A comprehensive guide to why Aburame Shino is peak Autistic Representation
( This is poorly organized and doesnāt actually include everything, but you know :] )
It starts with the flashback to when Torune was taken and flashbacks to early academy days, during which Shino is about 7.
He showed no interest in playing with other children, or in making friends. He didnāt see a point in talking to people who didnāt want to discuss his special interest, which he dedicated all his free time to, and he didnāt emote when Torune was taken away, even though it impacted him very deeply. Even as a small child he talked ālike an adultā, monotonous, strange phrasing, over-explaining, and too quietly. When he wasnāt being ignored by his classmates, they were trying to use him.
Later on when you see him socialize more, in Pre-Teen and Teenage years, more things become apparent.
In general he seems semi-verbal, most of the time silent, and becomes agitated when forced to repeat himself. Konoha Hiden expands on this, saying that he wishes people just knew what he meant and felt without him having to talk, and that he is bonded to Akamaru because he feels that Akamaru is the only one who he can communicate with in that way. When heās upset he isolates and at one point is even seen hitting his head when he was trying to cool down and was interrupted by unwanted social interaction.
He doesnāt understand why people need to see his face, and usually doesnāt look in the direction of the person he is addressing. He also doesnāt understand jokes, rarely laughs, and angrily dissects punsā¦but then later puns become his entire sense of humor. Heās never dressed for the season, either. Aburames tend to be very covered up by default but besides his Part 1 outfit he is always in multiple layers regardless of the season. (Year round trench coats are a huge autistic stereotype.) He gets along better with people outside of his age group, respected by adults and looked up to by younger kids who think he is cool and knowledgeable. Konoha Hiden also states that during this period he was suffering with comorbid Anxiety and Depression.
Thereās a lot of black and white thinking on display, for example he is anti-alcoholā obviously he would have been taught not to drink as an Aburame, but he also doesnāt like when others drink. He sees it as universally bad. Heās a stickler for the rules and often scolds his peers for not following rules and guidelines. He also seems like a bit of a prude even though it is suggested that he himself has a dirty mind (noticing girlsā cup sizes and the implications of Road to Ninja treating his Personal Business as a personality trait) which is a funny hypocrisy I have noticed in a lot of autistic people. He holds a hell of a grudge and ruminates endlessly, which is documented at higher rates in autistic people due to rigid thinking.
He is trying to make friends like Torune wanted, and is now aware that not having friends is a bad thing. He starts feeling the pain of being ostracized not only in general but also by his friend group and isnāt even sure if he has friends. He is 17 years old before he understands what allistics consider friend status.
We start to see some of his sensory issues pop up too. He is seen wearing sunglasses even at night and while sleeping. He hates any food that smells strongly and his favorites are pretty bland. He pulls a piece of meat out of his mouth, in public, uncharacteristically violating taboo. He was able to identify the number of people in a distant group only by sound at a time when this would have been above his skill level. (Which makes sense. Team 8 is thus Eyes, Ears, Nose. More on this later.) By Boruto, he has added ear protection and stronger eye protection that he wears when he is expecting to be near fluorescent lights or crowds. Suddenly his overall mood is greatly improved and he can smile openly.
He shows signs of hyperempathy in being overly distressed when losing insects, as he has many millions of them, and having an exaggerated physical response to anticipating Sakura and Narutoās despair.
He has chronic bitchy resting face and is extremely blunt to a a degree of being insulting, which makes people assume he is a mean person. He also comes across as pedantic to his peers, when from his perspective heās just didactic, and even though he over-explains everything his peers still have difficulty understanding what heās saying.
He will also randomly connect the topic of discussion to his special interest and begin infodumping about bugs, and isnāt aware that people around him are not interested or worse, repulsed by his special interest until told, at which point he feels personally hurt. Generally his interests are very stereotypical of an autistic person: bugs, comics, ecology, strategy, etc.
He seems level-headed and robotically analytical until he reaches a certain threshold when he suddenly over-emotes in dramatic and awkward ways.
You might notice that when his hands arenāt in his pockets, he doesnāt seem to know what to do with them; theyāre always balled into fists, which smells of someone who was taught not to stim. Even so, when he gets really excited in Konoha Hiden and is being himself, he starts spinning around. His speech quirk preceding frequent over-explanations (Why? Becauseā¦ / The reason is becauseā¦) is also considered a type of echolalia.
Mentioning Hiden, in the Blank Period we start to see changes associated with the autistic experience of starting to understand that you are awkward, not knowing how to fix it, and all the anxiety that comes with that. He is stuck riding the lag train and is fully ready to become a hermit in the woods.
He isnāt understood in the way that he wants to be understood. He canāt let himself get comfortable in other peopleās homes. He uses his trench coat as a barrier between himself and other people, treating it like a security blanket. He still doesnāt understand how his choice of attire affects peopleās perception of him and becomes agitated when heās told it makes him look suspicious. He doesnāt appear to be pursuing any intimate relationships, and displays a lack of boundaries when picking Choji up with his insects when he gets excited.
The lag train becomes even more apparent in Boruto. He hasnāt found a partner, his friends are growing even further away from him, and possibly worst of all heās seen as more childishā too grown-up as a kid, too immature as an adult.
He is masking extremely heavily for the sake of his career, mirroring Iruka, removing almost all of his personal identity from his appearance including the parts that made him feel safeā everything has to be professional. This actually hurts his ability to work with kids because he already knew how to talk to them, but he is now trying to emulate the image of a teacher for the sake of professionalism.
In the classroom he struggles with things I have seen real-life autistic teachers talk about: He works well with the younger kids, they love him and his fun facts, but the older ones can tell that there is something different about him and they will ignore or outright bully him. Itās very difficult to control them or hold their interest. (He later develops stomach problems due to stress from working with said older kids)
The big problem is that he is not good at masking. In traditional settings with very clearly defined roles and rules of how to act and what to say he gets by just fine, but in organic interactions itās nothing but spaghetti and this causes him severe stress. He is proud of himself for being able to speak to many people in a day now but at what cost? Pattern recognition and rigid thinking of course leads to rumination spirals, and under extreme pressure he starts reverting to childish things. He has only had Kura-maa a short time before he becomes attached and starts personifying it. This may seem childish, but autistic people are more likely to do this and will continue to do so later into life than their allistic peers. (See Object Personification in Autism: This paper will be very sad if you donāt read it)
He has become a real people-pleaser, allowing himself to be imposed upon constantly, and apologizes excessively even for situations that were not his fault, which are both behaviors many autistic people pick up. And, for all his masking, he canāt hide that he is still terrible at understanding and constructing metaphors, ie ābad insectsā and the yakisoba bun analogy.
He is trying his damnedest to adapt and accommodate himself in a rapidly changing world that wasnāt very friendly to him to begin with. He was able to slide under the radar as respectable and somewhat normal when the world was as rigid as he is. Now every day heās facing new challenges that he isnāt used to and heās acting a little fucked up and neurotic, overcompensating and making it worse.
So yeah, maybe heās not ācoolā by most standards. Not everyone gets a happy ending where they become the most ideal version of themselves. Not in real life, and not in animes that have hundreds of characters. Whatās important is that he is exactly on the trajectory set by previous installments to the series and very accurately and thoroughly depicting autistic struggles in every aspect of life. And thatās pretty cool to me. :)
