 Could we start with Megs and Love on the Spectrum? We can, minty sash. Thank you for chiming up. I have my own particular takes on Love on the Spectrum and I have seen a pretty mixed review of people talking about Love on the Spectrum. Some people don't seem to like it very much. Some people kind of think it's cute and it's wholesome. I think a lot of the issues with the program tend to come from the way that they've produced it. The production choices that they've made, I think a lot of the choices that they have made tend to be quite sort of, what do you say, infantilizing in a sense. So I'd be interested to see what Meg has to say. So this is Netflix is exploiting, exploiting autistic people. From I'm Autistic Now, let's see what she has to say. Let us go for it. Today's video is sponsored by Belessa. Stay tuned for details about our giveaway. Love on the Spectrum is a relatively divisive show. Reviews on IMDb range from insulting garbage, this is a voyeuristic exercise, to it's so pure and wholesome. Some autistic people find it infantilizing and even exploitative. And many non-autistic and some autistic people think it's heartwarming. The second season of Love on the Spectrum US has just graced Netflix with its presence. I've watched it all and I've thought about it a lot. I want to talk about some of the things that I and other autistic people have taken issue with. Some of the positives of the show, is it an overall net good for the community? Or do we need to scrap the whole thing? Are we calling for a boycott? And then I also want to address the way... This is getting... This is getting a bit more... It's getting drama-ish that we're gonna boycott Love on the Spectrum. I think there's a few advocates sort of within the autistic community. Just what I've seen from Instagram. I think there's someone called Kaelin, maybe. Over on Instagram they seem to be producing a lot of quite hefty amount of content over on Instagram. I haven't watched Season 3 myself. Mostly because I don't basically like to watch stuff which is about autism. I don't know about you guys but for me, when I'm watching a TV show it kind of... It feels like there is a sense of disconnection between myself and the characters because they don't typically tend to be autistic people. And so it's more like watching sort of... Especially when it's a reality TV show. It's like watching a nature documentary, you know, rather than watching something that hits close to home. When it comes to watching reality series about autistic people, I don't know, it just hits a bit at a more deeper level. It causes me to have very strong mixed feelings, particularly when it comes to the production around the actual show. Just perhaps a few words on my experience watching. Because I have watched, I think the first season I might have watched the second season. The first season, the issues that I had with that was mostly around the choice of production. I did feel like some of the music that they played was kind of a bit infantilizing. Even when it came to dating, the interactions that I saw, particularly with the autistic individuals and their parents, I don't know, it just didn't really hit right. I feel like when it comes to dating and relationships, you know, perhaps trying to focus on the actual individual and not like the parents and the people around them. Don't know, that was just my thought. I think that there were some particular couples which I tended to relate to quite a bit and it was a lovely watch in a sense. I just think when it came to the actual production of the show, it was just a little bit like, it wasn't to my liking, you know. Kind of upset me a couple of times, maybe. Hello, Victor. Welcome to the channel. Lola, I felt my headphones disconnected. It's so not okay with me. What are your issues with that, Terry's? Really like Kaylyn, she's an amazing advocate. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely some things that Kaylyn posts about, which it's something that a lot of advocates experience on the outside was, especially when you are very vocal about your own opinions. But there are a few things that Kaylyn talks about, which I don't particularly agree with. But in general, I think my analysis of her content, I think it's generally, it's had a lot of outreach actually to a lot of different areas of the internet, which has been good. Hello, Layla. Welcome. They're treating it like too much like sensationalizing. Yeah, taking advantage. I don't know. It feels icky. They didn't pay them. I did not know that. That's not good. Oh my God. The ways in which the show has been accused of taking advantage, did you know that none of the cast members are paid? So firstly is love on the spectrum infantilizing autistic people? Now infantilization is a type of discrimination that many disabled people face. It's when someone who isn't a child is treated as if they are a child, they aren't respected as full adults, they maybe are seen as less intelligent. Apparently a third of people in Britain think autism itself is an intellectual disability and autism in particular does suffer from this sort of image of being a children's disorder. The music on love on the spectrum has Yeah, I think it definitely does. I mean, you see a lot of the branding particularly around autism. It tends to be primary colors and jigsaw pieces. I think it is changing over time as people are sort of moving away from that. But I don't know, I do feel particularly in my experiences with life, I have been infantilized a fair bit, mostly from professionals, I would say, mostly from people who are first aware that I'm autistic before I meet them. They kind of have this altered way of interacting with me, which kind of it sort of undermines my own experiences as being valid. Perhaps when it comes to most individuals in sort of a professional setting, they would take into account what the individual is saying, their experiences, what's worked for them. But I do find that when it comes to professionals who know that I'm autistic beforehand, they do tend to make a lot of reaches and don't seem to really take in my own lived experience as being valuable. And there's been a lot of situations sort of in