the infantilised spectacle of autistic representation 

Leave any recommendations of autistic rep in the comments! Download Love & Pies here -> pixly.go2cloud.org/SH4D5

In hollywood, ASD = Insufferable genius and ADHD = Manic Pixie Dream Girl

I think sometimes people accidentally write reasonably accurate representations of autism is because they do know autistic people but don't know they're autistic. So they might base a character on a person or type of person they know and accurately represent them, and then thta person or people just happen to be autistic

Rudolf is a great unintentional autism metaphor. You are excluded and hated for being different, until what makes you different is of use to us NOW you can join in.

The fact that autistic people are not allowed to be shipped with other characters is THE most ableist thing i heard in a while

I love that the writers and cast openly acknowledge that Abed is Autistic, rather than making it vague, like Sheldon's portrayal. Abed is a fully rounded, realised character as a result, and Dan Harmon even found out that he himself was Autistic when researching Abed.

"You can hold eye contact, you are not autistic." The no 1 criteria for not being checked out for autism in Denmark.

Way early on, in reference to the Good Doctor and the misgendering: my dad is neurodivergent, and he is also hyper HYPER logical. When I came out to him as nonbinary and then trans, he was confused, but then considered it for only a brief period before becoming outwardly supportive. In my eyes, his logic has always played a large part in guiding him toward the support of minorities and underrepresented folks.

Another important reason why Sia's movie caused outrage is because there is a scene where her therapist uses a restraining hold that could block her airways. A parent of an autistic child wrote an open letter to Sia to ask if she could remove the scene (it sounds like Sia did not). When autistics and parents of autistics agree on something, you know it's messed up

Hot take, there are no neuro-typical characters in Bob's Burgers. Not a single one

What frustrates me the most about Sia's choice to cast Maddy in Music because "it would be cruel" to cast someone actually at the character's needs level is that the film is full of scenes meant to be in Music's head that are so incredibly unfriendly to the autistic experience and make absolutely no sense for the character. Like Maysoon Zayid said in her TED Talk when talking about how she didn't get the roll of a cerebral palsy character in the high school play because the drama teacher didn't think she'd be physically able to perform the role said: If I can't do it, neither can the character.

"It's possible to find two autistic people with diametrically opposed needs..." YES! I feel like not enough people acknowledge that.

I really resonated with the "I am a surgeon" scene. Silly as it may be, it reminded me of the grip acceptance has on you when you've constantly been turned away as an autistic person, so I don't think the reaction is unrealistic or bad. It made me cry honestly with how much I resonated with the feelings and circumstances that brought the meltdown on.

The popular portrayal of neurodivergent people is also extremely white, which leaves the rest of us really isolated.

"don't claim to be autistic, autistic people can't travel by themselves" is so baffling it's incredible. It shows not only a narrow understanding of what autism is, but a complete lack of wanting to learn more about it.

As an autistic person. I've noticed that the most accurate representations of autistic characters tend to be characters that are not introduced as autistic, but rather weird and quirky. Hollywood seems to think that autism is a specific and special brand of weird with a check list of symptoms. And forget that, most quirky and weird people they know of, probably where autistic.

fun story, when i was in 5th grade i really struggled to see the whiteboard, i said nothing because i assumed that’s just how everyone else sees, was absolutely mind blown when i finally got glasses and realized oh, this is how it’s supposed to be. cut to present day, im 22, was recently diagnosed with autism same concept am consistently blown away daily about how many masks i wear, because i simply believed that’s how everyone else was

It's a shame that I can't bring myself to watch Love on the Spectrum. I have nothing against the show itself (since I haven't seen it), but every time I've seen clips the comments from clearly neurotypical people gushing over the "simplicity" of autistic love and saying shit like "autistic people must experience the world in such a pure, wholesome way compared to everyone else" made me deeply uncomfortable and annoyed.

The big bang isb't a show about nerds, it's a show making fun of nerds, and tbh I hate it.

I like that Attorney Woo Young had an episode where they have another character whose autism displays differently than hers. She had to confront that difference and how, though she does struggle, she still has some privileges and social support because of how hers is displayed.

