Stim culture: Outlining anime's appeal to the autistic community

Abstract

This article explores how anime contributes to the creation of a culture that attracts autistic individuals and supports their lives. We identify three aspects that may explain why it becomes a special interest that is both deeply personal and widely shared: visual tactility, or animation stimming; layers, or moving through estranged worlds; and unmasking, or emerging neurocultures and languages. Tentatively presenting anime as ‘stim culture,’ we uncover new directions in autism and fan culture research.

Keywords

Introduction

In 2016, BBC News observed a thriving anime store in Glasgow, UK, where customers and staff reflect on how anime provides ‘community’ and a ‘safe space’ for autistic people (BBC News 2016).¹ The video emerges as part of a growing awareness of the resonances anime, and the manga that often inspire it, have for some autistic people. For example, those who, in certain contexts, have trouble understanding complex facial expressions, find a deep affinity with the bombastic expression of Japanese cartoons; with its ‘reliance on a shared set of conventions’ or ‘elements that are consistently recalled and repeated’ (Suan, 2017: 64), anime can encourage pattern recognition and social learning; this recognition and learning, associated with texts that are distinct from domestic animation products targeting children and coming from Japan, has been connected in the literature to those who are ‘somehow minorities in a given society’ (Ōtsuka, 2015: xxv) or who choose the margin in search of difference and new ‘possibility’ (Galbraith, 2019: 11). Or, those with all-consuming interests, perhaps finding themselves as a loners, may find community among a group centered on shared interests (e.g., Rozema, 2015). Some have even gone as far as to say that descriptions of anime and manga fans, alternatively called ‘otaku’ and ‘weeaboo,’ may be ‘similar to how…we describe…individuals on the autistic spectrum’ (VanBergeijk, 2011: 381). In much of this autistic participants are turned into a spectacle of oddness. Their voices are silenced as others scramble to recognize them and speak for them.

Building on the growing literature on disability and media studies (e.g., Ellcessor and Kirkpatrick 2017), including articles that analyze graphic novels as part of life experienced otherwise (i.e., Magnet and Watson 2017), this article explores how anime and its surrounding culture attracts autistic individuals and supports their lives. We are inspired by activist Nick Walker, who draws a distinction between the ‘pathology paradigm’, or a discrete set of behaviors to be conditioned and dealt with, and the ‘neurodiversity paradigm’, which sees difference in bodyminds as a significant aspect of human diversity and embraces it for expanding the possibilities of being human in the world (Walker, 2021: 18–20). In contrast to ‘neurodiversity’, we follow Walker in referring to the ‘neurotypical’, or those whose minds are considered to be ‘normal’. For us, there is nothing ‘wrong’ with autistic people, though we may need support to be happy and fulfilled in a society that has not been built to suit our needs.

Anime fandom offers spaces where these needs can be fulfilled, which we work to outline in this piece via our concept of ‘stim cultures’. We have named this term after ‘stimming’, which describes the ways in which autistic people self-regulate when overstimulated. For the autistic community, stimming can be an artistic or emotional expression, a tool for social change and/or a self-regulatory mechanism for over- or under-whelming sensory experiences. The sensory aspects can be tied to physical movement, sight and response to aesthetics, in which anime can appeal in curious ways (Cross, Piovesan and Atherton, 2022).

In conceptualizing stim cultures, we offer a critical intervention in autism studies, much of which seeks to ‘cure’ or ‘intervene’ with our bodyminds so that we may conform to allistic design. This is reinforced by what is called the ‘double empathy problem’, which articulates the communicative gaps that form between autistic and allistic people (Fletcher-Watson and Bird, 2020; Jones et al., 2021; Dunn et al., 2023). Over 7000 papers on autism are published a year (Kirby and McDonald, 2021), the majority of which do not center our experiences, voices or priorities. Autistic researchers and communities call for research to prioritize ‘post-diagnostic support, mental and physical health, improving public understanding, and improving access to services’ (Botha and Cage, 2022: 3). For instance, in the face of significant criticism from autistic communities, clinicians use Applied Behavioral Analysis to curtail ‘aberrant’ stimming behaviors that play a key role to our mental wellbeing, such as hand-flapping, tapping and initiating conversations about our special interests (Colombo et al., 2024; Sagar et al., 2023 Walker, 2021). While some researchers contend that accounts of our own lives might be biased or inaccurate, we argue that documenting stim cultures as part of autistic wellbeing and community is essential in our collectively reclaiming research about our bodies, minds and lives.

