‘What does autism look like?’ 20-year-old confronts stereotypes on TikTok

Lots of people tell 20-year-old Paige Layle that she “doesn’t look autistic,” from commenters on her TikTok videos to an interviewer at a local TV station. They usually mean it as a compliment — but Layle wants them to know that it isn’t one.

“People are like, ‘You’re too pretty to be autistic, which is stupid,’” she told TMRW. “I’ll go, ‘Oh, what does autism look like?’”

Layle, an eyelash technician from southern Ontario, Canada, went viral earlier this year for denouncing a popular TikTok audio trend that used autism as an insult. “Autism and being dumb are not synonyms, OK?” said Layle in the video. “Hi there, I’m autistic. I’m also the smartest person that I’ve ever met, OK?”

The video blew up, which Layle attributes mostly to “shock value” — the fact that people don’t typically associate smart, outgoing, attractive women with autism. Since then, she’s focused her TikTok channel on autism-related issues, garnering more than 800,00 followers and 21 million likes.

Some of Layle’s TikToks are history lessons: One video discusses how the common high-functioning and low-functioning labels are tools from the Holocaust, when Hans Asperger decided that some autistic people could “provide some kind of capitalistic, monetary value,” while the rest deserved to die.

But Layle considers her “most impactful” videos ones that educate viewers on how they can change their own behaviors to make the world more accessible.

“First thing: sarcasm, idioms, metaphors, similes, no. Don’t use them,” she said in a video that provides tips for better communicating with autistic people. “We can’t read minds. More importantly, we can’t read subtext, so just say what you want!”

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