Reclaiming "Sperg"
"Sperg" -- an abbreviation from "Asperger's" -- is an insult some use for autistics, and more generally for anyone who does things often associated with autism -- who misreads or misses social cues, is abnormally literal or logical or systematic or principled, has "weird" interests, "is cringe", and so on.
Those uses of "sperg" are at best constructive critique of social mistakes -- at worst a slur from a place of bigotry and vile motivations. So one thing I've been casually doing for at least a year now is just using "sperg" as if it's our word -- for those of us who are either autistic or have significant similarities to autism. Now often with a positive connotation.
I'm a sperg and I'm proud of it. I don’t have a clinical disorder, but I am still very much a sperg. When people throw "sperg" around as an insult, they're often aiming at my traits and my people, at human traits that are genuinely kind and good. So fuck 'em. Like "queer", "sperg" is a great word -- punchy, rolls off the tongue, and we could really benefit from an umbrella term deliberately wider and fuzzier than all the official labels and diagnoses.