My 10 year old cousin who is into k pop and watched the detective Woo series recently said out of the blue during family dinner "Damn how I wish I had autistic intelligence"... Everyone at the table looked at her extremely confused and even more so when she then proceeded to turn to me and ask me to explain to them what she was talking about since I'm apparently the "know it all" of the family... only to keep correcting me and making it sound like autism was actually a superpower of some kind!... Now, she doesn't know that I am actually autistic myself, but her parents and most other adults there did and they were mortified and super lost by the whole ordeal. For sure one of the weirdest things that has happened to me in relation to autistic representation in the media and its impact.

I really appreciate the inclusion of Julia, an Autistic muppet on "Sesame Street", as it normalises the condition for a younger audience. Julia's puppeteer has a son who's on the spectrum, which helps with her portrayal of the character.

Part of the reason a lot of autistic people identify as genderqueer is because of how socially constructed gender is. We tend to struggle with understanding and applying social norms, and this often applies to our gender as well. Many of us have a rich and nuanced understanding of our identity, including our gender identity, which we might not feel is adequately represented by the labels of cisgender boy or girl. Many autistic people identify as queer or transgender, but more specifically, many autistic people identify as not a part of the gender binary.

Lily Simpson actually did a really good analysis on the trans misgendering episode of the Good Doctor and it actually wasn't as bad as "his autism makes him unable to grasp the concept of transgenderism." It showed more that he learned all of his medical knowledge through extensive study in medical school and our medicals schools are severely lacking on information regarding transgenderism. He didn't know what was going on because his education had failed him.

Noticing no one has said him(at least from what I've read), I have to say my favorite 'autistic' character is in fact, Spencer Reid(from Criminal Minds). While his autism is never really announced in the show, he shows very clear signs and he's never infantilized. He's a VERY good agent and doctor and his autism is one of the things that makes him so good and oh my god. He was the first ever character in media where I was like 'Hey! I do that!' Especially with his fixations on certain dark subjects. I have hyperfixations on so many dark things and I've always been called a freak or told I'd end up being a murderer in the future. Reid showed me I wasn't alone in my 'creepy' fixations and they could possibly help me in certain works!

I'm so annoyed with the misconceptions we face. "Not able to travel alone"... buddy, I'm studying abroad in a foreign country, have spent a week in a 1person tent speaking a second language and volunteering and another week backpacking along the Irish coast. Did I face difficulties because of my autism? Sure, lots. Did this make the journeys impossible? No. *whirrs angrily*

I think the narrowness in which we understand autism (white, middle-class, boys) even leaves out some white middle-class boys. What if that boy's autism shows itself in ways that you might expect from a girl? Does the doctor just miss that he has autism? I state this to point out how I think the previous conceptions of what autism looks like are even narrower than people think. I also think we need a drastically different approach to how we view disability and ability. If someone has a certain noise sensitivity (for example), they shouldn't need to explain why they have that sensitivity, they should be able to do what they need to deal with it.

22:03 that's actually not true. Grunya Sukhareva, a Jewish Soviet child psychiatrist was the first person to identify ASD in children, and she did that nearly 20 years before both Kanner & Asperger. there's even evidence Asperger plagiarized her work (and the fact he did that to justify the deaths of nearly 800 autistic children makes it especially disgusting)

Top 3 comments I get when I come out as Autustic 1. "wow I would've never guessed you're so smart/highfunctioning/normal" 2. suddenly treats me like an idiot/child despite having already interacted with me normally the whole time without issues 3. "no you're not" 🙄🤦🏽

The misgendering is the strangest part. Those on the spectrum are very willing to hear one's own experience and stick to it. It's one of the many things i love about my husband's autism

I appreciate you bringing up Entrapta. The audiance infantalisation of her was so frustrating, when the show runners wrote her so well. There is clearly romance between her and Hordak, and shebis a grown woman that is both extremely well versed in her special interest, technology, and also needing her tiny cute foods as all she will eat. Her robots help her with her needs so she can thrive and be her best. The show doesn't infantalize her and it really also puts into perspective how powerful an audience and their biases can color a character.