As it currently stands, autistic people are viewed as generally lacking ‘agency, rationality, epistemically authority’ and as unable to ‘form community or share culture’ (Botha and Cage, 2022: 4; also Botha, 2021), but, following Elizabeth Fein, we argue that autistic people play an integral role in shaping culture. Drawing on Fein's ethnography of live-action roleplaying camps for those with autism spectrum conditions in the United States, we adopt a definition of culture as ‘work’, whereby cultural forms get created and recreated through the minds of people (Fein, 2015: 300; also Obeyesekere, 1990). We argue that culture is (re)created through action and practice. ‘In their lively animation of these structured practices, narratives, and relational networks,’ Fein explains of her informants, ‘the campers have given these existing forms a new manifestation’ (Fein, 2015: 300). Just so, autistic fans of anime are, individually and collectively, responding to the media form with action and practices that contribute to new cultural forms. This ‘lively animation’, as Fein puts it, resonates with discussions of anime fans involved in ‘social’ or ‘collective animation’ (Warren-Crow, 2014: 99), as well as fandom as ‘movement’ (Lamarre, 2006: 359–360). Inspired by Fein, we, too, focus on autistic culture in terms of ‘the structure of its practices, the narratives that comprised its mythology, and the nature of its community’ (Fein, 2015: 300). Ultimately, we share Fein's interest in how ‘neurocognitive specificities create and shape cultural spaces’ and ‘such spaces in turn serve as potentially transformative resources for participants who are struggling with difficulties in living’ (Fein, 2015: 299). Autism, and broader autism spectrum conditions, ‘which are often thought to preclude social participation, can thus serve as a force for the organization of culture’ (Fein, 2015: 300).

We are interested in how fan cultures operate outside the imaginary confines of allistic ‘norms’ and to acknowledge the autism that already exists among anime fans. Here we present stim cultures as a form of tentative exploration that can uncover new directions in autistic and fan culture research, inviting other scholars to participate. The specific ways that anime works as a stim culture are understood here as: visual tactility, or animation stimming; layers, or moving through estranged worlds; and unmasking, or emerging neurocultures and languages. While we use the specific example of anime fandom, other cultures can be included; these are, unfortunately, beyond our scope. Nor do we have sufficient room to discuss gender and sexuality, though we recognize that the safe space of anime can be used for exploring these key parts of autistic identities (Cook and Smagorinsky, 2016: 234).

Methodology

In this article, we combine a scoping literature review of scholarship into autism, culture and anime fandoms, observing autistic people's accounts of how anime supports their everyday life and self-expression. Taking an inductive approach to thematic analysis, we have brought together different autistic voices, looking for common resonances and experiences (Rosa, 2019). While we have also included scholarly articles that were not ‘neuroaffirmative’, yet serve as an indication of the state of the field, we have put them into dialogue with popular non-fiction accounts written by autistic authors. By unpacking the social and political factors that have made Japanese cartoons an important resource for autistic people, we conduct a conjunctural analysis that reveal anime's ability to empower in autistic contexts.

Weaving together the different voices from the literature, we engage in autistic ‘pattern thinking’ (Rozema, 2015) as a form of sympathetic methodology. Our writing echoes: from our personal experiences as researchers in anime specifically and Japanese popular culture more generally; our form of collaborative writing, and; being at different stages of diagnosis of autism in adulthood. We follow the methodological lead of Bertilsdotter Rosqvist and colleagues, whose work on autism required the position of ‘test thinking’ (Bertilsdotter Rosqvist et al., 2023: 16; for more on collaborative design, see Fraser-Barbour et al., 2023). These half-finished thoughts became the source for mutual, collective intuitions, where one of us would echo another, finding connections in our words and ideas. Some words resonate; voices harmonize and break into a compassionate cacophony. A symphony of repetition and emergent patterns, we call this methodological ‘echolalia,’ which, like pattern thinking, has been observed among the autistic community. The affinity that we all share in writing this is a deep knowingness and appreciation for anime-related subcultures that have offered us respite from the allistic regulations of daily life.

