant and almanac so he could look up rise and set times for stars. He lacked charts.

It was a remarkable feat

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I'm too lazy to keep things organized, does that get me out of autism?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago

I think that upgrades your autism to audhd.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

Nah, it just means the ADHD that often accompanied Autism is fight full force.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

I've always loved the "lengths of wire" line. As a kid I used to check out lots of outdated library books about building a home science lab, and they consistently called a short piece of wire a "length" of wire. I don't think I ever saw that term in any other context until Futurama, so it really brought back my nerdy roots.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think a length of wire is more about being a vague measurement and to distinguish it from a wire coil, which is a separately useful thing in electronics.

Calling things a length isn't indicative of being short. Terms like a length of rope and length of wire are fairly normal ways to talk about things without a strict measurement.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

I'm barely 40 and calling something a length of X seems totally normal to me. Making me feel old with that grandpa talk kid.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

LOL I'm 70, talking about books from the 40s and 50s that my small-town library had in the 60s.

Come to think of it I have seen length of pipe or length of tubing in modern plumbing instructions.

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[–] TriflingToad 32 points 3 days ago

real conversation:
"back when I was a kid autism didn't exist like you guys!"
"Ma... you're autistic..."

[–] [email protected] 34 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Is it Autism or just well organized?

[–] Sendpicsofsandwiches 37 points 3 days ago

One doesn't require the other, but let's be honest they often travel in the same car

[–] [email protected] 32 points 3 days ago (5 children)

If you're well organized your autistic, if not, you are ADHD. If you fall in the middle, you are both.

I know I'm old man shouting at clouds but it seems like social media is completely focused on classifying. It seems silly. It's like Meyers Briggs personality tests.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 days ago (5 children)

The big problem with ADHD is that every human will experience the symptoms at some point in life.

Every ADHD meme is relatable to pretty much everyone, but they don't understand what it is for those symptoms to basically be your whole existence.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago (6 children)

The adhd gives you superpowers memes always makes me want to strangle someone.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

My favorite thing and I’ve mentioned before, ADHD is like peeing, we all pee, but when it hurts to pee or you’re peeing 50 times a day or it’s causing negative impact in your life, you go see a doctor

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Can confirm. Everything on top of my desk has a specific spot and orientation but anything additional, like important papers placed onto it will disappear from the physical nature of reality and my memory in a very short yet unknown amount of time

I am certified both. Also this is why the term neurodiversity is so much better. Overlap is quite common.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 days ago

In undergrad I once went back to my dorm room and eagerly showed my roommate the video of Grace Hopper illustrating how long lengths of time are (https://youtu.be/9eyFDBPk4Yw). A little while later, he was talking about this scene and how he likes the writing, because engineers are often much more excited by something seemingly mundane, such as the various lengths of wire needed for a project, than "this is my spaceship."

Anyway, I tell him, completely seriously and with no sense of irony, "yeah, but why would anyone care about lengths of wire?"

He yelled back, "You literally came in here to show me a video about lengths of wire."

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Amateur. Back in the 90s i collected odds and ends because I wanted to exactly be like a Sierra online adventure game protagonist.

Also I collected coins. But I guess that was not eccentric enough to be an autistic thing?

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago

My grandfather has a collection of construction engines models perfectly aligned on shelves in the veranda.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

My grandfather had similar collections. Of anything potentially useful.

I don’t believe in his case it was primarily due to neurodivergence but rather a depression-era childhood.

Could he afford a weed whacker? Yes, but he made one from an old vacuum, even in the 80s/90s. And so on.

Their lives started in poverty and they killed Nazis and we dishonour them horribly when they are barely cold. Especially America who is going to inflict both on everyone again.

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