It's not that propaganda doesn't work on them, I see those types falling for neo-nazi shit all the time because they know how to appeal to them. It's just that they process the world in a fundamentally different way, so a lot of the psychological tricks that propaganda relies on simply doesn't work on them. It's kind of like how the early days of white supremacy had a hard time getting women because all their propaganda played to mysogyny. Once they figured out that they can rewire their hatred of women to be a good thing (the trad wife) that's when they started jumping on board and really driving their influence into the american culture.

[–] CherryBlossom01@lemm.ee 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I'm autistic and I've always felt I had a certain gullibility. If I'm reading an article, and an argument sounds rational. I'm more likely to fall for it. Even if it contains a ton of bad premises. I'd like to think as I've gotten older and more mature, these kinds of things work less on me. But honestly I'm not sure.

[–] PrincessZelda@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I can't say if I'm autistic or not but I hate reading news from sources I know to be untrustworthy because I still find myself thinking "this sounds correct" until I finish reading and remember it's 99% bs

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

I have autistic relatives, and while marketing tricks generally don't work on them, FOMO and rule of cool absolutely do. My brother is on the spectrum and constantly has to have the latest Apple devices (he can afford to, he's got a great job and he's super smart). My dad was too and he was constantly buying any new gadget he saw.

So I don't remember either of them ever being swayed by a specific commercial or marketing campaign, but a photo and a description could be enough, which is sometimes worse.

On top of that, their microfixations, like my brother's with Apple, means they spend an inordinate amount of money on the thing they feel is too cool to pass up.

When my father died, he and my mom had a household full of junk- not a huge mess like a hoarder's house, just a ton of stuff in the attic and garage and closets and so on- and most of it was technology no one would want. Like a keyboard that would put title graphics on a home video designed for CRT TVs. Or the multiple VHS-C and Hi-8 camcorders he bought. Like my brother, he could afford to do it, but what a waste of money.

So while autistic people don't often get swayed by advertising, they can, in my experience, still spend way too much money on the cool new thing.