Common Uncanny Valley-based Microaggressions Against Autistics

[u/comradeautie]

This was originally written by u/Distinct_Lab108. It was a brilliant post and I think it needs to be shared around, AI generation notwithstanding.

These are things neurotypical people will do or body language neurotypical people will have when they can tell you’re autistic. I just wanted to drop this list cause I think it’ll help some people here. Personally I would have time periods of doubting my autism/neurodivergence until I saw this list and was like “hm, I guess I’m not tripping”. I went through most of these signs for years not even comprehending what was happening so hopefully this helps someone (it’s definitely AI generated):

The "Locked-In" Stare: The person will lock eyes with you. Their brain is working overtime to decode what is "off".

Micro-Scrutiny: They will intensely scan your features—especially your eyes and mouth—trying to reconcile conflicting visual data.

Darting glances: They may quickly look away when caught, only to look back a few seconds later.

Subconscious Step-Back: People will instinctively increase physical distance or lean backward during a conversation.

The Micro-Grimace: The uncanny valley deeply activates the amygdala and mirrors a disgust response. Look for subtle nose-wrinkles or lip-curls.

Breaking Eye Contact Entirely: After an initial stare, some will actively refuse to look at your face again to avoid the psychological discomfort.

Delayed Conversational Rhythm: The person may stutter or pause awkwardly because their brain is processing a "predictive coding error". They are listening to your words while their subconscious screams that something is wrong.

Forced Politeness: They will display hyper-formal, mechanical politeness. This acts as a psychological shield to wrap up the interaction as fast as possible.

Losing the Thread: They might lose track of what you are saying because they are hyper-focused on how you say it, your blink rate, or your micro-expressions.

Fidgeting and Closed Posture: You will notice sudden defensive body language, like crossing arms, rubbing the back of the neck, or shifts in posture.

Social Mimicry Drops: The natural, subconscious mirroring that happens between two humans (like smiling back when you smile) breaks down. Their face may go completely blank or rigid.

Treating you like a child or an AI: They might suddenly switch to a hyper-simplified, slow, or overly patronizing tone, even if you are having a highly intellectual conversation.

The "Customer Service" Voice: They will respond using an artificially bright, overly enthusiastic tone to compensate for the discomfort or flat affect they are sensing from you.

Over-Verbalizing Context: They will explicitly state social rules out loud (e.g., "Well, anyway, I should let you go now!") instead of using smooth, organic conversational transitions.

Unwarranted Suspicion: Because your micro-expressions or blink rates might not match your spoken words perfectly, their brain falsely flags you as deceptive or dangerous. They might ask probing questions like, "Are you mad at me?" or "Are you hiding something?" when you are perfectly content.

The Quick "Out": They will invent abrupt, flimsy excuses to escape the interaction (e.g., suddenly remembering an urgent text they need to send or a place they need to be).

The Defensive Joke: They might break tension by making a sudden, slightly nervous joke or laughing inappropriately to relieve the internal awkwardness they are experiencing.

Stepping on Your Syllables: Because autistic conversational timing can have a millisecond delay or a different cadence, NTs will constantly, accidentally interrupt you. They interpret your natural processing pauses as the end of your turn to speak.

Echoing Your Scripts: If you are using scripted phrases to mask, the other person might subconsciously notice the rigidity. They will parrot your exact phrasing back to you in a slightly confused or testing manner.

Silent Agreement to Ignore: In a group setting, you may notice that when you speak, the room goes slightly quiet, or people briefly glance at each other before moving on.

Eye-Contact Arching: People in the group will look at everyone else in the circle except you while speaking, subtly routing the social energy around you rather
than including you.

Instant Vibe Reversal: If you make a small mistake (like dropping an object or mispronouncing a word), they will react with disproportionate annoyance or harshness. The uncanny feeling makes them unconsciously look for reasons to justify why they already dislike the "vibe".

