Abed being mentioned makes me so happy considering the fact that Community is my special interest and I’ve written multiple essays about Abed and neurodivergency as shown on the show. :))
I like seeing autism like fantasy races, with allistic people being human, autistic people being elves. There's many types of both humans and elves, and one subset of elven does not inform others behaviors, much like humans can be varied and diverse, so do elves. Some may be sensitive to sunlight, living underground but loving the lights of luminescence as they read. Some may be social, or loners, some may be geniuses or logical-led, others more instinctual. Some may not speak but instead feel intensely... the only common thread is we're all elves. :3 (I started this envisioning of sub categorization as it makes more sense to me, and allows me to value myself equally to others without having to equate to them, either positively or negatively... like if there's a social ritual i don't understand, i can say to myself "another strange human ritual" and not obsess with it too much. Just wanted to share my thoughts)
i'm autistic, and i often have trouble seeing myself in fictional characters or being able to relate to them. i find that the characters i relate to the most are often the ones who are accidentally written as autistic. the first example that comes to mind is shulk from xenoblade chronicles, who a lot of autistic fans of the game relate to and agree that he has a lot of autistic traits. it's never stated anywhere in any canon material that he has any sort of neurodivergence or mental illness, but i think there's a reason so many autistic fans of the game resonate with him, myself included. yet, when it comes to media with a canon autistic character or media that is centred around an autistic character, it often feels alienating. but writing a genuinely good autistic character is really hard considering how differently everyone experiences it. i'm hyper-empathetic, but one of my autistic friends has low empathy, as an example. it varies wildly between every individual person and, as a result, it's impossible to make an autistic character that every autistic person can relate to.
even for comedic purposes the writers could be more creative on their jokes. I have some number of social experiences that I can laugh which had not to be that dull
i would recommend analyzing Holly Gibney!! She's a character in 6 of Stephen King's books, and I heavily relate to her as an autistic person. imo she's really good autistic representation
as an autist a bad thing is the way in which autism is essentialized, even any idea close to moving out of the spectrum is misleading. We dont move out of anything more then anyone moves out of themselves, we just develop in life along with that characteristic just like anyone else
The lack of meaningful and deep friendships is very troubling. I don't have many friends anymore but the few I have are like family.. my best friend and I have a standing Thursday date night so we get to hang out everyweek.. we honor that time and rarely ever cancel. I wish I had more friends sometimes but I know I'm lucky
I got called out at the end bc im at work listening and watching while doing this project LOL. Btw I was kind of curious if anyone has opinions on Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds. He’s infantilized a lot, sexualized a lot and a lot of people believe him to be autistic (its me, i’m people)
Funny, how chubby or fat women are ignored and being pushed aside by the land whales (aka morbidly obese) calling it healthy. Sure some of them are genetic and required medical intervention, but vast majority of obesity is self inflicted due to lack of self discipline and poor choice of diet. I am sure fast food industry is funding these promotion of morbid obesity as "healthy" just like tobacco companies using doctors to endorse their products.
My parents said all those excuses about “Love on the Spectrum” but it doesn’t change the fact that they spent the majority of each episode laughing at the real people doing the show.
The increasing wave of autistic diagnosis is not a coincidence. I believe many of these people are misdiagnosed. They either suffered some form of trauma, are socially awkward, or they're just normal and they're focusing too much on their quirks that everyone also has.
Autistic person here, i expected meltdown good doctor scene to be horrible but idk not far off for me tbh. One example: I'm front desk at a hotel and my bf worked valet at that hotel (technically contracted through my company, but isnt them). the hotel GM gets whatever she wants but ****technically isnt in charge of valet. Things happen, and my boyfriend gets fired, illegally, on the biggest money-making day of the year an hour into the shift. The thing hes being fired for, Illegally, happened 3 weeks ago. He pulls me aside, starts crying, says hes been fired and i am in the lobby during a day where our 300 room hotel has 290 check-ins starting in 5 minutes. I love my job, only job ive ever had that I have been able to succeed at, in NO small part because our gm has an autistic son and understands me (we've had several talks not because i cant do the job, i just need clearer expectations and Very direct communication. So, i have to contain myself while my bf(2yrs) has to be embarrassed and everyone just watched what happened, i tried but i ended up doing a very similar thing, except i ran down to the locker room where I screamed/cried/hit myself overwhelmed! Overwhelmed! Overwhelmed! I went directly to my gms office (she has an open door policy, door was open) and started crying, she told me "im in a conference call, and this is harsh but idk anything about *valet company, cant do anything about it, now pick yourself up and go deal with it. Again i tried, but within 5 minutes i said i cant be here right now and they told me okay, so sent me home. The rest of my day looked Much worse than that clip and idk it makes me sad. We seem to feel so intensely but idk why that would be something to make fun of. No matter how your brain works we all get overwhelmed in our own ways. This whole thing made me sad. Sorry, im not finishing this video even though i find it very interesting. I hope you have a great day and if this comment upsets you or anything like that im sorry that was not my intention.