At the end, when you mentioned UBI, and how you think it's important that neurodivergent people can live a comfortable life, I teared up. I don't know if I have autism (have never been diagnosed one way or another), but I do have crippling anxieties and couldn't hold down a job for the reasons you mentioned - I could force myself through it, but all the time OFF work was then spent in miserable mental recovery. It's been impressed upon me my whole life that I'm lazy, faking, not contributing to society, etc. Just hearing that compassion at the end meant a lot, so, thanks. This was a fantastic video.

I've come to the conclusion that I don't want representation. I never asked, and I really hate it.

What's actually so frustrating about Benedict Cumberbatch's whole thing about playing Frankenstein's monster as autistic is that a portrayal like that COULD be good if it weren't so essentialist and ableist because a lot of autistic people DO experience being othered and their autism treated as this horrible obstacle (which of course Cumberbatch's quote betrays). And what's funny is that Shelley's book (and the 1930s movie) does present the idea that the Monster is only monstrous because he is perceived that way similar to how many of the difficulties of being autistic are there because society makes it that way. All of this said with the caveat that it would be best if an autistic actor took that approach rather than a non autistic actor playing autistic.

The way that Mayam said that they ‘didn’t try to change their characters’ as if they didn’t spend the whole show trying to change BOTH Sheldon and Amy

As someone with ASD, I immediately understood what was going on in the "I am a surgeon" scene and could relate 100%. He's already in a stressful environment, and now his boss is blaming him for something out of his control and actively PUNISHING him for something out of his control. All of this would lead to a break in his mental dam and his emotions would come flooding out. He's trained his life for this, he's passed the tests, he's done the work. He is a Surgeon. The reason he seems to chant "I am a Surgeon" is because this is the root of his emotional break down. He's done the work, he's got the title, he IS a surgeon. When I was in similar situations, I'd often repeat the last real coherent thought on repeat. Totally believable. So imagine my surprise when Neurotypicals and those with "Self Diagnosed Autism" were clowning on what I considered to be a realistic depiction of an Autistic Meltdown. The fact that it became a meme legitimately set us back a decade in general understanding in regards to Autism, and it actually impacted my ability to work as my colleagues shared the meme around. I had had a few meltdowns at work by this point, so now suddenly eyes were on me as they began to whisper whether or not I was faking my meltdowns. I did try reaching out to popular content creators to try and at least get some bigger voices out there to spread the word, but none of them noticed me. A few even went on to clown on it as well.

"Just because someone can push through a work week and then spends the rest of their free time recovering from it doesn't mean they are able to work a full time job" I've been struggling with coming to terms with this as we speak asufhahljksdfhjkdfhgkjasdf

My friend once called Sherlock’s mind palace ‘floating png autism powers’ and I just think that is so true because every time I think about things pngs start flying around my head (joke)

I love how you mentioned us with ADHD listening while doing other tasks. That is basically the only way I "watch" RU-vid. I'll listen while caring for baby, doing chores, playing a video game. I intentionally watch folks who's content doesn't rely too heavily on visuals, if the content creator is neurodivergent and/or queer that is a huge plus. Your channel kinda checks all my boxes. Thank you for doing what you do.

Years ago, I tried to write an autistic character and couldn't figure out how to stop making her seem so cartoonish. Later figured out it was because I am autistic, had accidentally been making every single one of my characters also autistic, and had just imposed extra "quirks" onto her to try and accommodate. Point being, just because you're autistic doesn't mean you know what you're doing lol

After I got my ASD-1 diagnosis, I told my best friend about it. He said, "You can't be Autistic because every Autistic person has a 'little genius'. What is YOUR little genius?" I don't know what this meant, and I can only guess that the expectation is that be Rain Man at something.

I'm interested to see where TV depictions of robot/alien characters might intersect into this discussion. All of my favorite characters were robots growing up. I was always "the weird robot girl". Then, as an adult, I was diagnosed.

There's now a podcast version of the Sherlock Holmes stories, Sherlock & Co, in which Sherlock is canonically confirmed to be autistic. The representation is (to me) very kind and realistic. Sherlock has sensory difficulties, he struggles with social situations, he talks about how exhausting masking is. John is accommodating and accepting of Sherlock's struggles and needs, and corrects him if he's causing upset or offence to someone. It's just so lovely to see (hear) and so important to me.