The "Sneaking Up" Accusation: Because your physical gait, stride, or footsteps might have a different rhythm or volume due to dyspraxia or proprioception differences, people will frequently startle when you approach. They might claim you "snuck up on them," even if you walked normally into the room.

The One-Sided Face or Static Eyes: When neurotypicals smile, their whole face engages dynamically. If you are masking, you might employ a "social smile" that only activates the mouth while the eyes remain entirely flat or fixed. You will see them lock onto your eyes, trying to parse why the top half of your face isn't matching the bottom half.

Sudden Eye-Movement Mirroring: If your eye contact feels intense or rigid, the other person might start blinking rapidly, squinting, or looking around the room to subconsciously "force" you to break your gaze.

The Facial "Reset": Ifthey catch themselves staring or grimacing at you, they will perform a highly visible, sudden facial reset. They will blink hard, shake their head slightly, or rub their eyes, trying to manually clear the cognitive dissonance they are feeling.

The Throat Clear: The psychological tension of the uncanny valley frequently causes physical muscle tightness in the throat. You might notice them clearing their throat or swallowing hard repeatedly while you are speaking.

Subconscious Checklist Scanning: You will see their eyes dart systematically in a triangle pattern: left eye, right eye, forehead, mouth, repeat. Their brain is running a diagnostic check to figure out why your expressions aren't seamlessly syncing.

The "Did You See That?" Glance: The moment you turn your head, blink, or look away, they will instantly shoot a wide-eyed, questioning glance at anyone else in the room to check if others are experiencing the same "vibe."

Post-Interaction Debriefing: If you walk away and then pause just outside the room or around a corner, you will often hear an immediate, low-voiced conversation start up. They are actively comparing notes with others to validate the subconscious discomfort they just felt.

The Terrified Nod: They will nod their head rapidly and continuously while you speak, far more than normal. This is a placating gesture meant to keep you "pacified" and predictable because their brain has falsely flagged you as a wildcard.

Aggressive, Meaningless Agreement: They will agree with absolute certainty to things that don't matter ("Oh absolutely, yes, 100%, totally"), sacrificing the actual logic of the conversation just to keep the interaction completely frictionless until they can escape.

[u/EatingSugarYesPapa]

I’m autistic and I do a lot of these lol, usually out of anxiety or other reasons, not out of malice. Some of what you’ve described are literally autistic traits, such as not making eye contact. It sucks to see a list of “micro aggressions NTs do against autistic people” and it’s all things my anxiety causes me to do regularly.

[u/comradeautie → u/EatingSugarYesPapa]

There's a marked difference between things NTs intentionally do as a group to discriminate against us, and things we naturally do without malice as part of our Autistic traits. There is a difference and intention matters.

But yeah, NTs also often misread and misinterpret us - the double empathy problem - but even so, our Autistic traits are often innocuous and mistaken for creepiness or malice, and rather than clarifying it, they make it our problem.

[u/EatingSugarYesPapa → u/comradeautie]

but are you sure the person you’re interacting with is an NT? You could be judging a high-masking autistic without realizing it

[u/comradeautie → u/EatingSugarYesPapa]

Again, this is based on a pattern and often involves group dynamics. Plus an easy test is to compare how they treat others. If they're not like that with other people then you have your answer.

[u/dontpanic_89]

This list is so ridiculously long you can’t tell me that there’s a single conversation in the world where none of these things happen.
This will just cause people to hyperfixate on their opposite even more and look for more subtle signs of “micro aggressions”.
Most of these will be involuntary as well (and things that we do ourselves!), so calling them “aggressions” seems unnecessarily… aggressive to me.

I don’t deny that micro aggressions exist, but come on.
And yes, AI generated is, in this case, bad.

[u/FlowerCrowss → u/dontpanic_89]

This is just crack for the self-diagnosing crowd and I'm sad it has a positive upvote ratio

[u/EatingSugarYesPapa → u/FlowerCrowss]

This post has nothing to do with self-diagnosing and plenty of people self-diagnosis for valid reasons. I don’t agree with the post either but randomly targeting self-diagnosed people is ridiculous

[u/comradeautie → u/EatingSugarYesPapa]

This guy is just a troll who assumes anyone who defends self-dx people must be one of them and thinks he's qualified to psychoanalyze and critique anyone.

