1. Introduction
[1.1] A weed is a flower in the wrong place,
A flower is a weed in the right place,
If you were a weed in the right place you would be a flower;
But seeing as you're a weed in the wrong place, you're only a weed—
It's high time someone pulled you out.
—Ian Emberson
[1.2] I open this piece with Ian Emberson's poem, which resonates with my experience as a neurospicy researcher and fan. As a colloquial reframing of neurodivergence, neurospicy refers to the digression from what is societally presented as the default mode of being human: neurotypicality. First introduced to me via fans, the term "neurospicy" challenges the serious aura that often surrounds clinical diagnosis and research into neurodivergence. As indicated by the aphoristic poem above, in a neurotypically ordered society, the Autistic weed threatens the garden's order, rather than being seen as an integral part of its natural biodiversity (or neurodiversity). Contrary to this, neurodiversity challenges the notion that there is a normal way of thinking and behaving (Baumer and Frueh 2021; Pellicano and den Houting 2022)—that there is a right or wrong place for certain minds. Rather, the "variation among minds" is "intrinsic" to our humanity (Walker 2021, 38). Aligned with this, researchers with a neuroaffirmative ethos work to expose and challenge an autistiphobic sentiment that perpetuates negative understandings of autism and neurodivergence. Through my research with fans (note 1)—and as a fan myself—I became aware of fandom studies' potential to disrupt the neuronormative authority surrounding existing discourses of neurodivergence, as historically wielded by the clinical sciences.
[1.3] The fundamental—and perhaps, to some, radical—angle I present in this article is that autism and autistiphobia have been implicated in fandom studies from its nascence, as observable in the shared histories of pathologization and stigmatization surrounding both fans and Autistic people. As I explore, recognizing the inherent symbiosis between fandom and autism—specifically, recognizing fandom as Autistic sociality and culture—allows us to move beyond discourses of pathology and into creative empowerment. This offers the potential to advance the neuroaffirmative direction of both autism studies and fandom studies.
[1.4] While I do not claim that all fans are Autistic, and not all Autistic people are fans, "Autistic people are in every community" (https://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan/about-autism) and, regardless of the extent to which Autistic fans predominate, fan cultures—as communities—will have Autistic people as part of them. As Stuart Murray observes in Representing Autism, "any attempt to account for the place of autism in the world needs to deal with the fact of [A]utistic presence" (2008, 16). Subcultural and fan spaces bear witness to Autistic presence, sociality and cultural belonging as both fans and researchers increasingly attest (Lefler 2023; Manning 2015).
[1.5] Neurospiciness and neurodivergence can refer to (but are not limited to) autism, ADHD, dyspraxia, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and/or Tourette syndrome. While not wanting to overlook or conflate other neurodivergent experiences, I primarily focus on autism here as, beyond my own lived experience, it lends itself toward pattern thinking and the cultivation of specialized interests that are grounded in repetitive behavior (Grandin and Panek, quoted in Rozema 2015, 63; see Atherton et al. [2023]). The special interest, arguably the sun around which fandom orbits, holds certain implications for autism and its research, as I explore in more detail. Importantly, autism is not a neutral (or natural) concept in the sense that it has developed technocratically via psychiatric hierarchies that dehumanized and pathologized Autistic subjects, as Monique Botha et al. observe (2022). Autism's very definition is steeped in stigma, born out of a postindustrial, hegemonic logic that bears a need to determine what a valuable (i.e., efficient/productive) mind is, and categorize those neurotypes that deviate from this as a "disease, disorder, and dysfunction" (Botha 2021, 2). In simple terms, autism is "characterized by particularly high levels of synaptic connectivity and responsiveness […] [that] tends to make the Autistic individual's subjective experience more intense and chaotic than that of non-autistic individuals" (Walker 2021, 62). Personally speaking, my own "intense and chaotic" neurospicy ontology informs my vibrant experience as a fan of media and subcultures deriving from Japan, from anime (and its non-animated counterpart, manga) to kawaii (cute) fashion and aesthetics.
[1.6] Neurospiciness is also imbricated in my research practice and writing where, supported by the emerging scholarship on the curious relation between autism and anime fandom (Atherton and Cross 2022; Rozema 2015; Kuo et al. 2014; Rose et al. 2025), my discussion aligns with those fandom, cultural, and psychological studies scholars who advocate partiality and subjectivity in research (Murray 2008; Hills 2002). Essentially, my approach to research is underpinned by a knowingness that my own fannish practices are informed by my neurospicy ability to see, feel, and be in the world differently. Directed from "complex 'engines of discovery,'" I approach the subject matter of this article both as a "concept of medical origins and something that is predicated of oneself in the light of self-knowledge" (Stenning and Rosqvist 2021, 1535–36). I am curious to explore how fan communities operate as safe spaces for "neurocognitive minority groups," termed as such because of members experiencing marginalization in their digression from what is privileged as a neurocognitive "norm" (Walker 2021, 10).