Defining stim cultures

Stim cultures provide safe spaces, escapism and belonging for autistic people, lending themselves to sensory stimulation, or ‘stimming’. Stimming, derived from ‘sensory stimulation’, is a concept we are curious to explore in relation to the sensory, affective and aesthetic experiences that anime can offer. We observe that anime fan communities have developed that also happen to accommodate and appeal to autistic ways of being, including stimming – and, in turn, challenge the idea of a ‘neurotypical’ dominance and conformity. They spontaneously work to undo the distresses of neurotypical-indoctrinated life, supporting autistic wellbeing, ‘enjoyment, flow, connection with others and self-development’ (Featherstone et al., 2023: 20).

Stim cultures accommodate experiences and ontologies of seeing and feeling the world differently and more vibrantly. Indeed, stim cultures may develop in response to neurological and ontological modes of difference. Stim cultures offer an outlet and means of meeting these sensory needs in ways that can be stimulating, grounding, calming, pleasing and more. Stim cultures are spaces of sensory exploration with which different energies might be played, experienced and directed. Stim cultures are spaces where our neurons become ‘excited’ (Price, 2022); where we can more fully experience the vibrational extent of our neurologically-diverse humanity. Stimming is also the language that binds autistic culture together, telling an elaborate story of autistic assimilation, trauma, shame, ableism, interpersonal and state-sanctioned violence, as well as autistic history, joy and pride. Stim cultures offer forms of phenomenological exploration that subvert the confined spaces of ‘normal’.

Anime fandom provides spaces that are neuroaffirmative via their acceptance and accommodation of autistic difference via being and movement. These spaces can, like the movement of shared objects of affection across screens and bodies at anime conventions (Lamerichs, 2014: 270–272), lead to new forms of intimacy that have been historically stigmatized in both academic literature and fandom discourse. Both the traits of ‘otaku’ and ‘weeaboo’ call up the diagnostic criteria for autism, regarding intense special interests and insinuations of ‘lacking social common sense’ (Kam, 2015: 179). Through our conceptualization of stim cultures, we encourage a reflection on the unconscious assigning of ‘moral value to embodied difference’ (Smilges, 2023: 42).

We add some caveats to our definition of stim culture, however. Firstly, definitions of stimming are slippery, complicated and contested. We do not intend to conflate the culture(s) we are discussing with a collection of those who stim. Secondly, as we work to outline here, ‘stim culture’ is not an all-encompassing term. Due to the boundless and heterogeneous scope of ‘neuroqueer possibility’, we offer one possible avenue of exploration out of a disparate infinitude of potential avenues (Walker, 2021: 128). Stim cultures can appear in different and diverse forms in which we focus on one small, but important, facet. We now turn to three ways that anime fandom is attractive and supportive of the autistic experience: visual tactility, or animation stimming; layers, or moving through estranged worlds; and unmasking, or emerging neurocultures and languages.

Visual tactility: Animation stimming

Stimming, also tied to comfort and pleasure, takes a variety of physical, visual, auditory and aural forms that can release built-up emotional and affective energy (Charlton, 2021: 5). There is a ‘soothing rhythm’ to watching patterns and movement; repeating sounds through echolalia; flapping our hands, maintaining a sense of flow and balance (Kapp et al., 2019: 1783). In this sense, stimming is a constant conversation with every aspect of our worlds and surroundings (see Silberman, 2015). Looking for patterns in our interests also works as a form of regulation to decompress from sensory overwhelm. Furthermore, visual stimming brings its own vitality that ties into our seeing the world differently and more vibrantly. It involves watching movement and patterns with their own ‘visual tactility’ such as dancing and strobing lights, floating bubbles, oozing viscosity or color with an intense glow (Nansen and Balanzategui, 2022). This movement-making creates a regulatory ‘feedback loop’ (Kapp, 2019: 1785).

