Children's Media and Autism

Because the sacred cows make the tastiest hamburgers.

Maybe it's something to do with immaturity.
Fetishes, real fetishes, are developed early on. And the kind of thing you're talking about tends to center on properties that are definitely aimed at kids. Maybe there's a population who are stunted in some way such that they fixate on these child-oriented shows while indulging in "immature" sexual hang-ups.

Especially the males!

Well at least we know that western looking characters cant be waifus, only anime and manga characters can be TURE waifus!

TRUE*

It's the other way around. Autism makes people latch onto oddly specific things and then mash them together with other deviant and aberrant behavior.

When a cartoon features something that triggers a weird fetish in its audience, it tends to develop beyond the initial confines of the cartoon. Like, that blueberry scene from Willy Wonka spawned a new fetish entirely, but people with a "blueberry" fetish aren't still scrawling highly specific and obsessive MS paint art of Violet from that movie.

autists are showing up mostly in first world countries
the autism rate is very high in america even compared to other first world countries
it correlates with deteriorating led pipes

its led in the water, or the highly pharmaceutical and litigious nature of the upper middle class in america, probably both.

No, the only reason why autism seems more prominent in first world countries is due to the easier and relatively cheaper access to internet that they can use to expose themselves.

And access to doctors to diagnose it. Same reason with the 'vaccines cause autism' hysteria; countries with functioning medical infrastructure have access to both vaccines for children and doctors who can diagnose mental disorders.

Though I think there might actually be some correlation with how recent generations have been having children older, because of how long it takes for parents to get any kind of stability, and having children older has a higher chance of all kinds of physical disorders and issues.

You're telling me there are autistic kids in the heart of Africa, who can only carve their pregnant Sonic OC into wood? That really makes you think.