[1.7] Fundamentally, I write in grateful homage to those fans that I met through my research who catalyzed—and brought compassion and understanding to—my neurodivergent catharsis. Beginning as an autoethnographic project on over twenty-five anime convention events between 2017 and 2019, the initial research was not designed for, nor expected to discuss, the topic of autism, given that I had yet to experience my neurodivergent awakening through the very research that instigated it. I became aware of what I call the "neurospicy elephant in the room" post-fieldwork, and while I intend to expand on this in more detail elsewhere, fandom has been foundational to my neuroaffirmative self-understanding. Simply put, fandom challenged and exposed the myths of society and culture that I had internalized: that a normal, default human mind exists; that there was something wrong with me; and that I was a weed in the wrong place.
[1.8] As autism advocates assert, Autistic people are disabled insofar as the neurohegemonic garden—society—disables them (Walker 2021; Ellcessor and Kirkpatrick 2019). This is particularly important to address within the context of fandom and subculture, where the scholarship is remiss in overlooking disability, as Divya Garg (2025) observes in her study on Marvel media fans. Just as Elizabeth Ellcessor and Bill Kirkpatrick (2019) noticed the lack of any meaningful critical engagement with disability in media studies, autism, in being implicated in disability discourse, has also been a point of oversight in the fields of media and fandom studies. Disability offers a "fundamental turn away from normate media studies" (Ellcessor and Kirkpatrick 2019, 144)—"normate" being termed by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson on the privileged, unchallenged body that operates without stigma in society (quoted in Ellcessor et al. 2017, 8). Disability becomes a means of challenging hierarchical power structures, as Ellcessor and Kirkpatrick (2019, 140) identify, which, through a neuroaffirmative lens, can decenter "cognitively 'normal'" characters, viewers, producers, and so on. Building on their call for media scholars to "[s]tart incorporating disability into your work" (139), I open for consideration the neuroaffirmative potential that fandom studies offers. Here we can ask, "How do we make sense of the relationship" (Ellcessor et al. 2017, 3) between fandom and neurodivergence? And how can we be discerning, as arts and humanities scholars, of the existing disciplines and academic discourses that perpetuate neuronormative hierarchies and assumptions?
[1.9] Neurotypicality is a cultural issue; as cultural, fandom, and media studies scholars, we can respond to that through our research. Discussed by early fan studies scholars as "subordinated" and "disempowered" (Fiske 2002, 30), fans were presented as engaging in reappropriation and subversion—a power struggle against the hegemony of society (Gray et al. 2017)—and by extension, a media industry that empowers and operates via ableist discourses (Ellcessor et al. 2017). We can observe the emergence of fan cultures as a declaration of neurospicy pride and a reclamation of culture insofar as autism, as an extension of neurodivergence, is defined as divergence from "the prevailing culturally constructed standards and culturally mandated performance of neuronormativity" (my italics, Walker 2021, 42). Given that fans have been defined via their divergence from that which is "culturally mandated" and presented as "normal," we can (re)claim the fan as a figure who is more closely aligned with the neurominority than the neurotypical, reflecting on the historical positioning of fans as being Other to the dominant societal standard (e.g., Jenkins 1992). This is a call to build, as Elizabeth Fein states, research that explores "the way that neurodiversity shapes culture" and how "subcultural communities shape the meanings of neurodiversity" (2015, 301).
[1.10] This article is methodologically centered on a literature review of the scholarship surrounding fandom as a rich site for neuroqueer possibilities that we can tap into as researchers—neuroqueer being defined by Nick Walker as "the act or process of challenging, subverting, defying, and/or creatively fucking with neuronormativity" (2021, 133). I first explain the value and affinity that the fields of fandom and autism studies have for each other, examining the prejudices that both obscure and animate their respective histories; finally analyzing the special interest as the key overlap between Autistic and fan practice, which holds transformative potential for the study of both. From pathologization and stigmatization to "Autistic joy" (Dale 2024), I outline how, ultimately, autism studies needs fandom studies and vice versa, despite their perceived epistemological incompatibilities.