With its moving images, transforming figures and slick sound design, the visual and aural aesthetics of anime function as a tool for stimming. Anime has been described as a ‘body genre’, which, like musicals, ‘weepies’, comedies and horror films, ‘appeal to the body’ (Williams, 1989: 5). Filled with affective ‘intensities’ and ‘grabs’, anime can create moving experiences, from the fluttering of ribbons and glistening of flowers in sentimental stories of princesses to the ebbs and flow of ocean tides and seas of grass in the worlds of Studio Ghibli (Honda, 2012; Monden, 2014). The repetition of these movements contributes to a relatively stable but always open system of the ‘anime-esque’, where ‘acts of anime’ occur as ‘doing’ (Suan, 2017: 67). Drawing itself is both a ‘pulling or attracting force’ and a ‘trace of this force in a picture’ (Mitchell, 2005: 58–59). This attraction facilitates what is colloquially known as ‘the special interest’, or ‘monotropism’ in critical autism studies (Murray et al., 2005; Murray, 2020). The world of animation appeals to our predilection towards depth and detail, where absorbing ourselves in these lines creates a state of ‘inertial motion’ (Rapaport et al., 2023: 2), creating ‘bubbles’ of contentment that are integral to our wellbeing (Lilley et al., 2022: 1399).

Visual stimming begins with the lines themselves, which fans become accustomed to reading. Significant to anime is its artifice and the signs of the animator's hand; their bodily gesture of mark-making resonates with its own visual tactility, intertwined with ‘imagination, emotions, experience’ that ‘remain in the representation, while the fixity [of] space and time’ dissipates (Chancier, 2023: 5–6). Following the movement of the mark-maker's brush, we too experience the creative act (Nancy, 2013). When characters in anime move, they become ‘animated’, filled with life: vibrant matter. This has been noted by early theories that compare the ‘plasmaticity’ of animation to the attraction of an open flame, the ‘rejection of once and forever allotted form, freedom from ossification, the ability to dynamically assume any form’ (Eisenstein, 1986: 21); it has been translated into new animated worlds by fans and future animators in Japan and beyond. One pines over the beauty of a cloud changing shape and ‘the force of life’ (Galbraith, 2019: 91). This is seen in all forms of animation, including what one critic calls the ‘overly smooth movement’ and ‘excessive sense of vitality’ in the early works of Walt Disney that enchanted audiences in Japan (Galbraith, 2021: 294).

Stimming also acts as a ‘release of any high emotion’ (Kapp, 2019: 1786), where, in anime, moving moments and dramatic scenarios become catalogued by fans, who re-live overwhelming affects. This is also in part facilitated through the animation of character relationships: emotions are exaggerated, the character design and ‘regular utilization of conventional facial and bodily expressions’ (Suan, 2021: 5; also Suan, 2017) present a surface with which autistic minds can categorize and interpret. Beyond the easy-to-distinguish faces, anime seems to be designed to invigorate. For example, when the two primary male characters of the figure skating anime, Yuri on Ice!!!, kissed after multiple episodes of romantic build-up, the excitement was experienced almost simultaneously across different fan bodies across the globe. Moments such as these, where one really gets ‘into character’ (Fein, 2015: 302), are memorialized online as short video clips, assembled into ‘crack compilations’ or transformed into anime music videos to create powerful, nostalgic viewing. If anime in its effects is, as some say, like ‘psychotropic drugs’ (Azuma, 2009: 94), then that extreme stimulation is essential to visual stimming.