This was SO well researched and presented I'm actually in awe!!! Only just found you and your videos through suggested stuff while on my own post-2021 self discovery journey where I've picked up bits here and there, but the way this neatly knits everything together and pretty much covers everything is amazing. Going to send to people, thank you!

As an autistic adhder who spent the whole duration of this video tidying around the apartment and then working on finishing a jigsaw puzzle I’ve been doing for weeks - I laughed at the little shout-out at the end to adhders Also, you communicated so many things I’ve wanted to say about my experience but haven’t been able to articulate yet (and I consider myself fairly decent with words at times). It kinda blew me away, tbh. Especially the parts about the sometimes semi-unconscious process of learning to mask, about having certain ideas on how adults are “supposed” to act, about working a full time job but needing to spend the rest of the time recovering, about thinking one’s experiences are normal but feeling like /something’s/ wrong but being unable to name it… anyway this is so rambly but I just felt incredibly seen and that was so valuable to me. Thank you and all the folks who helped with this, it was so comprehensive and insightful and thoughtful and empathetic 💚

Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger didn't just happen to discover the same condition independently at the same time. Both of their work was based on the work of Georg Frankl and Anni Weiss. They worked at the Viennese autism clinic Asperger worked at, far before he did. Asperger was a newbie. Anni and Georg then fled to the US, because they were Jewish. Leo Kanner was actually the guy who helped them flee Austria. I guess he thought it'd be a fair deal to then take the credit for all of their knowledge on autism. Source: Edith Sheffer's book 'Aspergers' Children', would recommend, but wow it is not for the feint of heart because that Asperger guy is an absolute villain.

I really hate the belief that the Big Bang creators have that "being medicated" is a bad thing. And medical autism diagnosis is awful, particularly during the 90s, so Sheldon could have absolutely be autistic.

Brick on The Middle is one of my fave autistic characters and there are a few episodes with his friends from “social skills class” that are all delightful (idk if they say he is autistic but it’s beyond coding it is too accurate 😅)

stopppp i made it all the way to the end and i was in fact listening to this in the background while tidying up my room 😭😭 thank you for such a great and informative video, and for one that was so conducive to my focus

Does anyone else find that relatives, coworkers & friends start condescending and talking down to you once they find out you have ASD? (or even suspect you do?) Or even that you just have a comorbid condition such as severe depression or agoraphobia? It's happening to me, and it's so frustrating. As a grown woman, I don't want people baby-talking to me, censoring themselves around me or 'yes, dear'-ing me. I can and want to participate in adult life, discussions, activities. It's just that sometimes my mind & body won't get with that programme.

Even before diagnosis, myself and many of my autistic friends were treated like a spectacle by our allistic peers at school and by other children who picked us out in public. The fact that allistic people see no issue with milking autistic people as their personal lolcows is one of the many reasons I have no respect for people who don't see the problem with making fun of autists / bullying behaviour and abuse perpetrated by children. They are culpable and their age shouldn't distract from the fact that they should be held to account and taught better.

hahahah the shout out at the end caught me by surprise. yes i was listening to this while tidying up 😭😂i'm not autistic but i do have adhd so this topic still hits very close to home. thank you for a lovely video with lots of great points

I was very lucky to find a therapist who specializes in autism in AFAB people. I wasn't diagnosed until I met her when I was 24

Every Star Trek has had at least one autistic-coded character. The most relatable for me personally was Reginald Barclay. There are people who somehow insist he's allistic despite him having shutdowns, having meltdowns, having no difficulty whatsoever socializing with simulations, and spending nearly every moment onscreen visually stimming. _We know our own when we see them!_

I'm autistic, my partner has ADHD, we have an incredible (bio) daughter and we... do not tell people anything we don't *absolutely* have to. I can count on one hand the number of people in our lives who know both of those things and we keep it that way, both to protect our daughter from general judgement and (frighteningly to consider) to protect our ability to keep custody of her. Media representation starts as this very interesting, kind of low-stakes feeling thing, but I can guarantee you that the stakes are high and dangerously close to getting higher. Thank you for doing the work to shed actual light on these things in such a fascinating way!

