Chris is nowhere near an Aspie is on mental cognizance. All Chris knows are somethings about Chris, he does not understand himself or his feelings in relation to others, period. Well, scratch that, he understands that there are somethings you should not do, like touching others without their permission, and that's only after he had to be told several times. It's not that much stretch to think that he may be able to feel some deep feelings, but a lot of what he says, like his Sonic recolor, are borrowed from the experiences of others.
I think there's a distinction to be made between Chris' autism symptoms (theory of mind) and Chris just having weird tastes and being unintelligent. I think that he's very much on par with an aspie as far as the former goes. And in that same line of thinking, I don't think Chris is that bad at casual socialization. Aspies aren't that bad either. Sometimes they're awkward and sometimes you wouldn't notice anything. It's still real socialization.
Chris' bigger problems are that he's got weird interests and that he's stupid. But people are pretty forgiving when it comes to talking to stupid people, especially if you share weird interests (gay shit or nerd shit, in Chris' case). Chris does a decent job of exploiting those two loopholes when talking to people. No one's as uncomfortable as Chris' internet reputation would lead you to believe.
The stories of Chris' socialization IRL are mostly boring and uninteresting. It's not even uninteresting in an interesting way, like if you stumbled upon Chris actually having a brilliant conversation with some people in a bar. No... it's pretty much just stupid: Chris isn't grossing anyone out or offending anyone. He's just talking about family guy and being boring and stupid.
(That's most of the time, however. Sometimes interesting things happen. Like can the next tard who buys a video from Chris, instead of getting him rambling about cartoons again, get him to make a video talking about his interactions with transmen? Because I know Chris has talked to some transmen, and I'm curious about the details.)
You said a while ago, Classic Chris felt tremendous pressure to act tough because he thinks there is a need for him to appear masculine.
Do you have context to this quote? The reason I ask is because I don't know if I'd say Chris ever tried to act tough in general.
Chris usually reacts to a specific stimulus, and has a short memory about those sorts of things. Like a goldfish. So in any video where Chris is specifically trying to act like Johnny Bravo, that was almost always in response to a request by us no older than 24 hours. We would hype Chris up about how he's being called a pussy, and how if he doesn't make a video soon, he'll lose the rights to Sonichu. (I don't remember how we connected him being a pussy to him losing Sonichu, but I guess whatever it was, it worked.)
I don't think Chris had a drive to appear manly over a long period of time. Without stimuli like the trolls, Chris just kind of fell back into his natural state: being a manchild, playing with toys, and wanting his heartsweet to take care of him.
(Correct me if I'm wrong, I could be forgetting something.)
He no longer feels that way anymore, but still talks up his life as if everything is great (unless it benefits him to appear miserable, such as when begging), and yet you have just confirmed that he is fully aware his life sucks. Is there any other reason he doesn't express his depression openly, now that the whole desperation to appear masculine is already out the window?
Well, when I say that he's aware his life sucks, I mean that when things take a downturn, I don't believe he's surprised by it. He watches his and Barb's finances go up and down with the tides. He's used to it by now.
If Chris is acting cheerful, he's probably genuinely cheerful because Barb's been bitching at him less. But again, when things do go downhill again (and they do, every time), he's not surprised.
Oh, and as far as expressing his depression openly: that's literally what he's doing when he begs.
The only two ways Chris can fathom to fix his life are to give him money or give him a sweetheart (with the understanding that the sweetheart would dump Barb in a hole and he could forget about her).