Autism Be Damned My Boy Can Work A Grill

About

Autism Be Damned My Boy Can Work A Grill, also known as Autism Be Damned, refers to a catchphrase and phrasal template started by a Facebook post from a user named Eddie Gomez showing his autistic son cooking chicken on a grill in Oklahoma. The screenshot was reposted to multiple platforms in 2020. The phrase was recaptioned and exploited as a redraw trend that emerged in which characters from multiple fandoms were inserted into the template.

Origin

On June 23rd, 2020, Facebook^[1] user Eddie Gomez posted to the Facebook group Oklahoma Joe's Owners Club four pictures of his son grilling chicken wings on a small grill, captioning the post, "Autism be damned my boy can work a grill," and earning roughly 109,000 reactions and 130,000 shares in two years (shown below).

Spread

On June 27th, 2020, the Facebook^[2] page Golden Gloves Cuisine reposted the image, earning roughly 1,800 reactions and 1,200 shares in two years. A month later, on July 28th, 2020, Redditor My_Memes_Will_Cure_U posted a screenshot of the Facebook post to /r/MadeMeSmile,^[3] earning roughly 46,200 upvotes in two years. Later on July 28th, 2020, iFunnyer ^[4] CockOfDoom reposted the screenshot, earning roughly 19,500 smiles in two years.

On May 1st, 2021, Twitter user malefujoshi (since suspended) tweeted an image of the character Kaworu Nagisa from Neon Genesis Evangelion along with the catchphrase, earning an unknown amount of likes but both replies^[6] and reposts to Instagram^[7] (shown below).

Redraw Trend

On September 21st, 2021, Twitter^[8] user NadaHarmonia tweeted a redraw of the post that inserted the Deltarune character Spamton G. Spamton into the template, earning over 310 likes in one year (shown below, left). On December 28th, 2021, Tumblr^[5] user malama-art redrew the Facebook post to show the character Jotaro Kujo from the anime/manga JoJo's Bizarre Adventure manning the grill, additionally recaptioning the post's caption to appear that it was uploaded by Joseph Joestar to the imaginary Facebook group "New York Joe's Owner Club." Over the course of nine months, the post received roughly 10,900 notes (shown below, right).

"Autism Be Damned" Snowclone

Continuing into 2022, the template saw more usage as a redraw trend on Tumblr and elsewhere. Additionally, the catchphrase was used outside of the grilling context, highlighted in a snowclone trend on Twitter that started with "Autism be damned" and ended by referencing a different activity that being autistic could not reduce the prowess of. This trend originally started on April 9th, 2021, when Twitter^[9] user s4m31p4n tweeted, "Autism be damned my boy can suck and fuck," earning over 240 likes in a year and a half (shown below).

Roughly a year later, on May 29th, 2022, Twitter^[10] user _glassduster tweeted, "autism be damned my boy knows his trains," earning roughly 35,000 likes in four months (shown below, left). This tweet accelerated the snowclone trend with its virality, leading to multiple viral iterations in mid-2022. For instance, on June 3rd, 2022, Twitter^[11] user vsshole tweeted, "Autism Be Damned That boy can tweets," gaining roughly 3,500 likes in three months (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References