I'm Autistic and had to call an emergency service number for severe dental pain. The lady on the phone asked me to rate my pain from 1 to 10. In my desire to be accurate, I was struggling. When I told her that I'm struggling with that because I'm Autistic, she said, "Well, stop being Autistic for a moment to answer my question." So I told her it was 8, and thanked her for curing Autism in 30 seconds. Her Nobel Prize is in the mail. It was an insensitive thing to say on her part.

Amazing video! As a podcast lover, I'd love recommendations. As far as I know I'm NT, but this was still in the background. I love the fact that somebody who's actually autistic (Nicky Watkinson) was involved in the writing of this episode and she was credited for her work.

I also find the Wednesday headcanon to be problematic and out here in the same category as Sheldon. It’s a glorification of the tropes instead of using them as the butt of a joke but it’s still tropey. Wednesday’s autistic traits are linked to her violence, her disdain for people and her superiority complex. They are also very much played as her choosing these traits and that she can stop anytime. The autistic traits are set dressing to make her look cool.

Sia's response that she made Music with "special abilities" sounds more like she's putting Autistic people on some kind of high horse, or making them out to be Super human rather than human.

And that’s a follow from me…as I sit here swatching out my art pencils while I watch! Thank you for this in depth look at representation of autism. I would write more but my inner critic tells me to stop now lest I over share! I look forward to seeing more of your videos.

Lol I’m AuDHD and listening to this while I work. Thank you for mentioning at the end about the difficulty of autistic adults in jobs. I’m able to mask and “push through” my work week, but as you said, I spend the entire weekend trying to recover, and then it’s right back to work. I feel like I never have time or am even able to do things I actually enjoy, because I am just too exhausted and overstimulated to do anything but stay home and try to rest the vast majority of the time. Also something people don’t have a great understanding of is autistic burnout, especially for adults who have recently been diagnosed/self diagnosed. I’m going through it right now and it is hell. Unmasking has SO many complicated consequences, some of the leaving me feeling freer than I ever have and finally understanding myself, and some of them leaving me completely overstimulated, far more prone to meltdowns, and with alarming mood swings. I’ve been masking my entire life; I always knew something was off about me, I knew I struggled with “normal” things more than my friends did, and I never understood why. When I was in my mid-20s I was diagnosed with ADHD after having a stress-induced mental breakdown, and I was like “oh, okay! This explains so much!” And it did, it truly did, but it didn’t explain everything. It wasn’t until a decade later, after slowly identifying the things that ADHD alone could not explain, I learned that you can be autistic AND have ADHD, and that people who have both often present with many of the very things I was struggling with. This lead me on a months-long researching spree where I learned everything I could about autism and took every single “legit” autism test that I could find and eventually concluded that I was without a doubt autistic. Not only that, overtime I’ve realized my Dad is very likely autistic, and I’m pretty sure both of my parents are varying levels of ADHD. All of this has been so illuminating and I feel more like my true self now than I ever have in the past… but it’s also been a journey of realizing just how hostile the neurotypical world is to us. How unless we act just like them, there’s going to be problems. How I desperately need to work less hours because by hour 5 or 6 in my work day I am overstimulated and stressed, but I can’t do anything about it without losing too much money. How if I sought out accommodations, people probably wouldn’t even believe me because I’ve managed to mask so well for so long. Add to that that I’m also queer, and physically disabled, I have recently become increasingly jaded and upset by how much the world favours the neurotypical and the abled, regardless that the rest of us are also people with live and deserve respect, but just need a little bit of accommodation. I don’t even know where I’m going with this but I’m just really grateful you did this video, and I’m going to check out the things you said were good rep. I would so love to see a character go through a similar struggle to what I (and many other adult women who realize later in life) have gone through. Anyway yeah, thank you. This video and many others have been so relatable and interesting and really appreciate you tackling these topics ❤

I do like the couple in Australia that laughed at the interviewers when they asked about sex. “Duh, that’s the easy part!” I agree. As an autistic adult, sex is not an issue. For me, it’s neurotypicals not understanding me. I also was called for the show but refused to date the one guy from MA . So they rejected me. I think it was also that I am over 35. I noticed they don’t have autistic women over 30 on the show. I find that odd.