and around my life, both platonically and romantically, where people have taken on this care-alike role, where they're trying to make sure that I'm okay. In a sense, it's hard because it's sort of delivered in a way that seems quite positive and nice. But they generally sort of undermine the independence of the individual when they infantilize them in that way. I like the show. I think it has received a pretty mixed amount of reviews, both from people within the autistic community and outside. Why have trust issues with people? Apparently, not paying was agreed on and not have people be a part of the documentary just for money. Interesting. Hello Paula, welcome to the stream. Yeah, I don't know. I have very mixed feelings about it. It's not all positive. It's not all negative. But I'd like to hear what Mika has to say about series three, because that's not something that I've had the pleasure of diving into at this moment in time. Has been criticized numerous times. Finding love can be hard for anyone. It's finally my turn, my turn. It's kind of like clumsy, fumbling. It is like this, the music. It's kind of like the music that I use at the start of my clips. I have like that kind of quirky, little fantastical music. It's kind of like, but I think it's different because I do it to myself because I do see myself as being quite strange and quirky. But I think when that's just applied to every single autistic person, even if they're not like that, it's kind of an issue. I don't know. I just don't like the... I'm so glad that Meg pointed this out though. So I guess it's not just me who thinks this. Baby giraffe sort of music and they use this throughout the show when introducing people and during dates as well. The Love on the Spectrum soundtrack wouldn't be out of place in a ballet about like a naughty woodland creature or something like that. It's cutesy. It's kind of sugary, sweet. It has a bit of a comedic edge to it. And if you think, well, that just sounds kind of positive. What's the problem with that? You know, falling in love is cute. I mean, that might be true, but I just think if you think for a moment about whether or not this music would be used on something like Love is Blind, a dating show about people who are, I assume, mostly not autistic, it would seem kind of... Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of those shows, they'd be... I don't know. I haven't seen Love is Blind. I have seen, what's that one where they get loads of people together who very much like their short-term style of relationships and then get them to develop a bond. I can't remember what it was called. It's got that little Siri creature, little robot that sort of props up and sort of tells them off for doing naughty stuff. I think the music on that tends to be a bit more sort of mature. I don't know about Married at First Sight because that's the show that my mom watched quite a bit and I have joined her to dinner a couple of times and she's had that on. I don't think the music was like that, to be honest. I think it's very much like from this like, neurotypical kind of lens of us being kind of quirky, strange, awkward creatures, you know. Definitely infantilizing and dollhouse-like. Something offensive is about to happen. Oh dear. Oh dear. Hello, Cat Lily. Nice to see you. And Jenny the Usby. Victor, Jenna says, well, I think that every reality show kind of takes a little bit of advantage of people. But actually, I don't know what to think about it right now. I think you're right. They do tend to do that. What you see in mainstream media has been almost crafted in the muse of the production people. Glow editing it. I think you're right there. But it's just, I think it's just the trends that we see with a lot of autism-related content, you know. Ridiculous and out of place there. But I don't think this music would seem out of place in a reality TV show about children or about cutesy kittens. I just think when you have autistic people on the show who do have interests in things like Disney and Cartoon Network, and then you have this music in the background, there's a risk of viewers not seeing the participants as full adults. Now obviously liking things like Disney and cartoons does not make you a child. There are so many people who are not autistic who really, really love Disney. You know, how many adults are going to be super keen to go and see Frozen 3 when that hits the cinemas? But it is true that many autistic people, we go harder with our interests. It's more obvious and we care a little bit less sometimes about what's socially acceptable. If you want a whole video on the topic of why liking things that are primarily aimed at children doesn't make you a child, then you can check out this video that I did recently. I just think it would have been easy enough to have some sort of positive, romantic music that didn't have kind of a childlike edge to it. Love is Blind just use kind of copyright free pop songs, I suppose. Me and my husband always have subtitles on and we laugh so much at some of the lyrics. It's always like, you're breaking my heart but I'm a queen. Don't leave me. What are we gonna do now when the flood comes in? I don't know. But I mean just some nice acoustic guitar, just some nice piano. The voiceover is often sickly sweet as well. It's kind of like they're talking through a big smile all the time. It might seem like this is not a big deal at all but even if it was done, it's the best. Yeah, the voiceover. The voiceover. It's like some David Attenborough stuff, when he's talking about the quirky little penguins that are walking on the streets. The streets in the frozen wastelands. Maybe. Where did that come from? Walking on the street? Yeah. The autistic people, although strange and different to your average person, still want to find love. But they do so in mysterious and quirky ways when he must use all the quirky music that we can find to emphasise this. The voiceover is cringe. Yeah. I haven't heard the one for Season 3 but I imagine what she's saying. I can picture this in my brain. Best of Intentions. Presenting autistic people as childlike is a form of discrimination. It can be seen as a microaggression and it