sorry I'm only 20 seconds in before I have to reply but oh god I wrote a song about this ages ago "waiting for you in the car looking for you in the crowd nice to see you, how you been dude? what you been up to? driving home. it's not what I wanted, but I guess I'll make do, if it's all I can get I'm trying to be reasonable about it but I'm doing a bad job of faking it, and it really shows" [ending lyrics omitted because oh my god it's super depressing]
You know what I want? An autistic *antagonist*. Someone who is evil (or at least opposes the protagonists) and is autistic, but their autism is not the cause of the evil. The autism isn't used to describe, excuse, or even explain their evil/antagonistic acts, but they are undoubtedly autistic. The closest thing I can think of is from the Manga Asper Kanojo. It is a great manga with two different flavours of autistic main characters Saitou and Yokoi (which, incidentally, made a negative review utterly hilarious when they complained that Saitou was "constantly saved by the allistic protagonist"), and the main apartment complex the main characters live in is filled with different types of neurodivergence. There is a sex addicted woman next door, and unlike what a typical manga might do, it is portrayed as any other addiction, in that it is completely and utterly destructive and harmful. One of the friends of the main characters, Shimuzu, is also autistic, and she is somewhat similar to Saitou, but with notable differences. For one, when Saitou self-harms, she does it in a genuine attempt at suicide. When the friend self-harms, she does it in a direct attempt at emotional manipulation, although she is working on not doing that anymore. Two similar events with completely different motivations. The mangaka clearly knows how autism, and other mental disorders, can manifest in different ways, and the best example is the landlady's son, an autistic asshole misogynist. It is abundantly clear, though not stated outright, that he lies somewhere on the spectrum, and is an absolute asshole. He advocates for manipulating women, randomly grabs Saitou's breasts, and not only has no empathy, but makes no effort to even emulate empathy. However, there is no indication that autism *causes* his complete assholery, as is proven by the large cast of characters. He just is an asshole and is autistic. He might also be left handed, for all that matters. I really could go on and on about Asper Kanojo, and how it bucks the trend of "every autist is a pure and innocent soul that can do no wrong" that a lot of representation tends to follow. It's a great manga, and if you can stand the rather frank depiction of incredibly damaged people (which, incidentally is more often caused by the outside world's reaction to the character's neurodivergance rather than caused by the neurodivergance itself) and depictions of things like self harm and abuse, everyone should at least give it a try.
Not me watching this in 2024 being surprised to see Good Omens on this list, then realizing season 2 hadn't come out yet. The gays FEASTED on season 2 🥲
I'm autistic and I, for one, don't need a blue-haired neo-communist speaking for me. In fact, it pisses me off pretty badly. As to the "misgendering" in "The Doctor," maybe he has the basic intellect to realize what horse shit "gender theory" is. Maybe he's familiar with the deranged, pedo freak who came up with it and what he did to those boys...
I am not even halfway in het and this is a very informative video so far! I've been trying to find a video for na acquaintance of mine who is trying to understand autism. Having difficulty understanding what autism is, and trying to explain to them has been almost impossible as I don't want to say to them "This is what autism is" because that's just my personal experience. I already know from others they experience it completely different than I do and have different issues than I do. But an important thing I also want to point out, which I may see in your video later on (so apologies for posting perhaps a bit too early here), is that the differences between AFAB and AMAB people also play a huge part in why it is difficult to understand what autism is. Because the symptoms and behaviour vary so incredible, leading to AFAB's being underdiagnosed and misunderstood. Or even seen as "less autistic". I noticed while reading up for this friend to explain autism overall, how many points of autism are focussed mainly on what AMAB's experience. Not for everyone, but it doesn't help to explain why then someone who was born as a girl why their experience is so different to someone who is willing to try and understand what autism is.