I love the head canon that Kageyama Tobio is autistic especially because his “special skill” is not just a “natural special power” but something he has worked on for years and his pattern recognition helps with it

the main (almost only lol) video on my channel is a 15 second clip from sherlock of john saying sherlock has "aspergers" in the BBC show i hate that they couldn't just say autism, but it's wild they even said anything at all actually in the show

Woah; that part about love on the spectrum really hit me in the feel of as I did not realize how much I needed the validation of my autism and how infantalized my (!) personal info boundaries are deemed when it comes to the same topics

29:50 bro I was around when netfilx she-ra was at it's peak and bruh the way ppl treated entrapta as if this woman wasn't 30 was wild

I've been diagnosed at 26 (and I have OCD along with autism). I identify very little with those characters. I'm no genius. I like making new friends, although it's hard to. There's a long way to go till they represent us well, the spectrum is a multiverse.

This came on from youtube autoplay going in the background while I am at work. The ending joke about ADHD caught me by surprise because I 100% was doing that and I'm currently fighting to get an ADHD diagnosis at 30 despite not having childhood memories from a trauma so its an uphill fight. So in addition to being funny, it was a nice feeling seen moment for me

Responding to flirting around glasses with there not for sale is one of the most relatable things I've ever heard

shoutout to Ayda Augefort from Dimension 20's Fantasy High! Canon autistic after Brennan, the dungoen master of the campaign, realized that he modeled that NPC after his autistic friends specifically, she's only one of many geniuses amongst of extraordinary characters overall, and the best character to ever exist honestly, best girl forever

Entrapta actively makes flirty comments in the show. Granted, they are directed at robots and not overtly sexual, but it is a kids show so this is the most we can expect, anyways. She isn't childlike and it's fine to ship her.

I was crocheting a peacock feather while listening to you call us out on doing stuff in the background

Such an interesting video. I really learned so much. Not just about Asberger’s and Autism but to me to really appreciate how to work on myself as someone who could and has been easily influenced to believe any stereotypes regarding autism et al I see represented on tv or in film. Learning about various diverse people helps me remember my human capacity for critical thinking. So I can not tell you enough how much I appreciate you. I hope these instances and the criticisms are taken as lessons and help us all to at least move forward and expect all groups(?) of people have a more accurate and meaningful representation. 💯✌🏻

Some of my favorite autistic and ADHD rep AND popular headcanons come from The Owl House. Luz and Eda both canonically deal with ADHD (as well as Eda’s curse being a clear metaphor for chronic illness) and many characters surrounding them have varying levels of neurodivergence (namely Amity and Hunter being the most popularly headcanoned autistic characters, but Willow and Gus both display traits as well). With the show’s entire narrative being Eda’s famous “us weirdos have to stick together” byline and how colonialism and its power structures seek to actively disenfranchise and destroy those “weirdos,” the characters difference and neurocomplexities are at the forefront of the conversation about the show. Highly recommend!!

Something that bothers me and makes no damn sense is that there are absolutely zero, ZERO autistic characters out there who communicate primarily with an aac device. That's like if every single gay character in the world had a great relationship with both their parents, it would be fucking weird. I'm really excited about the story I'm making cause one of the leads in non-speaking! The plot isn't about that either, it's a horror romance between him and this divorced father he gets trapped in a nightmare dimension with edit: apologies, my mistake, I seem to have forgotten that our lord and savior Sia took care of it /s

Oh, that comment about adhd people at the end there, you got my ass 💀 (esp bc your video on adhd a few years back was a turning point in me deciding to get assessed, which led to diagnosis) Wonderful video as always tho!

Thanks so much for all the work put into this! The callout at the end spooked me; this yarn won't de-tangle itself.

Mayim Bialik has also pushed starseed and indigo children talking points, which in my opinion disqualifies her for ever defending poor autistic representation/stereotypes. If you're not familiar with those, they were hippie/New Age ways of saying "My child is 'special,' but not autistic"

21:53 A woman called Grunya Sukhareva characterized autism nearly two decades before Leo Kanner and Hans Asperger but it appears that her research wasn’t translated from Russian etc. etc. plus her being a woman most likely led to her not being credited historically 😕 Although it seems that the men who ”discovered” autism did know about her so..