could negatively affect how people view autistic people in their own communities. I think you've just got to think, do most people come away from the show viewing autistic people as equals who deserve respect? And it seems maybe not because when a cast member, Michael, who was from the Australian series, was interviewed on Ellen, she referred to it as such a sweet show and she also said, I like how you see it as a gift referring to the fact that he's autistic and then you're a very special person. And I just found that a bit uncomfortable. No way. It's always, can you see Jack? I can see Jackie. Hello, Jackie. I, there was a lot of messages coming through. So if I don't pick up on it, it's just because it kind of shifts up. Sorry. I'm not meaning to ignore your messages, Jackie. The list interests are so strangely presented. I like it just being something strange to do. Yeah. It's almost, how do you feel? Do you feel it would have been different if you were diagnosed later in life? I don't think so. I get asked about that a lot. There's not really like many things that there were. I think maybe it gave my parents a bit more of a advocating sort of platform to say, oh, this is, you know, my autistic child that kind of made getting some of the adjustments perhaps a little bit easier, but really wasn't that much difference, to be honest. And I didn't particularly understand autism other than being sensory and social difficulties until my early 20s anyway. So, you know, trying to, trying to see if, wait, where have you gone? Oh, I did the, the bot kick you out again. Oh, stop it silly. Okay, good. Comfortable and condescending. It sounds like the way Ellen would speak to a child who'd done some charity work or something like that. The whole sequence is a bit weird and there's a lot of laughter from the audience at strange moments. For example, when Michael is asked why he went on the show, he says, my best chance to help me find a partner. That's why. And then the audience just like erupt into laughter. And I'm just like, why, why did they laugh at this? Why was this funny? Is it just because his speech and delivery style is a little bit different than what people are used to? I don't think Michael was intending to be funny here. And I think it's probably jarring to have people laughing at you when in your mind you haven't made a joke or anything like that. I think in general, love on the spectrum is just kind of teetering on this fine line between laughing at and laughing with the participants. Yes, yes. Oh, sorry. I think I think she's completely right with that. I don't know. But it seems like because I do have some some neurotypical friends, I think actually to be honest, most of my friends are neurotypical. I've talked to them about love on the spectrum because they've they've seen it because they sort of have an awareness of autism because of being associated with myself. But yeah, it really does seem like particularly for that character, I think Michael, is that that what he was called? I think I saw a lot of stuff, particularly online sort of memifying him as like, I don't know, we watched that documentary on Chris Chan talking about like this concept of the lol cow. And I do feel like just to some degree, this man has been painted as such. I don't know why it's it's it's really it is really hard to like put into words how they do this, this stuff. But it's very apparent to me, it gives me that kind of irksome feeling in my in my gut, you know, make nailed it 100%. Because people see Michael as entertaining with how he presents and this insulting. Yeah. Yeah. And to his face as well, like the audience laughing, I don't I don't know how like live audiences work. Do they have like the cards so they have like a button that they press to make the audience laugh? Maybe I don't know. Maybe that's just an old old thing that people do. Yeah. I don't know, guys. In this case, Michael was being sincere when he spoke to Ellen. He wasn't laughing himself. Before I get onto the next thing I didn't like so much, I just want to thank you to Belessa for supporting my ramblings here today by sponsoring this portion of the video. Belessa are on a mission to help everyone who wants to embrace explore and celebrate their sexuality. And of course, there's absolutely no reason why that shouldn't include autistic adults. Belessa reached out to do a giveaway with me. If you sign up using the link below, you'll definitely get something from them, whether it's a free vibrator or a gift card that you can purchase. Do you guys? I don't know if that's that's is that for men as well? Interesting. Let's skip past that a little bit. Interesting. Another little thing that I've never liked about the show, which is also an example of infantilization is this little likes and dislikes thing that they do sometimes when they're introducing a new person. They might say something like Jessica likes beavers and hot dogs, but she doesn't like breaking the rules. He likes vehicular cleanliness. He doesn't like celebrity obsession. And there's a little stock video will pop vehicular vehicular vehicular cleanse cleanliness. Yeah, I don't know, like, because if it's if it's just the fact that that these individuals just put these down as their likes and dislikes, I don't see anything that's wrong with that. But I imagine that it's probably out of a long list of things, you know, I don't know if that's that's exactly how they would go about doing something like that. Depends on the man, I guess. Yeah, I don't think it's for me, guys. I mean, to be honest, if any of these if any of those products could be better placed on the video, I think Meg's video about love on the spectrum would be a good one because I do see it like alongside the this idea of infantilization, I do I do see a lot of I think infantilization sort of inherently comes with this this desexualization to a certain degree. I have heard a lot of other advocates online talking about this. So I think it's a pretty good placement of that, I guess. He won't see with me doing that. But well, I mean, who knows the future, I pop up on the screen to represent the different things, not that I can come at anyone for using