I have been watching several videos of autism and gender. Well, not exactly. I have been watching the first five minutes of several videos on gender and autism. The reason I haven’t made it past that is–there are several. In one, the woman repeated called herself ‘a female’ and women in general ‘females’. As a noun, not an adjective. In 2023, nearly 2024. This is not on because many people who do it are doing it as a slur or a way to undermine women. I am not here for that. At all. I winced every time she said, “I am a female with autism or anything similar.” In addition, I am not a woman. I am woman-adjacent, but not a woman. At least not as defined by society. Which is part of the whole point. If society’s rigid definition of a woman includes must wear makeup and a bra, have children, not laugh too loud, or just no take too much space in general, then burn it all to the ground. And I’m not just talking about the bra.
I also quit watching some of the videos because of the hypercuts. I can’t deal with flashing images, which some of the videos bordered on. One person kept making air quotes with their fingers, which I could not handle. Not only was the visual bothering me, but so was the meaningless of the air-quotes. I knew why they were doing it, but they were doing it wrong. And that annoyed the fuck out of me. Another person was spinning a ball or something. I get why they were doing it, but that also bothered my brain.
Side Note: I hate ASMR. It makes me rage. Insta-angry. It wasn’t, “Listen to the ASMR. Note that it was irritating me. Then, become upset about it.” It was, “Listen to the ASMR. RAGE SHUT THAT SHIT OFF AHHHHHHHHHHH!” with me scrambling to turn off the video. I’m saying this because some of the videos had the same insta-rage in my brain.
Here is what I like in my content creation. Chill people. Natural reactions. No forced shouting and forced outrage. Dare I say it, boring? Yeah, other people might find it so. No flashing lights. No spikes in sound. And no jittery camera work.
Here’s the other realization. Just because someone has, say, autism, it doesn’t mean they can talk about it in a way that is compelling or understandable. It’s like anything else, really. And, despite the intimate nature of most YouTube channels, it’s still a performance. Or at least public speaking. Which not everyone can do.