The reason I started to question if I was autistic (knowing this about myself has greatly benefited me) when I was around 12 was through good representation (Ty Blackthorn in the Shadowhunters books) who I really related to and was shocked when there was a passing reference to him being autistic because before that all I knew about autism was based on ableist stereotypes and misinformation

I always wonder why, when discussing complex and rich representations of autism in media, we often forget to mention Will Graham, from the series Hannibal. The showrunner has recently denied Will is autistic (maybe as a nervous effort to distance the show from any polemic) yet the first line uttered by the character in the entire series is that he most probably is and the character is written and coded as that. Graham is a very interesting character: nuanced, humane, layered. He’s not a savant but a very highly intelligent hyperempath who constantly suffers from this ability, and ability that’s being instrumentalized and weaponized by the people around him. But he constantly fights back against these pressures but also against his own impulses. And despite on how the show and the character ended (or maybe because the very way the character ended) to me he’s a very respectful, intelligent and elegant representation of an autistic coded character. Addendum: it’s also so refreshing to see a good autistic representation outside a cartoon.

You are so right about neurodivergent people who might have gotten by a good half century ago without accommodations having trouble today. My dad has ADHD, but grew up in a paper and pens time where he didn’t have to keep track of things he couldn’t hold in his hands. Every assignment was on a piece of paper, so he just coasted through school without any accommodations. He definitely missed a bunch of homework, but it wasn’t as bad, and he aced every test. He might be slightly farther ahead right now if he was medicated in college, but he certainly isn’t doing bad. I just don’t see him finding the same success today without at least a 504.

Thanks for this video, I feel like a lot of this helped me think more about others as well as to consider my own neurodiversity(ADHD), which with my PTSD(army, but for abuse not combat) damned near killed me as I failed to function in day to day NORMAL things. And I still have people sometimes thinking neurological problems are just me not doing what's expected from EVERYBODY. This is the first time I was aware of spectrums that aren't light to severe but rather shades of differing experiences under a shared neurodivergence.

Stop it I literally am cleaning my room for the first time in a month with your video in the background 😂❤

Love the video! Josh Thomas and I have a similar experience. During the production of Dead End, I also got my autism diagnosis thanks to writing the characters and talking with our consultants. And then we had other autistic writers, story boarders and animators throughout the production. Sometimes it was scary, as early on, we were told by one consultant NOT to hire autistic people because they'd struggle... that's when I decided to finally get my diagnosis, so that I could be a better advocate and have people trust I knew what I was talking about.

@36:05 - This was literally me. One of the commonly repeated "when Kittysunlover was a kid" stories my parents would tell is how they were told by various professionals (teachers, caregivers, etc.) that I was potentially autistic and they should have me tested, and their response was just "well she's nothing like Rain Man." So.... they never took me to be tested or seek out any of the possible supports that might have been available for me growing up.

the end note of people watching while doing another task rlly called me out (im audhd and i was finishing a sketchbook spread for abt 50 minutes of this,,) also this is an amazing essay on this topic! agh

Wow, I'm not used to wandering outside of specifically autistic spaces and finding such sane, scholarly, humanistic understanding of autism. You had me scratching my head wondering if you are also autistic, because your understanding is so good. And what a brilliant breakdown of the problematics of advocacy and accommodation. The sad truth is, a lot of non-autistic people really can't "hear" autistic people. We need more non-autistic people to get to this level of understanding and speak out. I'm bookmarking this for sharing. Thank you for turning your mind to this topic.

That shout-out to ADHD people right there at the end caught me like a deer in the headlights, currently tidying up my room😅

The music movie was not only problematic in the way it represented Autistic folk, but the fact that they had a white girl, play a mixed race character. That just feels off.

LILO! YAAAAAAAYYYY!!! God she is so relatable. The first time I watched that movie I felt some warm fuzziness about seeing a character who accurately represented me as a child, and at the same time felt an incredible sadness for a character who accurately represented me as a child. Lilo is quite possibly a perfect character. Love her.

