What on earth is ‘Neurospicy’?????

The past ten years have seen the global neurodiversity community progress from a small, dedicated core of change-makers to a huge social movement that’s changing the world for the better. Multi-national businesses are dedicating entire teams to inclusion and awareness, and although things are still far from perfect, it’s more accessible than ever for neurodivergent individuals to work and study.??

But greater attention and greater participation has also led to the rise of a new language. Whereas a decade ago we were just growing into terms like neurodiversity, we’re now seeing a huge diversification of terminologies, and new ones are coined every year. One of the most widespread we’ve seen in recent months is the rise of the term ‘neurospicy’… but what does it mean??

And what do neologisms (a newly coined word or expression) like these mean for the community??

What’s Neurospicy??

Neurospicy is just another way of referring to a neurodivergent individual or group of individuals. It’s not another word for a neurodiverse group (which most people use to refer to a group of neurodivergent and neurotypical individuals), but something that’s specifically related to neurodivergent status. The ‘spicy’ part simply comes from internet culture’s tendency to refer to anything slightly narrative-challenging as ‘spicy’.?

We often represent it using the pepper emoji: ???.?

Why is it an important phrase for us to have??

It’s fun! Quite often, the narratives we see in the global neurodiversity community aren’t that positive: it’s easy to find yourself lost in a hashtag full of depressing statistics and articles about how neurodivergent people have struggled. Neurospicy pokes a little fun at the seriousness of ‘neurodivergent’ as an identifier, and re-establishes it in a more fun, more conversational context.??

It fulfils an important function for people within the global neurodiversity community who feel like they’re not quite ready to say neurodivergent yet. For some people, especially younger members of the community, it might feel easier to say “I’m a bit neurospicy” than “I’ve got dyslexia” or “I’m Autistic”, because those terms can sometimes feel quite heavy. Some people go one step further and say it’s pulling back from the medicalisation of neurodivergent status, which they describe as often leaving them feeling like they have something to ‘cure’.??

Neurospicy is an important benchmark phrase for people who are still feeling out the idea of neurodivergent status, or are waiting for assessments and diagnoses too: because it encompasses all kinds of neurodivergence, it’s a good conversational catch-all when you’re still figuring things out. “I’m not sure if I’ve got ADHD or if I might be Autistic” can open up a big dialogue, whereas “Yeah, I might be a little neurospicy” doesn’t leave so much room for follow-up questions you might be uncomfortable with.?

Are there any issues in using new phraseologies like this??

Lots of people love neurospicy.?

But some people don’t enjoy neurospicy’s growing use because they feel that neologisms like this lock out neurodivergent individuals from generations where social media use isn’t quite as prevalent. For people under 40, it might be something that they pick up easily, but for less online generations there may be a little confusion. It is, however, very easy to fix: simply define it when we use it the first time in a piece of media— “Neurospicy (an internet culture term for neurodivergent)”.?

Some also feel that because it breaks down the seriousness, it reduces neurodivergent status to something fun and quirky, not something that has genuine and far-reaching consequences within the landscape of an individual’s life. Somebody struggling to find a job due to their dyslexia may find it appropriate for people to refer to their neurodivergence with epithets that feel ‘fun’ or ‘quirky’.??

It’s all a matter of opinion, but with hashtag uses rocketing up into the millions in 2022 and 2023, neurospicy looks like it may be here to stay.? ? What are your thoughts on ‘neurospicy’ status? ????