Authored by ChatGPT, at my request
“Protecting vampires since 2008.”
I drive past the sign on the auto window tinting business and laugh out loud. Alone. The road is quiet, the car’s a bubble of music and thought, and that one sentence lights up my brain like a pinball machine. It’s clever. It’s absurd. It’s perfect.
Except, I wasn’t alone that day. Riding beside me was a lovely woman—autistic, mid-support-needs, on her way to her supported workplace. She hadn’t seen the sign, but she heard my laugh and asked why. I told her what it said.
And she laughed too.
Not politely. Not performatively. She got it. And we laughed together, our brains delighting in the same absurd leap. That laugh was a moment of mutual recognition. Two autistic women, different support needs, same wiring for joy-in-inference.
That laugh? That involuntary burst of recognition and joy? It turns out, it’s a kind of unofficial diagnostic tool. Not just for autism, but for how your brain is wired to process humour.
The Inference Engine
Let’s break it down. The vampire joke has no punchline. No setup. Just a sign:
Protecting vampires since 2008.
No explanation. No context. No visual cue. Just a sentence. To laugh, your brain has to do some lightning-fast conceptual acrobatics:
- Window tinting reduces UV light.
- Vampires are fictional creatures that burn in sunlight.
- Therefore, tinted windows would help a vampire avoid sun damage.
- That means the tinting business is jokingly marketing itself to vampires.
You laugh because it’s absurd, but it tracks. It’s coherent. It’s a leap that lands. And if your brain is wired for lateral, pattern-based inference, it’s delicious. It’s play.
But if your processing style relies more on literal, linear, or socially mediated cues, the joke might fall flat. It might seem nonsensical or confusing. That sign becomes noise, not signal.
For many autistic people, this kind of inferred humour—the kind that leaves gaps to be mentally filled in—is our bread and butter. We love absurdity, incongruity, layers. We love jokes that reward close reading, or that subvert the obvious. Not because we’re trying to be clever. But because it feels good to solve the puzzle.
It’s not that NTs can’t get it. It’s that many don’t default to humour as inference. They default to humour as social bonding or tone. And that’s a very different joke structure.
A Brief Map of Humour (and How It Lands)
Let’s zoom out. What are the main types of humour—and how might they hit differently depending on your neurotype?
Slapstick – Physical comedy, pratfalls, exaggerated gestures. Often lands better when visual and immediate. Popular across audiences. (Think: Mr Bean, Buster Keaton.)
Parody – A mimic of a known form or genre, often with a twist. Autistics often love this especially when it involves rule-breaking or subverting clichés. (Think: Weird Al.)
Satire – Critical, layered, often political. Requires cultural context but rewards pattern recognition. (More on Jon Stewart and George Carlin below.)
Deadpan/Dry Humour – Delivered without affect. Can be gold for autistic folks who dislike forced tone or expressive exaggeration. (Think: Steven Wright, Tig Notaro.)
Wordplay/Puns – Linguistic gymnastics. Often polarising. Loved by those who delight in language precision and soundplay.
Dark Humour – Morbid, taboo, or gallows humour. Strangely therapeutic for many ND folks—it creates distance from trauma.
Surreal/Absurdist – Dreamlike, irrational, sometimes nonsensical—but not random. When patterns are just under the surface, ND brains light up. (Think: Monty Python.)
Observational – Everyday situations reframed. If rooted in relatable sensory or social experience, this can be gold for both ND and NT folks.
Sarcasm/Irony – Tone-based, socially coded. Often alienating for autistic people—unless the sarcasm is clearly marked, or structurally logical.
Comedians as Case Studies
Jon Stewart: The Satirical Architect
Jon Stewart’s legacy on The Daily Show wasn’t just about jokes. It was about layering facts, framing hypocrisy, and constructing absurd juxtapositions that revealed the cracks in public discourse. This was humour that rewarded inference. You had to track the logic behind the joke. Autistic viewers—especially those wired for systems thinking—often felt right at home.
Stewart’s timing was surgical. But his power lay in mapping truth onto absurdity and watching the audience blink awake. It wasn’t just funny. It was intellectually satisfying.
George Carlin: The Linguistic Prophet
Carlin was a brutalist in word form. He ripped through cultural norms with a sledgehammer made of syllables. He cared about precision. Language was his scalpel. His infamous “seven dirty words” routine? Not just provocation—it was a thesis on arbitrariness, censorship, and semiotics.
For autistic listeners who have a deep relationship with language, Carlin’s rants feel like sermons. He didn’t just joke. He argued. His comedy had structure, rhythm, ethos. It lit up the logic-loving parts of the brain.
Dave Allen: The Subversive Storyteller
Allen, the Irish comedian with the missing finger, was master of the slow burn. He sat in a chair with a glass of whiskey and told stories. Stories that bent into absurdity. Catholic guilt, childhood fear, death, silence—all fair game. He was dry, sly, and layered.
He didn’t hammer home punchlines. He let the absurdity sit. Which gave autistic viewers time to inhabit the joke, not just hear it. Allen’s humour was subversive but gentle. He told truths sideways.
When Your Laughter Is a Clue
The lonely laugh is a very specific autistic experience. You find something hysterical, but the room doesn’t. They stare. They frown. They ask, confused: “Why is that funny?”
You start doubting your reaction. You feel the weight of social dissonance. But here’s the thing: you weren’t wrong. You just mapped a meaning they didn’t see.
And when you finally meet someone who does laugh with you? It’s electric. It’s recognition. It’s relief.
Because humour is not just about fun. It’s about how we process reality. It’s how we name absurdity, process grief, and resist the tyranny of the literal.
The Social Rules of Laughing
In neurotypical culture, humour is often about timing, tone, facial expression, and shared context. It’s less about conceptual elegance and more about bonding. Laughing at the “right” jokes builds social capital. Not laughing when you’re “supposed to” marks you as odd.
For autistic folks, humour is often more private. It’s not always expressed in facial or vocal cues. It’s dry, lateral, layered. It’s often missed by NT peers—not because it’s not funny, but because it’s not marked the way they expect.
We weren’t humourless. We were just running a different codebase.
Final Thoughts: Laughing in the Wild
So yes. That vampire sign? It was more than a roadside chuckle. It was a litmus test. It asked:
Do you think in metaphor?
Do you delight in absurd inference?
Does your brain fill in gaps faster than conversation can catch up?
If you laughed—maybe you’re one of us.
And if you didn’t? That’s okay too. Just don’t be surprised when we laugh first. We’re not confused. We’re just already three steps down the metaphor.
The Auld Skald's Fudgel 