2. An autographic note addressing the neurospicy elephant in the room
[2.1] At the end of my fieldwork, one participant, Lena, told me of her diagnosis with autism at age twenty-five: "It makes so much sense […] it explains everything: anime, my time at school, my habits—I just wish I'd been diagnosed twenty years ago." Our conversation exposed a crucial and unanticipated theme across my research: the curious affinity between fandom and neurodivergence. Along with those participants who disclosed their neurospiciness to me, the one overarching theme that characterized their testimonies was feeling "different" and experiencing ostracization in daily life, with anime fandom providing sanctuary, friendship, and self-acceptance. Curiously, fan spaces, where donning a mask as a cosplay character is commonplace, acted as a refuge for neurodivergent unmasking.
[2.2] During the latter stages of my fieldwork, when I was newly navigating my own neurospiciness, I found Maggie Maclure's (2013) observation of "wonder" in social science research especially apt, finding myself in a "liminal condition, suspended in a threshold between knowing and unknowing":
[2.3] This potentiality can be felt on occasions where something—perhaps a comment in an interview, a fragment of a field note, an anecdote, an object, or a strange facial expression—seems to reach out from the inert corpus (corpse) of the data, to grasp us. These moments confound the industrious, mechanical search for meanings, patterns, codes, or themes; but at the same time, they exert a kind of fascination, and have a capacity to animate further thought. (228)
[2.4] Beyond those testimonies where participants disclosed their neurospiciness to me, and beyond my subjective contemplation of my own neurospicy experiences and habits, other instances of wonder led me to contemplate further, for instance, when another Autistic participant, Sarah, shared with me that Satoshi Tajiri, creator of the anime and gaming franchise Pokémon, was on the autistic spectrum as well. At times, it felt as though I was a lepidopterist—wanting to capture those subtleties that were fluttering out of reach, yet knowing that pinning them down would be the death of them. We can similarly approach the study of fandom and autism: finding value in those in-flux, wonder-filled moments without attempting to categorize or essentialize them as otherwise tempted by a positivist stance. Our lack of clinical authority in the arts and humanities is a strength, not a weakness.
[2.5] There is a neurospicy elephant in the room of fan studies in the sense that fandom plays a core role in the lives of many neurodivergent people, and yet the scholarship in fandom studies barely reflects this. Fan scholars are either unaware of, or reluctant to address, the neurospicy inclination of fandom, perhaps reflecting a fear that recognizing this would, as Hills (2002) puts it, "(re)stigmatize fan culture" (91), reanimate the "fan-as-obsessed-weirdo stereotype" (8), and threaten any previous work by scholars to redress the fan as "psychologically aberrant or […] disturbed in some way" (65) that fan scholars "fought so hard to dismantle" (Jenkins 2007, 361). In short, there seems to be a fear in fan studies of going backwards, returning to an age of pathologizing fans by blanket-diagnosing them as "[A]utistic wackos" (Schodt 2011, 46) (note 2), mirroring the wider fears that surround Autistic people in society and culture (Botha et al. 2022). The hesitancy that scholars might have in approaching the neurospicy side of fandom is both a problem and an opportunity for fan studies. With the goal of the "neuroaffirmative turn" to move autism studies (and, more widely, research on neurodivergence) out of a "pathology paradigm" (Walker 2021)—which, similar to Scott Robertson's (2010) "deficit model," presents neurodivergence as a disorder to be cured (note 3)—we can bring sensitivity and awareness to this via fan studies, allowing for a mutual flourishing of both fields.
[2.6] Throughout my autoethnographic research on fans, I became aware of the neurospicy elephant on multiple levels: from my own subconscious, to my experiences in the field and data (taken from anime conventions), to the scholarly discussion in fandom studies. As I discuss further in section four, my subsequent tentative engagement with what was epistemologically foreign to me—autism studies—required a balance of curiosity and openness along with discernment of the normalized, widespread, autistiphobic scholarship that currently exists. Certain psychological scientists have identified and are working to undo the stigma that continues to shape autism studies today (Botha 2021; Pellicano et al. 2014); in this regard, fandom studies presents itself as an asset to future research that is meaningful to Autistic participants.
