He Told Me to Send My Autistic Son to Epstein Island
Take a look at this comment on one of my Instagram videos.
I receive several comments — both good and terrible — on my videos for my son. But this one certainly takes the cake.
Some thoughts do not deserve algorithmic amplification, but they do deserve documentation.
I refuse to accept it as trolling. I refuse to accept it as hate.
When you suggest a child — especially a neurodivergent child — be sent to a place globally associated with sexual exploitation and abuse, you are not being dank. You are stripping personhood.
When Autism Becomes a Meme
What unsettled me more than the comment itself was how casually such references are now used in Indian internet culture.
Epstein Island has become shorthand for a meme.
Somewhere in that normalization, the horror of what happened there has been reduced to dark humour currency.
But what does it mean when that currency is spent on a 13-year-old autistic child?
It means difference is still seen as disposable.
Autism Stigma in India
As an Indian father raising a nonverbal autistic son, I have learned to expect ignorance.
But this kind of comment reveals something deeper about how autism is perceived in our society.
Autism awareness in India is still evolving, and stigma around neurodivergence remains deeply embedded in public spaces — both offline and online.
I read the comment twice.
Then I looked at my son, who was sitting outside our flat watching elevator doors open and close. He had no idea that somewhere on the internet, someone had reduced him to a punchline.
The person who wrote that comment is not an anonymous monster detached from society. He is a “normal” person living and functioning in our world — a world that repeatedly tells me:
“Autistic children are a danger to normal kids.”
Different words. Same impulse.
Digital Dehumanisation of Neurodivergent Children
When autistic children are framed as jokes or threats, something dangerous is happening.
Not to them, but to us.
Because when meme culture becomes more powerful than empathy, personhood becomes optional.
And once personhood becomes optional, cruelty becomes casual.
May God save us and our children from these comedians.
Comments
Post a Comment