As demonstrated by the raves held at anime conventions, dancing offers an interactive form of visual tactility, as a release of energy and the ability to indulge in repetitive animated movement (Sinclair in Felepchuk, 2021). For instance, ‘idol music’ offers an important site of movement, through its use in ‘rhythm games’ and dance routines from anime such as Love Live! that can be learned and performed in cosplay masquerades (Thomas-Parr, 2021). Idol anime invites fan cheerleading with glow sticks, called ‘otagei,’ characterized by rhythmic sets that combine powerful, repetitive, bodily movement, interaction and visual tactility. This type of dancing is practiced by fans as an expression of affection during live performances at idol shows via pre-rehearsed moves and chants. The light stick becomes an energetic extension of our body, where, with our presence, we amplify the luminosity of our idol. Brilliant, colorful, impassioned dancing lights, we become an electric sea of vibration. Autistic activist and actor Chloé Hayden (2022: 107) describes dancing as a liberating way to stim freely and safely as a wholehearted expression of ‘happiness and joy, completely carefree and comfortable.’ In this way, bodies co-participate in the tactility of the visual, energy bubbling up and expressing itself in a form of collective animation.

Layers: Moving through estranged worlds

By imaginatively stepping into the world of anime, autistic people transcend the limitations of neurotypically-ordained time and space and co-create worlds where they are no longer considered ‘unusual’. This reorganizes the order of things, where autistic people, who are typically placed at the bottom of neurotypical social hierarchies, become agents of power and change. While neurotypical research has suggested that we lack the capacity to be imaginative, groundwork with autistic people presents an alternative account (Lilley et al., 2022; Holt et al., 2022). Thinking in layers, exploring texts from different angles and playing with their dis/connections from the ‘real’ is pleasurable and engaging for autistic people. The estranged world of anime provides a comforting lens through which we can interpret the world.

The term ‘layers’ is already conceptualized in anime studies and can manifest as developing fan theories or alternative readings, cataloguing and archiving information, creating derivative works in the form of writing or art, cosplay, attending themed cafes and collecting things such as figurines and props. The literature suggests, on the one hand, that these activities provide ways of possessing and sharing the work, and, on the other hand, that they offer ways of traversing more deeply into fictional texts and worlds to live with, and as, characters. Numerous theories have been developed to describe this, from ‘straddling…layered contexts’ (Saitō, 2007: 227) and finding fiction in reality and reality in fiction to the ‘2.5 dimensional’ (Sugawa-Shimada, 2023: 11). Autistic cosplayers navigate different social worlds, online and in-person, in ways that, as Alice Leyman (2022) notes, contradict the tendency to depict autistic people as anti-social, which is a neurotypical (mis)interpretation of the nuanced and different ways that autistic people can communicate beyond allistic dimensions, working with and between layers (Elkind, 2018; King, 2019). The ‘2.5-dimensional space’ of the ‘maid café’, for instance, is one such context that offers the ability to waver between the layers of animation and reality (Galbraith, 2019: 214–216; also Thomas-Parr, 2024).²

Autistic-coded characters in particular present autistic people with a sense of belonging, ‘marked’ by their ‘“unusual” ways of thinking and being’ (Mullis, 2018: 149). Reflecting on his own experiences, autistic scholar Devon Price (2022: 58) observes that, ‘perhaps because so many of us are alienated from mainstream neurotypical life, we come to identify with fantasy creatures, aliens, robots, or animals instead of the people around us.’ Laura Kate Dale (2019) describes the important role that anime played in helping explore her autistic transfeminine identity; watching anime such as Wandering Son and cosplaying as femme characters in Ouran High School Host Club provided a safe space to explore her own neuroqueerness. Dale (2019: 74–76) describes anime as the first time she saw individuals like her ‘humanized, presented as real people and made relatable’ in a way that ‘understood everything I had ever left unsaid.’