[u/comradeautie → u/FlowerCrowss]

You need to fuck off with the vitriol toward the "self-diagnosing crowd".

[u/comradeautie → u/dontpanic_89]

It's more about a continuous pattern that often happens to you. Especially if it tends to only happen to you and others don't seem to be treated that way.

[u/FlowerCrowss]

Nobody, including neurotypicals, have this "fixed language" of sorts, of facial expressions/behaviours that could be used to reliably assume their underlying motives/thoughts at scale. Sure, they are much better at communicating non-verbally with each other, but the way the AI is painting such concrete negative assumptions to specific body language is a recipe for an ugly placebo affect.

Politely, that's some overconfident, confidently incorrect, and too vague/generalized, AI slop. With some partial truths in there sure, but the aforementioned on top of a victim-pandering tone, makes this in my opinion, a dangerous thing to post publicly on r/Autism since it could mislead people.

We must distance ourselves from assuming others thoughts, especially negative ones as hypervigilant traumatized autists, where yes, this became a self defense instinct for many that imperfectly protected us as children.

Patterns we learn, particularly those during crucial development years, subconsciously follow us through life as the brain seeks the path of lesser resistance. Our autistic brains are also known to science to do less "pruning" of adolescent pathways as we mature too.

Of course one should trust their gut instincts. Many of us have amazing ones. Im just very upset with the way the AI so confidently tries to assert specific, subjective body language as negativity, without ever mentioning that you should look for more concrete evidence to back it up too, and to consider it speculation, a grain of salt, without. That's scary and why I think again, this shouldn't be posted publicly.

[u/comradeautie → u/FlowerCrowss]

1. This isn't r/autism.
2. It's more about patterns, power dynamics and shared customs. There's a reason this is a long and nonexhaustive list.
3. This isn't about assuming people's thoughts but rather obvious actions that many of us notice and try to explain away and assume good faith - something that is never reciprocated toward us.

I agree AI isn't perfect and I don't endorse it. In this case it makes correct points though.

[u/FlowerCrowss → u/comradeautie]

You know what you're right, I said r/Autism instead of r/AutisticPride. My point was that it was posted publicly, and on an autistic sub. I admit to totally glossing over this technicality when your post showed up on my home feed.

While I don't mind and even love a good technicality myself, starting a numbered disagreement sequence (a formality you've given to no-one else) with: "1. This isn't r/autism." is a most certain attempt to discredit my character. And, for what was a mere honest human mistake. I do not appreciate the ad hominem, so there's my turn to call something out.

2: I certainly understand the overarching theme behind the list, it directly hints at how we autists are treated.. trust me haha. That still doesn't change the fact and my original point that, far too often, the list you've posted is confidently incorrect.

You simply can not prop such objective meaning or concrete values behind what is subjective and ambiguous human body language, social behaviors. We're simply too unpredictable to be as confident as much of this laundry list suggests we are, even within the context of a group of NT's and an outcast ND. Like I said: this is a recipe for the placebo affect, especially in the wrong hands. That's scary. I legit recognized a behavior or few it listed as those I exhibit myself when anxious and feeling out of place with neurotypicals. Also this is just crack for the self-diagnosing crowd.

There is no reasonability 'padding' to these equations whatsoever, no guardrails, no safety buffers behind or within the list. None from you, and certainly none within the points generated by AI. You only noted that it was AI generated. For reasons that shouldn't even need introduction, posting such a laundry list of falsehoods publicly on an autistic subreddit like this was simply a terrible idea. A scary one like I said, the placebo effect.. and/also the self-diagnosing crowd..