[2.7] My discussion here concerns fandom studies and its development via media-based fan cultures. We can even interrogate the terms "nerd" and "geek" as neurocoded epithets used toward fans—a route into understanding how autistiphobic discourses shape stereotypes of certain fan groups, particularly those relating to media and cultural texts (note 4). It is no coincidence that early fan scholars, such as Henry Jenkins and Matt Hills, were drawn toward the pathological reception and psychological enigma of media fans in society (respectively, Star Trek and cult film fans). The ability of fans to threaten conventional understandings of normality—and the fan as a psychological rather than cultural entity—has long fascinated scholars of fandom. This was shown in, for instance, Jenkins's (1992) fascination with perceptions of the fan as being "fundamentally alien to the realm of 'normal' cultural experience and whose mentality is dangerously out of touch with reality" (16); "frighteningly out of control, undisciplined and unrepentant" (18); "social misfits" or "childish adults […] people who have little or 'no' life" (1), who "place inappropriate importance on devalued cultural material" (11). When these early discourses of fan studies are connected to autism studies, what becomes evident is the autistiphobic sentiment that engenders the neurospicy elephant in the room. For instance, Murray's observation of how autism becomes synonymous with "'odd' or even dangerous" and "obsessive" (2008, 9) bears implications for an understanding of fans as well as Autistic people, in their digression from neurotypical, hegemonic boundaries of affective detachment. Joli Jensen (1992) also recognized the perception of fandom as a "dangerous," "psychological symptom of a presumed social dysfunction" (9), highlighting the degree to which fans are denigrated in society as "psychologically incomplete" (23), "obsessed loner[s], suffering from a disease of isolation, or a frenzied crowd member, suffering from a disease of contagion" (13). Interpreted through a neuroqueer lens, these statements on the psychology of fans bear an intriguing resemblance to the "categorical sub-humanness" that Botha (2021, 5) observes in psychiatric discourse on Autistic people, highlighting the affinity between the "fan-as-pathology model" (Jensen 1992, 18) and the "pathology paradigm" of neurodivergence (Walker 2021).
[2.8] The fan pathology that "haunts" fan studies (Jensen 1992, 15) highlights a need to recognize the possibility that autistiphobia has framed this historic negative stereotyping of fans in culture and society. It is not my intention, however, in my contemplation of the pathological discourses surrounding both fans and Autistic people, to perpetuate them. Rather, the aim is to illuminate the pathologized origin that fandom and autism both share, which has led to the existence of the neurospicy elephant in the room of fan studies—and also in my own subconscious, further exposed via my neuroqueer reading of the fandom studies scholarship. (Perhaps, reader, there is a neurospicy elephant in your subconscious too.) Recognizing the neurospicy elephant in the room of fandom studies is the first step toward harnessing the power that our field holds: moving autism studies out of a pathology paradigm and into a neurodiversity paradigm.
[2.9] If being a fan is rooted in one's ontological, psychological difference from the norm, then we overlook this fundamental affinity between autism and fandom to the disadvantage of our disciplines. The dual positionalities of "fan" and "Autistic person" are connected in their shared stigmatization and Othering by, and the potential threat—or danger—they hold toward, the hegemonic "norm." As highlighted by the participants in Botha et al.’s (2022) study, reflecting on the stigma that they received for being Autistic, both fans and Autistic people alike are subordinated by hegemonic culture and society. Indeed, fans (neurodivergent or not) are excessive insofar as they are regulated by neurotypical hegemony. Thus fandom and autism are not disparate entities but rather located in a complex dynamic informed by the hegemonic logics of psychology and culture. The fan violates not only "dominant cultural hierarchies" (Jenkins 1992) but dominant neurological hierarchies through the expression of fan affect that is deemed irrational by neurotypical standards, where "cultural stigmatization of 'excessive' fandom" becomes aligned with the stigmatization of neurodivergence (Hills 2002, 90).
[2.10] If, as I am suggesting here, neurospicy people comprise a significant demographic in many fan cultures (and I mean this in the affirmative sense of fandom challenging the neurohegemonic order), then those pathologizing discourses of fans can be read as evidence of the extent to which fans threaten neurotypical dominance. If fan spaces are to be read as communities of unrepentant, neurocoded pride, then the threat that fans pose is clear: They threaten neurotypical dominion with a fannish ebullience that suggests an unwillingness—or inability—to conform. When read in this way, this has certain implications for the subject who refuses their social obligation to mask any behavior that challenges neurotypicality, and for those fan communities that naturally arise as vessels for this. That the fear of fans is rooted in autistiphobia (i.e., that neurohegemony is threatened via fan praxis) need not be a pathologizing claim to make in itself. Rather, when we commit ourselves to embracing the shadow side of Autistic presence with appropriate awareness and intention, it can alchemize into something transformative.