Nice video!! Interesting that you mentioned Randall’s character (I was expecting it tbh lol). Given the way you spoke about Outlander, it seems like you are a watcher...? If that’s the case, I’d love to hear your take on John Grey. And, eventually when s7 pt 2 comes out, on Percy’s character (if he does make it into the show).
I feel like the advice of “you need to be ok with being alone” has been taken to the extreme, it’s one thing to be ok with being single it’s another thing to have to be ok with being friendless :(
Instead of complaining about this why don’t you people go exercise or something. Then the whole Fatphobic nonsense won’t exist anymore and we can fix actual issues.
The thing with Rain Man is while that the writers kind of messed up in places, Dustin Hoffman definitely took the right direction in actually speaking to autistic people and learning from them - and that is definitely worthy of respect.
As for the like asexual way those with asd are often portrayed, it definitely doesn’t match at least what i’ve observed. I grew up without a diagnosis, & am definitely very high functioning, but in HS i was called a man-whore & an f*boy a lot, & with good reason. I was cheated on once, & the other guy had a diagnosis. A couple of the girls i was with were probably on the spectrum. Idk, asd people get it
one of the best things I've done as an adult- get to know my neighbors! I know I have a network to rely on if I needed because of this. While I'm not bummed out by the scheduling necessary for adult friendships to work all the time, it does get to me sometimes. Love all the suggestions here.
I'm autistic and South Korean, and I personally adore "Extraordinary Attorney Woo". I related a lot to Woo Young Woo, and the show has many well represented symptoms of autism such as her struggle with facial expressions, her stimming and how whales are her special interest. While there are a few aspects of the show I do think could come off as turning her autism into a superpower, I never felt that way about it; Young-Woo doesn't just magically calculate her cases, it's her different way of thinking that lets her see other sides of a situation, which aids her. But her seeing different perspectives isn't some magical genius attribute. As for her photographic memory, I believe you are referring to her memorization of South Korean Law. This, I also don't find to be a special genius moment. Woo Young Woo seems to also value law itself as something of a special interest, and that's why she memorized a whole law book. Delving so deeply into something you appreciate is something I, and many other autistics, can really relate to. Young-Woo's autism may seem stereotypical to many, but I related to most of her behavior. I think it's very good representation. Her autism isn't considered a good or bad thing, and it interferes with her social life and how people perceive her. She overcomes lots of prejudice, but is also disheartened by it a lot. The show does a good job, to me, of tackling lots of issues that occur with an autistic main character. It explicitly points out that autism is a spectrum, and with an autistic client on a very different part of the spectrum, Young-Woo has to explain to others that her autism is not a universal experience. Young-Woo has to deal with being infantilized by others, and while in some cases she changes the persons mind, in others they simply continue to see her as lesser, and this discourages her. Her autism isn't treated like a joke, it's just a part of who she is, and while some characters in the show may mock her and look down on it, they're always treated like they're in the wrong. She's autistic, and she's just as capable as them, even if she has certain struggles that they don't. Also, it's nice that she falls in love with an allistic man, and they have a loving relationship. He's way too perfect and boring I think, but that's how lots of South Korean Drama men are, so it's okay. People seem to think autism makes you not able to fall in love, but they do, and it goes well despite certain obstacles. I think that's very good. The only real criticism I've seen of it so far, that I've thought is a decent point, is that the lead actress is not autistic. I totally see why this could be seen as bad. But the main actress initially turned down the role, not wanting to misrepresent anything or harm anybody, but the studio then delayed the show until she gave in. That's a very big deal, since the K-Drama industry is so fast paced and volatile. That was a very risky move, but the creators really felt that she would be able to do a good job, and I think she did do a good job. The lead actress has said that she never copied autistic people when acting, she just acted the way she felt was the more true to Young-Woo's character, so I don't think it's a problem. Young-Woo was not being mocked or stereotyped, and care was put in to make sure she wasn't. And, I think this might sound odd to American audiences, but finding an autistic actress to act in the show would have been very difficult, and I think that if a popular actress wasn't chosen, people would be really making a lot more of a mockery of the show. Korean reception is still somewhat unkind towards the show, because of how discriminatory Korea often is towards small groups of people. If they had managed to find an openly autistic actress, she might not be a good actor, or people would insult her heavily, or maybe she would be on such a different part of the spectrum, it wouldn't really be that different than if an allistic actress had been hired. But other than that, I think lots of criticism towards the show is unfair and not actually very considerate of autistic people's feelings. I really like the show, it's my favorite drama. I can't find any major flaws with the representation, even when I try. There's lots and lots of good traits in it, instead. I would really recommend it, so I just hope people don't see the portion of the video devoted to "Extraordinary Attorney Woo" and instantly imagine it to be bad or misrepresenting. I hope this doesn't sound like a sponsorship, I just wanted people to know that most autistic viewers of the show do consider it good representation. So if you were ever considering watching it, I think it's a good idea. That's all.
