The Autistic Horror of Don't Hug Me I'm Scared (season 1)

i haven't seen the new thing

I absolutely DESPISE the social concept that people cry to manipulate others. Recently got legit traumatized by the assumption, cuz I was having a breakdown about the death of my mom and being homeless as a result, and was told by my family that I'd made the person who offered to let me stay "a few days" uncomfortable enough to withdraw the offer because I was crying out of fear over what would happen after that imposed time limit was up. That I was trying to manipulate them into letting me stay longer. Dude I WAS JUSTIFABLY, UNDERSTANDABLY TERRIFIED. I was having BIG EMOTIONS. I CRY when I have big emotions. I'd just lost my most important person. I hate it that I'm not even allowed to be sad and vulnerable about that without folks thinking I'm trying to manipulate them.

Imagine telling an elementary schooler they’re being manipulative 😭😭😭

As a metaphor for being punished for not understanding, I think the part where the Clock screeches until their ears bleed is perfect. A direct punishment for asking questions about things that are "accepted"

"to call this place evil implies a clarity of purpose that I dont want to attribute to anyone involved" goddamn does that line go hard

The phrase "this situation is a 2 and your reaction is a 5" just unlocked some kind of cord childhood memory

God, as an autistic person, that part about being told your reactions to things are 'wrong' literally made me cry. I could never understand what reaction I was 'supposed' to have to something. When I was younger I broke my arm but I didn't want to get in trouble for 'being dramatic' or 'over-reacting' so I downplayed the pain I was feeling. I didn't see a doctor for 3 days and ended up really messing my arm up and then still getting in trouble for 'lying'. Anyway, I've been in therapy for 6 years now...

17:35 the "no, you're lonely" line reminded me of how I (also autistic) had to do all those 'how to make friends' programs as a kid and how I felt like I was fine with the friends I had, it was like all the adults around me decided that I should be lonely even though I wasn't.

"people who don't care to understand you and seem to believe you can't understand them" i've never had someone explain something i've felt so clearly that it terrifies me before

Hearing Patricia yell out "You were supposed to fucking listen to me!" hit really close to home in a way i don't have the words to describe yet

As an an autistic adult who was only diagnosed a few weeks ago, I'm shocked that interpreting the series through the lens of autism isn't commonplace since the titular phrase of "don't hug me, I'm scared" is very much how I feel when I'm overwhelmed with strong emotions and the excess stimulation from physical touch would just send me over the edge

to me the final episode of the webseries represented the horrific realization that all your trauma was NOT YOUR FAULT, and sometimes the people who say they're just trying to help are fucking lying to you. sometimes, a teacher just likes that they have power over you, and get to hurt you emotionally or even physically with little to no repercussions. even more, its about the idea of systems. notably, when red guy gets to that machine, roy isnt like... already there, adjusting the nobs and dials, he's just letting the scene play out, uninterrupted. we never even see red guy or yellow guy's dad build the machine, or even time pass between roy first seeing red guy performing and the introduction of the scene. i honestly always thought that the machine was older than either of them, and roy had just decided to use it for his own ends, seemingly just because he likes punishing his son. there's a quote from roy in an interview the creators did with the characters, and roy has one line of "my boy's eyes have grown arrogant and rude, and for that i shall take him on a trip to punishland", which i honestly relate to in my own autistic way. we dont really see yellow guy grow arrogant or rude in the show, but i quite often got told i was back-talking when to me i was just... having a conversation, or asking some questions. also roy's arm being hella long in the final episode could be a reference to the 'long arm of the law'? in which case you could interpret the machine as like... the prison industrial complex, and the puppets' attempts to learn as like... try and failing to comply with the law and the orders of authority figures in a way that feels honestly pretty autistic coded to me. idk i personally feel that the media theory is stupid anyway but i really enjoyed the final episode.

I avoided special Ed as a kid but this video helped me understand why I hated school so much and so deeply. It really helped me accept the feelings of horror I felt about that system but suppressed because they were "wrong" and school was "normal."

When I was in special Ed I claimed that tomato isn't a vegetable because my father said so and she tried to shut me down so hard she called my dad and he then told her off about the scientific classification of tomatoes.

Immediately after the end of this video, I started idly singing the first song to myself, and LITERALLY the first three lines are "What's your favourite idea? Mine is being creative!" "How do you get the idea?" "You just have to think creatively!" like holy SHIT?? "do [x]!" "how do I do that?" "just do [x]!!" GODDAMN ms taxxon this analysis is SPOT-ON boss

I dont have autism - your explanation of emotional meltdowns granted a full and complete understanding of something I would never have had the opportunity to understand if you hadnt explained it just the way you did from a position of emotional vulnerability. Thank you for that - I am genuinely grateful to you.

As someone who is studying to be a teacher currently it horrifies me how badly non neurotypical kids have been and are still treated in school by some. I will try every day in my future career to do better than that, especially since I might not be neurotypical and relate to many feelings that you have described in a lesser degree.

dhmis has a constant theme of "the world works differently than you do, will never explain how it works, and will punish you for not working the way it wants you to". it's handled really well and definitely hits really hard as someone who grew up with both adhd and autism, but wasn't diagnosed until adulthood. before watching this I had always felt like yellow guy was autistic, but this video really helped confirm it and help me pin down why exactly the series means so much to me (edited for typos)

As an autistic person, the "I love this tree and I love this stick and-" "No, no, that's not how it's done" really spoke to me too! There are so many instances from my childhood of me trying to mimic the social conventions I saw around me and being told off and/or ridiculed for doing it 'wrong'. The ending of 4 really gets me too for the same reason as you! Thank you for sharing your feelings on all this

the way my body fucking JOLTED when you uttered the phrase "glass man", and then "superflex". i've never heard anyone else bring up that specific curriculum, superflex was honestly the most fucked-up thing. telling kids that they're being POSSESSED by EVIL CREATURES whenever they express their symptoms, or try to set their boundaries ("be flexible" is forever tainted for me)... i'm going to watch the rest of the video now, but god. FUCK superflex.