[2.11] If we are to conduct research that makes a difference, we must recognize that fandom forms an integral part of what is meaningful in the lives of many neurodivergent people. Nonetheless, to fully seize this opportunity, fan studies scholars need to acknowledge the pathological origins and autistiphobic parameters embedded in the figure of the fan. I should reemphasize that I am not claiming that all fans are Autistic (or neurodivergent), as this overlooks the neurodiverse complexity of fandom. Yet, as being Autistic exposes and conflicts with neurotypical social standards, fan cultures and fans, in their countercultural genesis, confront neurohegemony on multiple levels. Recognizing the neurospicy elephant in fan studies means acknowledging the possibility that autism has been implicated in fandom from the start, hence the discourses on stigmatization and pathology that have framed understandings of fans in research and culture. Is there an aspect of our discipline that is uncomfortable with recognizing that the stigmatization that fans have received arguably stems from autistiphobia? Yet, although pathology connects fandom and Autistic experience together, the two are so much more than that—and we can move beyond these wider societal framings in our research. The crucial factor for recognition is that fandom, via its disruptive passion, naturally offers a liberating affront to neurotypical standards, regardless of any diagnostic status of fans themselves. Beyond pathologizing discourses, there is another angle that exposes the fundamental symbiosis between fandom and autism studies, as I explore in the next section: the Autistic "special interest."
3. Fandom and the special interest
[3.1] The "special interest" is one of many Autistic love languages. Termed "an interest charged with feeling" (Murray et al. 2005, 140)—and known in clinical settings as monotropism (Grove et al. 2018)—it reveals the curious compatibility between fandom and autism studies that has been overlooked so far. Moreover, as autism is commonly distinguished by "the presence of restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior or special interests," fandom can become a site where this behavior is affirmed beyond negative and abnormal framings by clinical science (Grove et al. 2018, 766). While autism is predominantly characterized as social interaction that deviates from neurotypical norms, as well as repetitive interests that disrupt and threaten neurotypical etiquette, fannish practices can offer insights into Autistic sociality. This is highlighted by the "double empathy problem" (Milton 2014), where differences in Autistic and allistic (non-Autistic) communication inform misunderstandings of how Autistics are related to by allistics in research, culture, and society. Judged under neurotypical parameters, Autistic people are deemed antisocial, as opposed to simply differing from neurotypically prescribed social norms. The Autistic participants of Quadt et al.’s (2024) study, for instance, did not perceive themselves as loners but rather lonely because of the ostracization they experienced in neurotypical-dominant contexts. Studies increasingly observe that Autistic people enjoy socializing together via "special interests," directed toward fan objects and texts (Watts et al. 2025). The recognition of fan cultures as spaces of Autistic sociality can thus work to disrupt definitions of autism as being an antisocial condition. Just as fandom can be read as an extent of cultural difference via "affective play" (Hills 2002, 79), we can approach autism as a form of cultural difference in which the special interest (and fan space) emerges as the extent of that cultural difference.
[3.2] Constructing truly neuroaffirmative research means centering it on subjects that neurodivergent people find meaningful. This is a core aim of critical autism studies, framed around reclaiming and "centering" the "narratives [and experiences] of [A]utistic people" (Ryan and Milton 2023, 4). Grove et al. (2018) have noted the crucial importance of special interests to Autistic well-being, with 75 percent to 95 percent of Autistic people having special interests. Because "Autistic brains differ from allistic brains in how excitable our neurons are" (Price 2022, 21), the special interest, synonymous with fandom, can thus be read positively as a phenomenon of Autistic affect. Fandom studies—in its natural inclination toward passionate, affective-based interests—can provide the subjective and celebratory framework to autism and disability research that is greatly needed to counteract those discourses that frame them via abject and objectifying parameters. It is not necessary to demarcate the extent to which the Autistic special interest might be defined as a form of fandom—nor the levels of intensity that Autistic fandom can take, from the ardent to the casual. Nor do we need to quantitatively categorize fans based on subjective accounts of their passion to understand them. Instead, neuroaffirmative fandom studies can position itself from the angle of reflexive curiosity into particular lived experiences and the meaning that fandom brings to neurodivergent fans—how fandom forms an integral part of neurodivergent joy, in the words of one Autistic participant: "Our preferred way of de-stressing, recharging and just plain enjoying ourselves" (Grove et al. 2018, 773–74). Fan spaces, devoted to the exploration and communal sharing of special interests, provide insight into Autistic experience, connection, and healing—confronting common negative framings of autism as an undesirable disorder (Pellicano and den Houting 2022) from which Autistic people suffer (Botha et al. 2022). Fan communities may even offer a route into undoing the hurt autistic people experience (Ryan and Milton 2023). For instance, Maria Pramaggiore observes the animated series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic as a form of equine therapy for Autistic/ADHD Bronies, with the symbolism and "rhythmic motion" of horses helping to "negotiate the relationship between the self and the world" (2015, 11). Likewise, science fiction conventions and roleplay-based communities were absolutely central to the Autistic people in Fein's clinical ethnography (2020). Similarly, Katherine Anderson Howell (2025, 76) considered fan perceptions of the title character of the BBC series Sherlock as an Autistic "savant" while Leslie Manning (2015, 154) discussed Doctor Who fandom, with the character of the Doctor becoming "a positive example of the neuroexceptional 'other'[,] offer[ing] many benefits to an autistic community bereft of relatable heroes."
