Banal Autistic Social Media: A Found Footage Autoethnography
Kay Kender, Katta Spiel · 2023 · Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3597638.3614552
Summary
This position paper argues for designing social media platforms that support thriving neurodiverse online communities, moving beyond deficit-focused approaches that treat autistic users as needing to be "fixed" to match neurotypical social norms. The authors introduce "Banal Autistic Design" — a design paradigm where autistic needs and preferences are considered from the outset rather than retrofitted as accommodations. The first author, a recently diagnosed autistic researcher and social media design expert, conducted what they term a "Found Footage Autoethnography" — a new methodological variant they propose as particularly suited to autistic embodied ways of knowing. Over five months in 2022, the first author collected 194 screenshots across 69 days documenting their daily engagements with Instagram, Twitter, and Tumblr. Unlike traditional diary-based autoethnography, this approach involved collecting artefacts in the moment (described as soothing, like "collecting chestnuts") and then retrospectively analyzing them — accommodating autistic experiences like burnout and memory difficulties that make sustained diary-keeping impractical. The analysis organized findings along emotional dimensions of distress, stress, and joy, revealing how different platforms' design affordances differentially impact autistic well-being. Twitter's algorithmic feed and outrage-prioritizing design consistently produced distress and stress, while Tumblr's chronological following-based feed and interest-centric structure consistently produced joy.
Key findings
The paper identifies four concrete design principles for "banal autistic" social media. First, non-prescriptive design: platforms should not attempt to elicit specific behaviors or determine what users see through algorithmic feeds, instead allowing users to assemble their own modes of usage through sophisticated hashtag and following systems inspired by fanfiction portals. Second, anti-normative design: rather than helping autistic users "get it right" (conform to neurotypical norms), design should support "getting it" — understanding situated needs — through features like profile areas describing interaction styles and tone/intent labelling on content. Third, deep customization: giving users granular control over visibility, engagement, content exposure, and the ability to create social groups and toggle content across multiple publics. Fourth, smaller granular spaces with interest-centricity: moving away from large public spaces toward overseeable communities organized around shared interests (like Tumblr and Reddit) rather than personal profiles (like Twitter and Instagram). The paper contrasts the first author's experiences across platforms — Instagram's algorithm required exhausting "training" rituals that made content consumption meaningless, Twitter's "For You" feed imposed unwanted distressing content, while Tumblr's following-based chronological feed reliably delivered desired content without algorithmic interference.
Relevance
This paper challenges the dominant paradigm in HCI accessibility research that frames autistic social media use through a deficit lens, proposing instead that mainstream platforms are designed around neurotypical assumptions that systemically exclude autistic socialities. The concept of "banal autistic design" — designing with autistic needs as default rather than exceptional — directly parallels universal design principles: what benefits autistic users (user control, reduced sensory overwhelm, interest-based community, content transparency) benefits everyone. For accessibility practitioners, the paper's critique of algorithmic feeds as inherently hostile to autistic filtering needs has broad implications for any platform serving neurodivergent users. The Found Footage Autoethnography method offers a valuable addition to the accessibility research toolkit, demonstrating how research methods themselves can be adapted to accommodate disabled researchers' embodied ways of knowing rather than demanding conformity to neurotypical research norms.
Tags: autism · neurodiversity · social media · design justice · autoethnography · inclusive design · design power · sensory overload · online communities