I always super identified with adata growing up, awkward social interaction, and I, myself did the mimicry thing, still catch myself doing it when meeting new people. I found out I’m autistic 3 years ago, and Data is a SUPER autistic coded character.
Yeah, all those episodes about how Data was awkward and stilted when trying to interact with humans, and he would have gotten along well with certain neurodivergent ones. Same applies to Vulcans, really - the ones that actually uphold the ideals of logic and aren’t all smarmy about it, at least.
I saw an interview a while back where Brent Spiner said he only found out that autistic people identified with Data years after the show was over. He said it was good he didn’t know at the time, because it might have ruined the performance if he were aware of it while doing it.
I always super identified with adata growing up, awkward social interaction, and I, myself did the mimicry thing, still catch myself doing it when meeting new people. I found out I’m autistic 3 years ago, and Data is a SUPER autistic coded character.
Yeah, all those episodes about how Data was awkward and stilted when trying to interact with humans, and he would have gotten along well with certain neurodivergent ones. Same applies to Vulcans, really - the ones that actually uphold the ideals of logic and aren’t all smarmy about it, at least.
I saw an interview a while back where Brent Spiner said he only found out that autistic people identified with Data years after the show was over. He said it was good he didn’t know at the time, because it might have ruined the performance if he were aware of it while doing it.