[3.3] Here is where fandom and media studies can craft inspirational new knowledge, rising from the ashes of stigmatization that deny Autistic people their right to "bodily integrity," "senses, imagination and thought," "emotions," "attachments," "affiliation" and "play" (Pellicano et al. 2024), offering new angles on Autistic fans' experiences, motivations, quality of life, friendships, and neurodivergent supports (Davey 2020, 44; Lilley et al. 2022). In this way, witnessing fandom as a manifestation of neurospicy joy works to re-humanize Autistic identities. The historical tendency for autism research to frame special interests as pathological (much like fandom itself was presented as pathological) calls for a reframing of those "restricted," "circumscribed," "perseverative," […] "obsessions" into "deeply focused thinking and passionate interests in specific subjects" (https://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan/about-autism/). If special interests play an important role in the lives of Autistic people, then can we allow ourselves to entertain the idea that fandom might be a space in which neurominorities are actually dominant? This need not be a scandalous claim to make if neurodivergence is to be truly affirmed.
[3.4] Neuroaffirmative research can acknowledge how Autistic people make sense of their place in a largely autistiphobic world, crafting spaces of imaginative joy via their special (i.e., fannish) interests (Murray 2008; Fein 2015); how fandom helps them navigate ostracization in daily life; the colonization of their bodyminds; and the denial of their inner realities and creative autonomy. And, conversely, it can bear insight into fandom as culture and community (Milton 2020) and what I have referred to elsewhere with a group of neurospicy researchers as "stim culture" (Rose et al. 2025). Autism becomes a "way of being" and fandom "a way of life" that holistically inform one another (Coppa 2014, 74), where we observe the lived experiences of ourselves and our coparticipants as a way of situating knowledge (see Ellcessor et al. 2017; Beardon 2022). Fandom is one of many beating hearts of Autistic joy and, as explored in the next section, studying fandom and autism together can advance research that prioritizes Autistic voices and pride. This is not to suggest that the relation of autism to fandom is uniformly positive (Murray 2008), nor does it negate the autistiphobic sentiment that also manifests within fan cultures, which are in themselves not devoid of neurohegemonic regulation and discipline. Rather, they operate as spaces where the boundaries of normality and neurohegemony are continually in-flux, caught between resistance and conformity.
4. Autism studies needs fandom studies
[4.1] Existing research on autism, usually led by non-Autistic researchers, approaches Autistic people as pathological weeds in need of being pulled out. Over 7,000 papers are published each year on Autistic people, often without collaborating with them, and failing to address the daily challenges they face (Botha and Cage 2022; Milton 2014). Moreover, less than 1 percent of these published outputs include participatory and community engagement (den Houting et al. 2024). Surely then, fandom—one of the most participatory and community-based subcultures—holds the key to unlocking new dimensions of neuroaffirmative, innovative, and inclusive research. To understand the issues underpinning autism studies, we can turn toward Walker's (2021) observations of the pathology paradigm. Clinical research has historically been, and continues to be, antithetical to a neuroaffirmative ethos (Ryan and Milton 2023), bearing a confirmation bias that is determined to prove the inferiority of Autistics to allistics (Pellicano and den Houting 2022)—something that even extends to the knowledge production process itself, as Botha (2021) has tied her own experiences of being dehumanized and devalued as an Autistic scholar in clinical research settings. As The Autism Self-Advocacy Network states, "This is not research that autistic people want. It doesn't help autistic people that are here now" (https://autisticadvocacy.org/about-asan/what-we-believe/). Moving autism research out of a pathology paradigm and into a neurodiversity paradigm requires much work (Walker 2021; Pellicano and den Houting 2022), which necessarily means turning toward other disciplines that, in their fundamental epistemological difference to the positivist sciences, can challenge the status quo (Botha 2021).