Layering can also include collecting and carrying support objects and reminders of this sense of belonging with the world of anime. For example, Christina Emanuel (2015: 56) observes that the gaming and anime franchise, Pokémon, plays a key role in the life of her autistic patient, Serena, as a lens through which she can look at her past traumas and fears. This includes collecting character charms that carry special symbolic value for her as protection against the environmental hostility she experiences. Through the world of Pokémon and the ecology and symbolism of the creatures, Serena gains resilience in her daily life, supported by this outlet of imaginative creativity. Carrying Pokémon charms allows Serena to connect with this world, and forms part of a broader practice across the community. For instance, other autistic fans might wear their collections in what the neurodiverse community refers to as ‘dopamine dressing’, which involves intentionally wearing clothing and objects that bring joy and positivity. For instance, Serena's charms fall under ‘ita bag’ making, which involves creating a display of badges and charms that represent a favorite character or franchise (Giard, 2021: 187–214). Others may participate in what Price calls ‘closet cosplay’, or wear clothes emblazoned with their favorite character's image, and, during special events, drape covers for full-body pillow versions of the characters over their shoulders like ‘capes’ (Galbraith, 2021: 166, 196, 211–220). Other fashion styles might also be taken up, such as Lolita fashion, which has stylistic resonances with girls’ manga (Monden, 2014), or decora fashion, which often incorporates layers of decorations inspired by anime and gaming characters (Rose et al., 2022).

Anime also provides fertile ground with which to experiment with fictional lives and social interactions in ways that feel safe for autistic people. For example, Leslie Cook and Peter Smagorinsky (2016) note the importance of imaginative practice in their case study of Chloe, a young autistic person who enjoyed creating artworks and fiction in the ‘boys’ love’ genre. Anime fandom has a long history of queering and subverting texts, and under this umbrella, ‘boys’ love’ texts poach characters, including those intended for a male audience (Galbraith, 2016: 154–155). Through her flourishing interest in boys’ love and connection with its online fan communities, Chloe was able to form friendships and explore her own sexuality through co-imagining and creating relationships between her favorite characters (Cook and Smagorinsky, 2016). With the support of other fans, Chloe began creating her own original works. Cook and Smagorinsky stress the significance that this played in supporting Chloe's sense of resilience during her tumultuous high school life, including multiple hospitalizations from the mental distress of bullying. Working through genres like boys’ love also provides a satisfying sense of pattern-making that autistic people enjoy. Some theorists argue for the existence of a ‘database’ of ‘affective elements’ (Azuma, 2009: 39–47), which can be detected by fans and remixed by creators both professional and amateur. One need only to think of the existence of ‘cat boys’, beloved among female and trans fans of anime culture. In another example, once fans memorized a basic relational pattern of boys’ love ‘top’ and ‘bottom’, male characters were imagined out of everyday objects such as salt and pepper, food items such as raw egg over rice, warring nations, political rivals and even ‘the very ground under one's feet’ (Galbraith, 2016: 163). Clearly demarcated from the real by both Chloe and her friends, the fantastical world of boys’ love presented forms of escape and queering of the everyday in which daily ableism became defamiliarized.

Anime worlds present autistic people with safe spaces to play with sociality, while the characters themselves provide more-than-human companionship. This is reflected in wider studies that highlight the high capacity for care and empathy that autistic people have for objects and companions (Atherton and Cross, 2018; White and Remington, 2019). For instance, Emanuel (2015: 54) observes the key social role characters play for her patient Joey, where, as she explains, they ‘are multi-dimensional, fully developed subjects for him.’ Cute, pro-social character designs offer companionship as an antidote to the hostile environments for many people in their daily lives, but especially autistic people (Galbraith, 2014: 106–107; also Rose, 2023). These characters are both fictional and real as they become deeply personal and shared objects of affection in the culture of ‘collective animation’ (Warren-Crow, 2014: 99). In some cases, fans play with language and objects; some call favorite characters their ‘wives’ (waifu) or ‘husbands’ (husbando); there have been online and public wedding ceremonies for unions with characters in various media and material forms such as body pillows, stuffed toys and representations on gaming machines and cardboard cut-outs. These marriages, both individual and social, have been understood as a gambit for the recognition of the characters as real and significant others (Condry, 2013: 185–203).

