Snicket fans within the autistic spectrum

[Mr. Jeh Ann]

My knowledge of the autistic spectrum is very small, and I don't want to write anything scientifically inaccurate. I just want to say that I had contact with some Brazilian fans who publish content about ASOUE. (We are really few people that do these days, so we end up bumping into each other on the internet). Two of them spoke to me who were on the autistic spectrum. I seriously started to ask myself: "am I also on this spectrum?" I don't think so ... Even so, someone here has noticed a strong tendency for there to be an above average concentration of people within the autistic spectrum among Lemony Snicket fans (at least among those who for some reason are still making theories , fanfics or collecting things related to the ASOUE universe)?

[Dante]

I'm aware of a couple of such fans, and to some degree it follows that people with autism might enjoy ASoUE. You can't really make generalisations about autism, but a common trait is to prefer routine and predictability, and the formulaic nature of ASoUE favours that, with much about the books reducible to a set of categories which you write a new entry in each time - initials in the title, Olaf disguise, library, invention, etc. More broadly, obsessiveness about a subject is another trait associated with autism, so particularly obsessive fans (for anything) might well be on the spectrum.

That is, however, speculation. It's not clear to me that ASoUE fans (or fans in general) spend a great deal of time discussing whether or not they happen to be autistic, and at this point it's largely irrelevant because the obsessives are the only ones left standing anyway.

[Lily]

I’m an autistic asoue fan! i wouldn’t say it was because of my ASD that i’m drawn to snicket’s works but rather that i can i focus intensely on things i like (but can’t control what i focus on)
i remember for the first two weeks after finding the books it was the only thing i could think of and i just had to read everything and anything anybody had discussed about it,, 667 was definitely the perfect place for that!! I first found the books during an exam season too so that didn’t help as i had to force myself to study and not think about asoue, which just made me want to read all the discussions and theories even more haha
Autism is a verrrry broad spectrum and everybody is so different, if you think you could be autistic then take a few online tests to see if you score high enough to warrant searching for an assessment, and research information written by autistic people! A lot of non-autistic sources try and talk over autistic people so the information is often skewed/wrong/biased, and often talks about autistic children, autistic adults + girls in general are often forgotten about unfortunately.

[Mr. Jeh Ann]

Ah, thank you ... I think I will do that ... I cannot deny that I am a little afraid of the result.

Edit.: Well ... I got some information from mental health doctors, and I now believe that, although some characteristics are common in many people, having autism is a much deeper condition than these "symptoms" that most of us have. As Dante said, I present only something called "restricted interest". But this is very common and many humans do not have autism. I may not be the king of socializing, but I was able to socialize well ... (or pretend very well). I may have problems, but I think that having autism has a much deeper degree than I do some of these problems.

[carmelita0cheryl]

Nonsense, I am on the spectrum too, but this is way too general, different ppl differnet taste. We may incline to this type of literature, but that obvi douesn't mean alh the DH's fans are autists. It's the same as if you said only men tend to like Snicketverse and started immediatelly wondering if you are a woman if you aren't or the other way.

[thathoboravioli]

Also an autistic Snickethead here, though to be honest I don't know if I count since I only saw the film as a kid and did not read the books until middle school (and even then just ASOUE because I was not aware of the biography or the Beatrice Letters, but I did know about ATWQ because one of my friends brought up the books in class and one of the teachers was familiar with the material, so he explained to the class that Snicket was a writer who made very weird and dark kids books and hid his face whenever he made appearances like Sia).

I wonder what it is about Snicket that attracts people on the spectrum...

[Hermes]

Carmelita, what are you saying is nonsense? I don't think anyone is suggesting all Snicket fans are autistic, only that a surprisingly high number are.

["bear"]

i'm not autistic either, jean. we the cool ones B)