August 2026

Autistic humour: absurdity, irony, literalness and dark humour

Autistic humour can take many different forms: wordplay, absurd humour, dark humour, irony, or the deliberate use of literalness. Many autistic people also have a particular relationship with words, which can become an important source of humour. I’m one of them. Twisting their meaning, deliberately interpreting them literally, playing with words, or letting them drift into the absurd. Others play a lot with irony, while dark humour can sometimes create a rather spectacular disconnect with the people around them. I see myself in all of these forms.

Autistic shutdown: five minutes at VivaTech, fourteen hours to recover

An autistic shutdown can occur when an accumulation of sensory, cognitive and social stimuli exceeds a person’s processing capacity. The brain then slows down abruptly: speaking becomes difficult, even the simplest decisions become impossible, and the body may keep moving on autopilot. In June 2026, VivaTech was held in Paris—a kind of French mini-CES. I had been looking forward to it, hoping to hand out résumés and potentially land a job. I had not counted on a massive shutdown beginning before I even entered the exhibition.