Unmasking: Emerging neurocultures and languages

Collectively, autistic people have their own shared cultures and languages, which are important for their wellbeing (Crompton et al., 2020; also Fletcher-Watson, 2024). Anime fan spaces present an interesting site of ‘neuro-culture,’–which recognizes neurological difference and challenges neurotypical socio-cultural norms (Radulski, 2022: 116; also O’Dell et al., 2016) – facilitating and celebrating a sense of strangeness and difference, bringing together autistic people who feel out of place (Cook and Smagorinsky, 2016: 225; also Parchomiuk, 2019: 262; Cook and Smagorinsky, 2014). Given that these spaces are porous, welcoming autistic and allistic people alike, it also enables autistic people to participate without concern as to whether they ‘belong’ (Fletcher-Watson, 2024: 257–258; Harmens et al., 2022). These communities form both online and at events, such as conventions (Lamerichs, 2014; also Crawford and Hancock, 2019), and are ‘designed to be comfortable’ for autistic people with clear rules of how to interact with others, help points for those experiencing autistic shutdowns and sensory rooms (Price, 2022: 222–223; also Fein, 2015).

Relatively free from neurotypical stigma, anime fandom invites ‘unmasking’ (Pearson and Rose, 2021; Miller et al., 2021), which is a colloquial term in the autistic community for undoing attempts to mirror, copy or fit in with allistic others (Hull et al., 2017; Cage and Troxell-Whitman, 2019; Radulski, 2022). Social interactions can lead to forms of ‘hyperfocus’ on how and what to communicate and its social appropriateness, which can linger through anxiety, dread, rumination, panic and self-criticism for perceived failures (Black et al., 2023; Quadt et al., 2024). Emerging studies into anime fandoms and autism highlight the key role that convention spaces and online forums play in facilitating spaces to unmask, and communicate in authentic, autistic ways that reduce stress and foster a sense of belonging (Leyman, 2022). Indeed, Cook and Smagorinsky (2016: 240) observe the ‘positive social updraft’ afforded to Chloe by the online anime fandom community for the remedies it offers to the trauma and depression that arises from ‘the negative judgements of [neurotypical] others.’ Work on idolized figures in the anime community shows how they open spaces for the discussion of disability and shared feelings of ‘precarity’ (Galbraith and Bookman, 2023). Eva Mendes and Meredith Maroney (2018: 151–152) note in their collection of interviews that anime spaces were crucial for ‘found/adopted’ community, where autistic people felt ‘less alone’ and ‘unconditionally accepted’, forming trust-based relationships. As one of their interviewees, Phoenix, explains, ‘they know that I love them as they are and will not deny them of their identity.’ Another interviewee, Olivia, also explains the importance of being around so many people that seem to ‘get it’ (Mendes and Maroney, 2018: 92).

Activities in anime fandom spaces facilitate nuances and differences in social connections, which resonate with studies of ‘otaku’, who are social ‘otherwise’ (Galbraith, 2019: 203). Information swapping offers ways of connecting with others through anime. For example, Dale (2019: 64), reflecting on her childhood, notes that her ‘obsessive encyclopedic knowledge’ of anime (Pokémon, DeathNote, Dragon Ball Z and Naruto) allowed her to interact with others as a ‘social safety net topic.’ Sharing these activities online through photography, social media posts and blogs also extends these social connections into digital worlds and wider networks (Leyman, 2022: 5). This practice of offering information about the other person's interest is a sign of affection and referred to as ‘pebbling’ in the autistic community. Other practices such as ‘parallel play’ can be seen in watching anime in synchronization or ‘real time’, which allows for comments on bulletin boards, dedicated threads and social media more broadly. Collaboration also provides a way of sharing interests. For example, Chloe makes friends through creating and trading artworks, or collaboratively writing fanfiction, with each author taking the viewpoint of a different character (Cook and Smagorinsky, 2016: 236–237). While some studies by neurotypical researchers have argued that autistic people are ‘unable to reciprocate emotions and feelings’ or ‘have problems striking intimate relationships based on a deep emotional-affective bond’ (Parchomiuk, 2019: 262), autistic anime fan practices reflect research that highlights the reality of the nuanced ways autistic people empathize and connect with each other (Crompton et al., 2020).

