People who are autistic

[mumofoneAlonebutokay]

I just saw this tiktok which has blown my mind!

If you're autistic, you might think literally, and if you do, you may have misunderstood this joke!

Why did the chicken cross the road?'
'To get to the other side.

The chicken isn't literally crossing a dual carriageway. He is crossing as he wants to die. He wants to get hit by a car and die, hence 'going to the other side'.

Mind blown 😭😭😭

I'd been thinking that the joke was banal and a joke about boring jokes 😄

Tiktok username: charmingbears_fan.45

That's not what that joke means though?

The "why did the chicken cross the road?" joke is an example of anti-humour.

That’s not actually correct, OP. The point of the joke is that it has a curious set-up leading you to expect a traditional punchline, but the answer is actually just a simple statement of fact. That’s where the humour lies.

The meaning you reference has subsequently been imposed on the joke by certain groups of people who don’t get the above - it’s not the original meaning.

I’m autistic and to be honest I just thought it was as literal as it seems ie the chicken just wants to cross the road. Never heard of any other theory.
I was that kid ( and sometimes as an adult) who has to have the joke “explained” to them and was only diagnosed age 45.

Don’t believe everything you see on TikTok.

Don’t believe anything, would be more apt.

I'm autistic (diagnosed) and I've always thought the chicken just wanted to cross the road, period. No hidden meaning etc.

But, why a chicken would want to cross the road is of zero interest to me, so I've never given it (the 'joke') any head space.

Oh 😄🙈🙈🙈

Here was me thinking i had to share this mind-blowing thing with everyone

I think it’s the other way around. Someone neurodivergent came up with the alternate reasoning to look smarter than everyone else

How did they decide that chicken was a he?

Sorry but what does that have to do with being autistic?

Good god

😄 imo the chicken was angsty, male, plays an instrument, had a hard life but is loved by everyone

I think that this is probably what happened - they got me though

That makes no sense though. If it said ‘why did the chicken cross the motorway at rush hour’ then there could be a double meaning from ‘to meet the other side’.

Whereas just ‘crossing the road’ is rarely deadly. You don’t think ‘I want to die’ and therefore decide to cross a road.

It’s a good example though of how TikTok can lead to people wrongly diagnosing themselves with autism and ADHD.

Or to get lots of TikTok views for their channel to irresponsibly encourage people to self diagnose more. It's a great scam to get lots of engaged viewers by appealing to their self interest and insecurities. Because the world needs more "If you tie your shoelaces like this then you're autistic" shite.

Saw that ages ago. I’m not autistic and never understood it either.

I have my diagnosis and do think literally 😭 but I agree that the 'if you do this then you're autistic' posts are harmful

You know the joke “what’s orange and sounds like a parrot? A carrot”.

You may think that the humour arises from misleading people into thinking of an orange bird, but in fact the Venezuelan Squawking Carrot does indeed make a noise just like a parrot when harvested, and this joke is referring to this.

I'm autistic and didn't realise it meant that. It makes sense now you've said though. I thought it was just meant to be one of those rubbish jokes where the answer is obvious?

Another chicken related one which baffles me is when people say which came first, the chicken or the egg?
The answer is blatantly obvious that the egg came first, a chicken comes from an egg so can't have come before the egg, so something close to a chicken would have laid an egg which genetic mutations turned into the first chicken.
Not sure why it's posed like an unanswerable or even debatable question.

Yes but where did the egg come from 😂

From something close to a chicken, which laid the first egg which mutated enough to be classed as a chicken

I prefer

A “why did the chicken cross the road?”
B “I don’t know..”
A ”she was going to meet the idiot”

A ”knock knock”
B ”who is there”
A ”the chicken”

Have to admit my mind was blown when someone pointed out the little piggy going to market wasn't heading there to do some shopping.

From a nearly-chicken.

People always looked at me weirdly when I answered the "which came first?" question. Took me a looooong time to figure out that it's supposed to be unanswerable, which broke my brain because the answer seems intuitively obvious.

Yes, I'm autistic. Yes, I'm used to very much missing the point.

I don't think the chicken necessarily wants to die though. It's just funny because the other side can mean two different things and we assume it means the other side of the road before remembering that it also means the afterlife and he is likely to die because he's a chicken crossing the road.