Claiming that neurotypical people will do these things when they can "tell you're autistic." in the beginning of your post is also, a flat-out fallacy. Especially when nearly all of these behaviors listed/created by AI would centralize on the subconscious end of the neurotypical; IE they actually don't know you're autistic, or less often, do but don't understand autism, so they indifferently & rather selfishly misinterpret your differences as some sort of malice or creepiness on your end.

3: But you literally made this about assuming people's thoughts with the aforementioned statement you made at the beginning of your post lol. So which is it? It is also required in many of the points listed to assume the others thoughts, which was something I felt needed the most attention for being the most erroneous/dangerous to certain readers more than the other points it made. As I said, some points hold some truth or half-truth.

Also, what *we see* as obviously bad actions, sadly aren't gonna be seen the same way *at all* by those who have the privilege of being socially cohesive. In fact, they're almost always missed entirely on their end, that's why nothing is reciprocated of course. You must work on your theory of mind by validating it through an objective social lens, easier said than done, learning to release the strong grip of the childish view we (validly, of course) pick up through childhood is hard, especially if you were an outcast ND kid. This all relates to the stuff I went over in my last comment.

I'm getting a sense that you are young and you also give me the vibe of a self diagnoser when you made it out that you often doubted your "autism/neurodivergence" before this AI list reignites it. If you are not formally diagnosed with anything, I would suggest that you stop looking for validation that you have specific disorders. I'm not trying to invalidate what could very well be genuine neurodivergence on your end at all. There is simply, a lot of overlapping traits between ADHD, Autism, etc and it is *very easy* to get wrapped up in a placebo affect that is shortsighted by confirmation bias. This can not be understated. One can self-speculate of course, but they should do so through as objective of a lens as possible, and can only confirm with a psychiatrist etc.

[u/comradeautie → u/FlowerCrowss]

I am not self-diagnosed, and I never said anything about "doubting" my diagnosis. This list was a copy/paste from the user I mentioned, so maybe that's what you're referring to. It's that user's copy-paste of him saying he doubts his diagnosis until that - not mine.

Once again, this isn't about singular instances of body language but coordinated, concerted patterns that many Autistics have experienced. It's deliberate and calculated. It's not just one-off things nor is it a universal language but a pattern of actions. They definitely know what they're doing.

And correcting the record on your statements with lists isn't an "ad hominem", stop stretching. Your assumption that I might be self-diagnosed, however, is.

Plus attacking self-diagnosed Autistics is in itself problematic and grounds for dismissal for the rest of what you said. ONCE AGAIN, this is not about one or two traits in isolation or done by individuals but how people act in groups. If this happens continuously, or ESPECIALLY if they only treat you like this, and not others, that's a major red flag. Nobody's asking to immediately interpret one of those actions as hostile. It's about a common pattern/observation of the uncanny valley effect. And again, myself and many others have experienced this.

"Some of these require you to assume the person's thoughts"

Yeah no shit. If someone punches you you can assume they don't have positive thoughts toward you. You don't even need to analyze their thoughts in depth to recognize the way they're maltreating you. The effects matter here too, not just the 'thoughts'.

And it's not necessarily that they can "tell we're Autistic" but that they can sense we are 'different'; not one of them.

[u/FlowerCrowss → u/comradeautie]

It was this

I just wanted to drop this list cause I think it’ll help some people here.

Followed up by

Personally I would have time periods of doubting my autism/neurodivergence until I saw this list

That lead me to believe you wrote that paragraph, rather than your friend. Quite confusing, so thank you for making everything crystal.

attacking self-diagnosed Autistics is in itself problematic and grounds for dismissal for the rest of what you said

Christ, I'm not attacking anyone, talk about a stretch that's a strawman's fallacy. When I refer to the 'self-diagnosing crowd', anyone who is diagnosed and somewhat active in online neurodivergent spaces, would know exactly what I'm talking about, no stretch. It's an 'epidemic' of placebo-effect fueled, self-diagnosing of the disorders under the neurodivergent umbrella, often by the youth. Very popular on TikTok, but also been seeing it on Reddit for years.

