(no subject)
Oct. 7th, 2021 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brin_bellway[arguably cw: ableism]
When I first saw the term "hyperfixation" in use it seemed to refer specifically to something short-term, that thing ADHD people are particularly prone to where one gets absorbed in doing something and one looks up and it's six hours later and one hasn't eaten. But lately I've been seeing people use it in a way that sounds more like perseveration/special-interest, a longer-term "like falling in love with something that isn't a person" thing.
Is the term "special interest" going the way of "perseveration" before it? I understood that switch because the meaning of "special interest" is more intuitive, but why the move to "hyperfixation"? It sounds more pathologising, for one thing (with that "hyper-" prefix), and I'm sure that *could* be reclaimed and probably already has been in some circles, but I'm confused as to why one would use a new term that's more of a fixer-upper than the previous term.
Do...do The Youth not *know* the term "special interest", and had to expand the meaning of "hyperfixation" to cover it because they *had* no word for it otherwise? Is...is that what happened last time too, did The Youth of the 2010's not *know* that people in the 00's called it "perseveration"?
I-- I don't know, it's hard to get a good perspective on these kinds of things, to know the difference between cultural shifts that are actually happening and shifts that are artifacts of whom I happen to be hanging out with. Reading a retrospective on the rise and fall of New Atheism was a strange experience: I'd assumed they were still out there, and that it was just that I personally wasn't reading the right blogs to encounter them anymore.
Likewise, I saw a Tumblr post a while back saying that the asexual community had been stifled so much by constant external flamewars that it had disrupted the flow of culture and mentorship between generations, and that newly coming-of-age aces knew nothing about asexual culture of a decade before. That, too, I'd assumed was an artifact of my personal experience: I still consider myself at least *approximately* ace, but it's not a big part of my identity and I've drifted away from asexual spaces. For that matter, it still *could* be an artifact of personal experience: for all I know, the Tumblrite may have been reading too much into their own view of the elephant.
I'm not against slang, but the words for a non-ephemeral concept should not be *exclusively* ephemeral. We shouldn't have to invent new terms for a *fundamental aspect of our mental landscapes* every few years because each new generation was left to figure it out by themselves.
Today's 13-year-olds deserve what I had when I was 13.
When I first saw the term "hyperfixation" in use it seemed to refer specifically to something short-term, that thing ADHD people are particularly prone to where one gets absorbed in doing something and one looks up and it's six hours later and one hasn't eaten. But lately I've been seeing people use it in a way that sounds more like perseveration/special-interest, a longer-term "like falling in love with something that isn't a person" thing.
Is the term "special interest" going the way of "perseveration" before it? I understood that switch because the meaning of "special interest" is more intuitive, but why the move to "hyperfixation"? It sounds more pathologising, for one thing (with that "hyper-" prefix), and I'm sure that *could* be reclaimed and probably already has been in some circles, but I'm confused as to why one would use a new term that's more of a fixer-upper than the previous term.
Do...do The Youth not *know* the term "special interest", and had to expand the meaning of "hyperfixation" to cover it because they *had* no word for it otherwise? Is...is that what happened last time too, did The Youth of the 2010's not *know* that people in the 00's called it "perseveration"?
I-- I don't know, it's hard to get a good perspective on these kinds of things, to know the difference between cultural shifts that are actually happening and shifts that are artifacts of whom I happen to be hanging out with. Reading a retrospective on the rise and fall of New Atheism was a strange experience: I'd assumed they were still out there, and that it was just that I personally wasn't reading the right blogs to encounter them anymore.
Likewise, I saw a Tumblr post a while back saying that the asexual community had been stifled so much by constant external flamewars that it had disrupted the flow of culture and mentorship between generations, and that newly coming-of-age aces knew nothing about asexual culture of a decade before. That, too, I'd assumed was an artifact of my personal experience: I still consider myself at least *approximately* ace, but it's not a big part of my identity and I've drifted away from asexual spaces. For that matter, it still *could* be an artifact of personal experience: for all I know, the Tumblrite may have been reading too much into their own view of the elephant.
I'm not against slang, but the words for a non-ephemeral concept should not be *exclusively* ephemeral. We shouldn't have to invent new terms for a *fundamental aspect of our mental landscapes* every few years because each new generation was left to figure it out by themselves.
Today's 13-year-olds deserve what I had when I was 13.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-07 06:28 pm (UTC)(Do other autistic people go through a bunch of special interests in a row? I'll see people say "Trains are my special interest", but I'm more like "I had a huge special interest in sailing ships when I was X years old, so of course I still know a/b/c things about them". Or is that more likely an artifact of me having the near-eidetic memory?)
Edit: And by "post" I meant comment, of course. Side effect of the new job.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-07 06:59 pm (UTC)---
>>I find myself using "special interest" for past perseverations and "hyperfixation" for current ones. I think... I think "special interest" doesn't sound as intense as what I feel when I'm currently perseverating on something?
I've heard rumours that people, when describing their past, tend to use the vocabulary they had at the time. (This being most obvious in toddlers, who are expanding their vocabulary very quickly.) That might be part of it.
And yeah, "special interest" always felt a little mild to me, not a suitable term for the-kind-of-emotion-people-write-songs-about. But I've never been sure how much of that is just imprinting on my first term for it. Thus far I've found myself much more willing to do-as-the-Romans-do with "special interest" than with "hyperfixation", but then I've also had more time to get used to that one. (The power of a name works only once.)
(And, for that matter, my perseverations do seem to be milder these days? Possibly my brain adapted to [me being reluctant to have them because I found their early stages overwhelming].)
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>>Do other autistic people go through a bunch of special interests in a row?
I do (or at least I did back in the day: it's less obvious now), but that does seem to vary between people, yeah.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-10 12:28 pm (UTC)It seems to me like it's ... really common for ADHD symptoms to get watered down into more-universal experiences in a way that seems kind of like what's happening here? At least in the first example. (e.g. if all dads have it then it is presumably not any kind of neurodivergant trait and thus probably best described as a regular interest or dare I say it, a hobby? which, uh, the point of split between "special" interest and regular interest is one I spend an utterly pointless amount of time stressing about, considering it's cosmic insignificance)
(but also that second example you posted I did in fact take to mean the more ADHD style "I have spent the last 48 hours doing as little as possible but think about this shiny new thing I care about a lot" which seems like classic hyperfixation?)
less related but that post about using a special interest to explain how romance is, is ... really compelling? I want that thing, of having a person who is compelling and preoccupying like an interest is! (and, uh, I would quite like someone else to have that thing about me, too, if I'm being selfish). Not hugely novel as a perspective to me but *really* compelling? Also not really sure it's how my brain works but *sighs longingly*.
no subject
Date: 2021-10-10 09:57 pm (UTC)It's possible I've just been seeing more ADHD-posting and less autism-posting lately. I don't especially seek out ADHD posts, not being ADHD, but there may be an accidental or random fluctuation.
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>>(but also that second example you posted I did in fact take to mean the more ADHD style "I have spent the last 48 hours doing as little as possible but think about this shiny new thing I care about a lot" which seems like classic hyperfixation?)
Yeah, that might be it. Mostly that post helped remind me of clearer-cut examples such as the dad one, aided the percolation process.
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>>I want that thing, of having a person who is compelling and preoccupying like an interest is! (and, uh, I would quite like someone else to have that thing about me, too, if I'm being selfish).
I wish you luck.