[4.2] Fan studies has been embedded in activist research since its origin, with the early and continuing objective of fan studies research aiming to "dismantle […] pathological explanations" of fandom (Jenkins 2007, 361). The "fandom is beautiful" phase of fandom studies (Coppa 2014) finds affinity with "autism is beautiful" discourses, highlighting fan spaces as valuable sites for the study of disability (Garg 2022, 28). Here, the vital work of scholars in media and disability studies can inform scholarship on neurodivergent communities, extending discourses on disability into (sub)culture (Ellcessor et al. 2017; Osteen 2010).
[4.3] The recognition that fandom is everywhere startles an autistiphobic subconscious as, should fandom operate as a site of neurospicy pride, the reality follows that autism is not something to be cured but rather explored and celebrated. The neuroqueer ethos finds compatibility with the many ways fans and fan cultures resist certain hierarchies (while they may arguably also conform to them), which lends itself to the study of the subversion of neuronormative, colonial, heteropatriarchal values that dominate daily life (Jenkins and Shresthova 2012). Fandom can thus act as an extension of neurominority pride, where the affirmation of autism via fandom (and vice versa) holds possibilities for a holistic undoing of those very hegemonic modes that have historically pathologized them.
[4.4] The methodological strengths that lie in fan studies can benefit autism research, as found in the use of (auto)ethnographic and reflexive methods to defend and celebrate fans beyond the marginalization they receive (Gray et al. 2017; Jenkins and Shresthova 2012). Studying fandom from a neuroqueer perspective need not solely focus on individual psychology, as Hills (2002) warned. In fact, in an interdisciplinary effort to advance the field of neurodivergent research to be more inclusive, affirmative, and innovative, I am interested in the fluxes and flows of neurodivergent experience in spaces of fandom, from the individual to the collective—how fandom shapes the lives and experiences of neurodivergent people and vice versa. Just as Jenkins (2007, 364) interpreted the proliferation of fandom as the end of a "centralized or dominant culture," so too can the neurodivergent awakening that is taking hold in wider society reveal the inherent neurodiversity that threatens understandings of what constitutes neurological normality.
[4.5] Fandom can thus offer exciting routes of discovery into research on neurodivergent experiences where researchers in autism studies have highlighted the need for more collaborative research between neurodivergent scholars and participants (Rosqvist et al. 2023; Ryan and Milton 2023; Robertson 2010). While Fein's (2020) ethnography mainly explored autism in those sites where it was overtly embedded, such as in clinical settings, I suggest fan/subcultural spaces as areas of rich collaboration. Fan spaces offer fresh, nonmedical arenas for scholars to engage with Autistic people on their own terms rather than in restrictive contexts that continue to perpetuate stigma. In the case of my research, I conducted the majority of my fieldwork within anime conventions. On those rare occasions when I interviewed a participant outside the field, the difference was notable: Participants were more confident and comfortable to express themselves within the home territory of the convention space and, by contrast, were shy outside it. In his chapter on "Autopia"—where dis/ability is liberated or confined depending on its context—Luke Beardon observes the following "golden rule": "autism + environment = outcome" (2022, 162). This became evident in my fieldwork, where I perceived fan spaces as environments that produce different, more empowering outcomes for neurospicy people than in daily life, bearing the potential for positive framings of neurodivergent experiences. Nonetheless, we must humble ourselves as researchers in being invited into fans' worlds.
[4.6] This is not an invitation for positivist lab coat wearers to exploit fan spaces and objectify fans (Botha 2023). Nor should we automatically read fandom as native spaces of Autistic or neurodivergent culture, primed for generalization and dissection. A truly neuroaffirmative approach will acknowledge the possibility of neurospiciness and its fluctuations and nuances in fan spaces without trying to simplify its complexity. It will bask in the "permeable personhood" that comprises neurodiversity in all its forms (Fein 2020, 235), observing how neurodiversity and autistiphobia in fandom are intersectionally shaped as well (Botha and Gillespie-Lynch 2022). It will explore how fandom and subcultural spaces offer a platform for self-exploration, embodiment, communication, and sharing among neurodivergent fans, recognizing fandom as offering "spaces where the neuro is lived" (Fein 2020, 7). If the special interest is the essential kernel around which the fruity flesh of fandom forms, then situating ourselves in these spaces for the purposes of neuroaffirmative research opens up new possibilities for discovery and subverting traditional power hierarchies in autism research. Here we can honor the autonomy of neurodivergent fans in sharing their inner worlds, what is meaningful to them, and what would improve their experience in living in a neurotypically governed world.