Where such virtual intimacy exists, however, one also detects the twinned discourse of ‘failure’ (McGlotten, 2013: 12). Indeed, both ‘otaku’ and ‘weeaboo’, which are now alternative names for anime fans, came into existence as labels for imaginary excesses and perversions – that is, inappropriate and unwelcome movement. This fact shines a light on how others police the bodies of some anime fans. After all, as Cornel Sandvoss and his colleagues convincingly argue, the old ‘Fandom is Beautiful’ paradigm misses how fandom is mainstream and reflects some broader social structures and hierarchies as it subverts others, even at times becoming ‘regressive’ (Sandvoss et al., 2017: 3, 7; also Sandvoss, 2005: 42). In just this way, anime fans deemed excessive or perverse in their movement are regulated for the threat that they pose to ‘normality’: ‘they do not respect boundaries…from the physical to the social’; they ‘are uniformly loud, their voices shattering polite conversation and piercing the listeners’ (McGee, 2012: 53–54). Building on fan studies with critical disability studies, we can see that disparaging and disciplining behaviors towards and within anime fandom are part of assigning ‘moral value to embodied difference’ (Smilges 2023: 42). It also shows, we argue, how some anime fans are normalized or treated as ‘cool’ while others are re-marginalized as ‘weird’ (Galbraith, 2019: 15–16). We can observe how the failed fan becomes a neurocoded scapegoat—a manifestation of the fear that we have, as autistic individuals in a post-industrial digital world, of failing to regulate and mask ourselves effectively. Through the mythical creation, regulation, avoidance and othering of ‘otaku’ and ‘weeaboo’, we are reassured and rendered acceptable. This plays out in a larger way with the regulation of all fans, who are all too likely to be dismissed by others as ‘autistic wackos’ (Schodt, 1996: 46). We need new language and approaches to open anime fandom as stim culture to its already-existing diversity.

Conclusion

In conceptualizing stim cultures, this article has offered a critical intervention in autism studies, much of which seeks to ‘cure’ or ‘intervene’ with our bodyminds so we may appear neurotypical. While some researchers contend that accounts of our own lives might be biased or inaccurate, we argue that documenting stim cultures as part of autistic wellbeing and community is essential in our collectively reclaiming research about our bodies, minds and lives. In our discussion of visual tactility or animation stimming, layers or moving through estranged worlds and unmasking or emerging neurocultures and languages, we identified key features of how anime works for and with the autistic. With its moving images, transforming figures and slick sound design, the visual and aural aesthetics of anime function as a tool for stimming. The literature suggests that stimming acts as a ‘release of any high emotion’ (Kapp, 2019: 1786), where, in anime, moving images and moments and dramatic scenarios become catalogued and re-lived by fans, who enjoy overwhelming affects. Furthermore, thinking in layers and exploring texts from different angles, and playing with their dis/connections from the ‘real’, is pleasurable and engaging for autistic people. The estranged world of anime provides a sense of comfort, a lens through which we can interpret the world. Finally, anime worlds not only present autistic people with safe spaces to both belong and play with sociality, but the characters themselves also provide more-than-human companionship (as emblazoned in the ‘wife’ or ‘husband’).

Anime fandom presents an interesting site of ‘neuro-culture’, which recognizes neurological difference and challenges neurotypical socio-cultural norms. Anime fan spaces facilitate and celebrate strangeness, bringing together autistic people who feel ‘different’. Resonating with studies of anime fans, also known as ‘weeaboo’ and ‘otaku’, activities in fandom spaces facilitate nuances in social connections. One of the goals of this article has been to outline the evidence for anime attracting and being a support for autistic individuals organized into ‘neuroqueer microsocieties’ (Price, 2022: 52–53). Fan cultures operate outside the imaginary confines of neurotypical ‘norms’ and acknowledge the neurodiversity that already exists among anime fans. Here we have presented stim cultures as a form of tentative exploration that can uncover new directions in autistic and fan culture research, inviting other scholars to participate moving forward.

Footnotes

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Megan Catherine Rose

Patrick W. Galbraith

Georgia Thomas-Parr

Notes

Author biographies

Megan Catherine Rose is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Vitalities Lab, UNSW Sydney, and a doctoral researcher at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society.

Patrick W. Galbraith is an Associate Professor in the School of International Communication at Senshū University in Tokyo.

Georgia Thomas-Parr is an Associate Lecturer in Film and Media at University College London.

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