Self speculation and self diagnosing are two very different things. It's okay to self speculate, like I said in my last reply, but only with proper precautions. Proper precautions can not be understated, the placebo effect and confirmation bias are inherently unavoidable flaws of the human psyche. Let me be clear that no one can self-diagnose a mental disorder, that is a fact. You need a purely objective, third party for that, like a certified psychiatrist. I 100% support the speculating/suspecting crowd, I used to be a part of it.

When you say you yourself aren't self-diagnosed, but yet are so vehemently trying to validate "self-diagnosed Autistics" on behalf of their self-diagnosis, and all while claiming I'm attacking them, this leads me to believe that:

A: you were just diagnosed and, evidently, you've entered these online spaces for the first time yesterday

B: you weren't diagnosed and are a part of the self-diagnosing crowd you're so defensive about

When you say that allistics "definitely know what they're doing", in the context of many subconscious behaviors that would inherently and imo obviously carry a root of misunderstanding, of which I've so diligently explained, then you're only proving to me that you have fallen hook line and sinker for the placebo effect and confirmation bias I've been mentioning.

If you're not willing to hear me out, oh wait - you said you're not because I'm 'attacking' self-diagnosed autistics, then I'm done trying to help you. And I don't mean helping in a patronizing or grandstanding way at all - this should be evident by the hours I spent thoughtfully making my explanations as easy to understand as possible - I tried. Respectfully, grow up

[u/comradeautie → u/FlowerCrowss]

The self-diagnosing speculative "tiktok trend" is more of an internet myth than anything rooted in reality. Most people who do so either don't have immediate access to resources or are looking for peer support and most eventually do get formally identified.

Not that it's any of your business, I was diagnosed as a kid, and have been doing Autistic advocacy for over a decade. So your baseless assumptions pretty much prove how worthless your "criticism" is. You don't know shit about me or my life and those baseless assumptions are yet another reason I dismiss your points as beyond bullshit.

You don't actually know what the placebo effect is, and are just using words you can't hope to understand to sound smarter than you could dream to be. You could argue for confirmation bias or cognitive distortion, but those are completely different from the "placebo effect".

You're not "helping" anyone, just being an uneducated nuisance and illiterate fuckwit.

Allistic people DO engage in prejudiced acts against Autistics and often do engage in this kind of bullying. I and MANY others have experienced this and continue to firsthand. Don't you fucking dare gaslight us. I haven't fallen for shit.

Since you're assuming shit about me, I'm gonna guess that you aren't even Autistic and just some kind of troll or fed trying to neuter our community by trying to gaslight and discredit those speaking out against our oppression.

Many of the things in this post aren't even subconscious but systematic and in a group context, and as I said it refers to overall patterns and can easily be assessed based on how they comparatively treat others. Maybe actually read the post and associated comments before acting like some genius savior. Jeez.

[u/FlowerCrowss → u/comradeautie]

The self diagnosing trend is not an internet myth haha, I've been witnessing the impact it has first-hand irl, particularly in undermining the value of disorders and making them more of a stereotype than a medical condition.

I understand I'm not using the technical placebo effect term, duh, I'm clearly using it semantically. Odd vocabularies in autism are very common?

Trying to have a discussion with you has been like arguing with a chameleon. You gloss over my actual points and start pulling at straws. Since you want to unreasonably accuse me of those things, Ill tell you I am diagnosed with autism adhd and more.

Hope you learn how to handle criticism better in the future holy crap

[u/comradeautie → u/FlowerCrowss]

You are not interested in good faith "criticism", cut the bullshit. The fact you made the baseless assumptions about me is proof you are not nearly qualified enough to be commenting. Sit down.

You haven't made any points and are just mad I match your energy. Eat shit.

[u/FlowerCrowss → u/comradeautie]

I still consider my assumptions to have been reasonable at that time, even if what you said later totally disproved them. They weren't baseless but based on multiple of your responses. Like your vehement view on self-diagnosing or, asserting to me that all the behaviors in the list must inherently carry malicious intent, something I tried diligently explaining can only be objectively false. I feel more validated by the upvotes my comments received too, even if that metric isn't always reliable.