[4.7] As an extension of the neurospicy awakening that is happening across different sectors in research, culture, and society, the clinical sciences are on the brink of a neuroaffirmative revolution, bearing potential for a cross-disciplinary collaboration (Pellicano and den Houting 2022). Den Houting et al. raise the importance of directing research around "building capability [of neurodivergent participants and researchers], sustaining partnerships, and challenging [the] power differentials" (2024, 417) that have characterized autism research. We must recognize that arts and humanities researchers can drive this ontological, epistemological, and methodological change in direction, collaborating with researchers in autism studies who bear the ethos of a neurodiversity paradigm. Where "autism research has been characterized by a narrowness of perspective" (Pellicano and den Houting 2022, 385), fandom and media studies provide a means of expanding that perspective into new territory. The inherent interdisciplinarity of fandom studies is an example of its compatibility with neuroaffirmative approaches, providing a solution to Stuart Murray's observation of the need for understanding autism beyond "scientific or medical categorization" (2008, 10) and, likewise, an alternative to Walker's warning against "fall[ing] into the trap of thinking that the disability studies lens is the only useful way to think about neurodiversity" (quoted in Gray-Hammond 2022; see also Anderson Howell 2025).
[4.8] Fan studies may be the discipline that can pioneer a more purposeful and creative direction in neuroaffirmative research, considering that these dual elements of stigma/deficit and joy/passion form two sides of the same coin for autism and fandom studies alike. Recognizing that the coin has two sides—both negative and positive—will lead to more comprehensive research where, combined, both fields can highlight the holistic interplay of these dualistic forces, illuminating new pathways of thought.
5. Conclusion
[5.1] Both fandom and autism manifest as cultural difference in opposition to (and nonetheless informed by) mainstream, neurohegemonic society. Both fans and Autistic people alike violate dominant cultural and neurological hierarchies via their passionate expression of their special interests, deemed abnormal by neurotypical definition (Murray et al. 2005; Pellicano et al. 2024). Here, I raised fandom's natural ability to offer a liberating affront to neurotypical standards, regardless of any diagnostic status of fans themselves. I also highlighted two curious connections between fandom and autism studies: the historical stigmatization that the fan and Autistic subject both share and the Autistic special interest as being the unexplored, joyful alternative to what has been widely emphasized in autism research to be a deficit. As fandom scholars, we can observe how fandom affirms Autistic presence while also acknowledging those contexts where Autistic presence is overlooked. Autistic people can make their "presence felt through their entry into the domain of cultural representation" (Murray 2008, 16) and this is something that we overlook at the risk of negligence of our disciplines.
[5.2] We are on the precipice of a new wave of neuroaffirmative research, driven by the arts and humanities and social sciences. Contemplating the neuroaffirmative potential of fan studies involves embracing those shadow aspects that are tied to fandom and autism, approaching them with a sensitive awareness that can make visible autistiphobic and pathologizing discourses. Addressing the neurospicy elephant of fan studies means acknowledging the fear that the doubly pathologized Autistic fan holds in contaminating fan studies and the transformational possibilities for both autism and fandom research that lie latent in this. Insofar as we are moving beyond pathologizing discourses of autism and fandom, if neurodiversity is a natural aspect of humanity (and neurodivergence a natural expression of that human diversity), then acknowledging that many fans are neurodivergent—and that fandom helps affirm their neurodivergent experiences—shouldn't be problematic. Moreover, given that the neurodiversity movement was founded on Autistic culture and community, we can observe that fandom is an important part of autism acceptance, offering avenues for leading the autonomous lives Autistic people want.
[5.3] Realizing that fans are at the forefront of this neurodivergent awakening invites new possibilities, where neurotypicality is no longer seen as the norm. Nonetheless, the elephant is spicy for a reason, threatening to burn your tongue if you dare speak its name. This may also be characterized as a prickling rage that feels injury and anger—and rightly so, if we consider the years of dehumanization underpinning neurodivergent experiences (Botha 2021). We need to reflexively honor this in our research, too—the right to feel offended, unsettled, and disturbed, and to work toward responding with compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. These feelings fuel the creative fire that inspires us to craft better research that transcends obsolete approaches that objectify and castigate neurodivergent people as ultimately Other and wrong. To return to the opening aphorism, fan cultures provide spaces where fans realize themselves as flowers in the right place, forming their own communities of support. As fandom studies scholars, we can harness the untapped potential of fan culture to shape the direction of inclusive, neuroaffirmative research that, by extension, holds rich opportunities for fandom and media and cultural studies as a whole.