As for the "Is Sheldon Autistic" discussion, I (Person with Aspergers) used to have "sheldon" used at me as an insult, very much so in the tone of a slur. I dont care what the writers say, sheldon was written in a way that acts as an example for people to make fun of autism, simple as.
Male perspective here. I've stayed connected with my friend group from highschool 5 years later despite all of us scattering while at college by playing online games together and talking on discord. Oftentimes we would all be in a discord call doing homework, cooking, or doing some other task we needed to do while talking and we managed to keep im frequent contact this way. I never hear about women spending time with each other in the same way, and i think they would benefit greatly from something like this.
I work with a large, massive group of modern women who since covid have been crying about just this to the point it has me sick. "Catch-up" friendships are the natural progression and type of friendship that all women today are going to fall into. In my very humble opinion, today's woman sees herself as the center of the universe, has no time for anyone else's trials and tribulations, yet somehow has a burning desire inside for emotional and personal validation on tap at all times. I've seen it a million times, two girls sit and start to catch-up on each other's lives, but the second one woman starts to get deeper than surface-level dating/career/retail/social media/nightlife horseshit, the other starts to drift away and look for excuses to either leave or steer the conversation back to superficial nonsense. You all do it to each other, dont lie, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Today's "female" has no time to listen to anyone else's deeper issues other than her own. That creates a feedback loop where women can't form sister-like friendships anymore.
this is not a gendered issue…actually men are known to be less likely to sit and listen to a male friend talking about those things. the whole “modern females” thing is nonsense. the selfishness you talk about is a wider societal issue
I see nothing good about aestheticizing mental illness. We are consistently normalizing and justifying more and more toxic behaviors and people are making their entire personality their supposed diagnoses. Many of these people will outright oppose healing and say ‘your mental illness makes you who you are and you don’t need to change to appease others.’ You should want to heal so you don’t suffer anymore and you should also want to heal because your mental health does affect others. I had to dig to find sliding scale professional help when I was struggling. It would be great if people with mental health platforms focused more on how to find care you can afford and good cheap insurance options and stuff like that. It would be good to share what they learned in their healing, but they do often discourage healing now because they can make their issues look cutesy and quirky. But like you said, this only applies if you fit the beauty standards and have the right symptoms. I don’t think we should push people to be open about active struggles because oversharing is unhealthy and causes problems for both the person doing it and people on the receiving end. I’ve had my day ruined because people I didn’t even know kept telling me depressing and disturbing things I shouldn’t have had to know about a stranger and I’d have to spend an hour supporting them while doing whatever I was there to do, while dealing with my own issues. It also tends to burn you. I’m not open but I’ve been pressured into sharing some heavy ant recent (at the time) traumas and mental health issues to someone (by people who are known to overshare… usually they expect you to do like them). Talking about it hurts me, but it didn’t stop there… they spread it around to others and I had to keep talking about it, and it became how people defined me. I don’t want my suffering to be my identity. That’s awful. I also personally hate the alt=mentally ill and/or neurodivergent. Any demographic has people who are ND and/or mentally ill, and some people who are not. We often link specific diagnoses to alt looks and it sucks having people try to diagnose you or just ‘assume’ you have something you don’t. I’m sure it’s even worse when they guess it right and you don’t want them to know, so you get to hide your actual tastes in music and fashion. I see this more with ND diagnoses than mental illnesses currently though there were a lot of associations with depression and mood disorders a few years ago. I’m not ND. I should never have to argue with someone that I’m just introverted and there is no reason other than I like quiet during self care and resting up. If anything it’s more linked to my physical health issues because my whole energy level drops sometimes, and that includes social energy.