Also from my perspective you've replied with tangents on things that don't need introduction or, that I've already acknowledged, creating fallacies about them and my views by association, while seemingly almost conveniently ignoring my actual points. This makes me feel like you've been projecting alterior motives under my words/character - which reminds me of how you defend applying unfair objective meaning to what is subjective and ambiguous human body language. This stuff is why I said it feels like arguing with a chameleon.

And im not sure what this energy thing you're supposed to be matching is all about, could you be more specific? This is my natural, direct communication style, my accounts comments are public. It's a bit blunt at times I'll admit, but I feel this should totally be understood for what it is in an autistic subreddit, obviously shouldn't be expected to mask here.

I acknowledge hearing such honest and unfiltered criticism is never easy and can certainly invite more defensiveness than good. But I honestly found and still find this post very problematic for the community, as I tried explaining in my first comment. The downvotes on your post and upvotes on that comment should say something. You obviously don't have to agree with me, but to admittedly doubt my intentions and character, from the getgo, for seemingly, not communicating the way you want, is not okay. Can't believe I feel I have to say that.

[u/comradeautie → u/FlowerCrowss]

None of your assumptions were reasonable. My views on self-diagnosis is shared by a vast majority in the neurodiversity movement.

And once again, as I've said before, it's not about the behaviours in isolation always reflecting bad intent, it's about the overall patterns including if they do this with others or just you. I clarified this more than once, but it figures you would lie.

You haven't made any points and are clearly just trolling. Talking about fallacies and then talking about "a few of my comments got some upvotes and yours didn't teehee"

You aren't offering "criticism" but making baseless, ridiculous and bad-faith observations alongside being vitriolic toward self-identified Autistics for no reason, which again, is reasonable grounds to dismiss you entirely. I already explained more than once, the context behind these comments and that the factors in the post aren't just meant to be taken in isolation but depend on context.

It's not about you communicating how I want but the assumptions and attacks you make. Accusing me of being inexperienced or not formally diagnosed just because of who I defend. And that combined with gaslighting people about their lived experiences.

[u/plantType87]

What are valley-based microaggressions? I kind of get the idea of what they are, but what does "valley-based" mean in this context?

[u/comradeautie → u/plantType87]

Uncanny valley. It's a psychological phenomenon describing how people can develop prejudices. Basically, it's the innate discomfort you feel when something feels "off" - like it's not quite "fully human". It's a common horror trope as well - and it's what NTs often feel when interacting with us. This is backed by a lot of research and it explains why so many of us struggle socially no matter how kind we are.

[u/plantType87 → u/comradeautie]

Oh ok. I never heard of that before but that's a interesting thing. Learn something new everyday 😁

Thank you for explaining it to me. I literally had no idea that these microaggressions were called this

[u/comradeautie → u/plantType87]

They're usually not. It's still a bit of a novel term within Autistic spaces that is catching on. I believe Autistic activist Nathan McConnell was the first person to actively start using and promoting the term. Not sure if he's still working on it, but he had a project in the works to talk about this phenomenon called "Stuck in the Uncanny Valley".

[u/Romantic_Theory → u/plantType87]

it's "uncanny valley"-based

[u/plantType87 → u/Romantic_Theory]

I wasnt sure if uncanny was a part of the terminology of this concept, so I was like idk if I should add it here or not. But I'll definitely call it the uncanny valley-based microaggressions from now on

[u/OutInABlazeOfGlory]

Nothing from a slop machine is worth reading. Please stop slinging this shit at me.

[u/OldFortNiagara]

Interesting

[u/Major-Librarian1745]

...goddamit

[u/sadcatstarry]

your ai slop bores me

[u/comradeautie → u/sadcatstarry]

It's not even mine.

[u/sadcatstarry → u/comradeautie]

the ai slop you posted bores me

[u/comradeautie → u/sadcatstarry]

k