Thank you not just for this video essay, but all of them. I have ADHD and autism, and I love learning stuff like this. But it is so hard to sit and read a paper on it. Video essays are so accessible!

I went to an employment seminar a few years back as part of going through Vocational Rehab, and it was... *very* obvious that they worked almost entirely with allistic, physically disabled job-seekers and not a lot of neurodivergent ones. They used clips of Sheldon during the PowerPoint presentation as an example of What Not To Do During Interviews, and I had *a lot* of things to say about that on the feedback survey at the end. Hopefully that seminar's improved these days, but gods did it grind my gears at the time.

I've always felt uncomfortable around stories that have neurodivergent, disabled or mentally ill characters that focus on how it affects the neurotypicals in their lives. It only enforces how these communities are treated as burdens by a neurotypical abled society. It's so often you see the family member character that doesn't even get their own personality aside from being the 'trauma' for their neurotypical counterparts. There's discussions of how hard it's been for the nts. Of how hard it is to have changed their life for this 'inconvenient person' and how proud people around them are for them dealing with the 'situation'. Especially if it's a parent. There's nothing wrong with portraying the struggles of every party involved. But at the end of the day, the main voice should be that of the neurodivergent person. Of the complexities of it and how feeling like you're a burden on those around you hurts a lot. It's the trope that has personally hurt me the most as someone who both suffers with very obvious Mental Illness and Neurodivergence. I'm sick of seeing people like me in media get treated like some awful obligation instead of a living person with nuance who loves deeply and deserves to be treated as a positive person to know. Edit: I don't think this was actually touched on that much in this video but I would love to see someone's take on the trope of the 'Disabled Burden' and how it takes the side of the Neurotypically Abled perspective whilst dehumanising the disabled individual. Edit Edit: In terms of autistic rep, I would recommend the podcast "SCP Find us alive", there are quite a few neurodivergent coded characters as well as a specific character called Raddagher who is canonically Autistic and has sensory issues, goes non verbal, stims and although she works in a scientific facility as a security guard, her special interest is actually boats! (Also she is sapphic and has this adorable relationship with this other character I think is also intended to be written as autistic and/or ADHD)

Thank you for this video. I was diagnosed with autism last May, at 29 years old, & it just kinda made sense once it was said to me by a professional. It all makes sense in hindsight, but growing up it was never mentioned to me directly or in passing. I was a "weird" child growing up & also very much a target for bullying. Autism was known to me, but I had never had any real inclination that I myself was autistic. Also, yeah I did have this on in the background while I played the rouge-like poker game Balatro. If anyone out there wants to play a game where the main objective is to increase your score to a ridiculous degree, ie my highest score on a seeded run was around 1.6e12 & that's about normal for a good run, then I'd suggest giving it a look.

1:15:19 I have ADHD and I was watching this video while working on my Roblox theme park, you caught me completely offguard 🤣🤣🤣🤣 thank you I feel so seen and special now 💗

Wow! I didn't expect Jim Parsons to have such a scathing critique of his own character.

I’m ngl I just got off of a sixteen hour shift at my hospital and was so exhausted at the end of it that I cried in the car before heading home. I know it might seem stupid but something as simple as being able to come home and unwind to one of your videos and a nice meal is just making me feel very grateful. Sorry for all the mellow drama lolol, love your content and keep up the good work❤

I felt seen when you said: "Shout out to my fellow adhders, you have this playing in the background, you're listening to it while doing the task". I cleaned my appartment and done the dishes while listening.

Something that came up when I was getting diagnosed with autism in adulthood was the fact I was born disabled: specifically, with a hearing impairment in both ears. Obviously that’s easy enough to diagnose in a child, and was addressed early on through hearing aids and learning to read lips. But when it comes to the commonly thought of and accepted signs of autism, specifically: difficulty in communication and overstimulation in loud or busy environments, it becomes hard to define the line between what is due to potential autism and what is from not being able to hear as well. Just something I thought about as you brought up the difficulties in diagnosing autism. Anyways, excellent video, great food for thought, will watch at least two more times!