stock. That's not what I'm trying to say. But it just feels like this quite odd simplistic way to sum up a person. If I was on love on this spectrum, it would probably be something like Meg likes pasta and YouTube. Meg doesn't like peas or noisy eaters. It's not exactly what I would be putting on my CV, is it? What would mine be? I'm trying to think of what my love on the spectrum, maybe we should do a trend. We should start a trend, you know, your love on the spectrum intro. What would mine be? Thomas likes coffee and dark things. He loves to talk to a camera. He doesn't like Paskin. Oh my gosh. Desexualization. Yeah, I think it's kind of like this. I think it comes quite heavily tied to infantilization, I would say. That autistic people cannot be seen in that lens. I was like, she said, what now? He likes to work out, that's a good one. You know me good, spicy autistic. I like the name. Thomas likes kicking bully's ass. Yes. We should totally do that. I'm going to do one. I'm going to do, I'll do a reel. I think it would be a cool trend because it's kind of like pointing out the silliness of it. I think, well, I hope that that would be translated, but you know, they should be talking about special interests, not likes. Yeah, 100%. I'd rather hear this person has a passion for this. They're really talented at this, or just an interview sequence where they say a few things about themselves, even if it's just their age or whatever, you know, like any other sort of reality TV show would do. The dislikes are also often sensory sensitivities. For example, I think the smell of ham was a dislike for somebody on the show, but they never elaborate on sensory sensitivities and autism. So it just feels a bit like they're wanting the audience to go like, oh, how weird, how oddly specific the smell of ham again. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, people kind of get the impression that that's the kind of the level of depth that they have to their personality, you know, it's like, that is kind of like, if you went up to a kid and asked them to describe themself, that does sound oddly quite similar to the descriptions that they tend to use on the shows. You know, am I right? Do you see that too? I mean, yeah, I mean, it tends to be a lot more sort of in-depth into people's personalities and what they do for work and what their like key interests are. You know, it tends to be a lot more in-depth in other shows. I mean, they tend to have like whole back stories on their sort of love life, you know, when you see like stuff on married at first sight. It's not just as, it's just, it's not as simplistic as like that, you know, it does kind of, it kind of gears, it's all of these little, little things here and there that just come compound into this feeling that you get from watching the show sometimes, you know. And it's not to say that I don't like the show, but the reason why I do like the show is because I like the people that are on, like, I think it's, it gives, sometimes they can have a pretty wide breadth of people on the show, which I do like. And actually like seeing the individuals sort of experience and go out on dates is quite interesting for me as an autistic person myself. One of them was, they don't like putting furniture together. Who doesn't look like that? I think some people do, but I see what you're saying. Hi Isabella, nice to see you. Ham is awful, isn't it? Why is it, why, why, it's particularly ham that has like a, like a honey mustard ham. This makes me, makes me cringe in my stomach, you know, it's not good. And it's this line between laughing at and laughing with autistic people and it also doesn't help anyone to understand autistic people. Why might somebody not like the smell of ham? The fact that we often can't tune out things in our sensory environment the way other people can so they can become very, very overwhelming and overpowering. Anyway, maybe we can reclaim the likes and dislikes, then comment yours below. If you were on love on the spectrum, what would your likes and dislikes sequence say? The editing often seems to amp up the awkwardness as well. Some scenes will kind of like end on a cliffhanger, like the autistic person will say something that we're maybe supposed to perceive as a bit unusual or we're not sure how the other person's going to react and then it will be this long pause and then it will like cut to a different scene and it'll come back to that same sequence later on and replay that bit and then the other person responded fine and it was normal. Like you're never sure when there are these awkward pauses, how much of it is just being engineered in the edit, which is common across a lot of different... I think there's a lot of that. Please put your introductions into the chat. Different reality TV shows as well, but it just feels a bit harsh when you do have a cast of people who have social differences. The creator of the show, Keanu Cleary, has said in response to criticism that he can't please everyone but what he really wants is just for every cast member to be really happy with how they're portrayed on the show, which I think is a nice thing to say, but I also doubt that they're in the editing suite, you know, making the final decisions and there are shots this season and things that are left in that do seem unflattering. For example, we've got characters tweezing their nose hairs, we've got zooming in on people yawning during dates and kind of using bows to amp up the awkward vibes and then later on that goes on to be revealed as a kind of nervous, anxious tick. One of the cast members buys a bouquet of sweets which I definitely prefer to flowers for sure and then there's a bug flying around and you know, there are shots of him kind of trying to beat away this fly or bug with the bouquet of flowers and that's left in. There's another scene where a cast member, Danny, is singing with one of her friends, Jake, in a restaurant in Los Angeles, they're playing the piano and then there's at least one close-up of like an old guy looking grumpy, you know, while they're singing and I have no idea if he was even looking like that in that exact moment or whether that's something that was kind of engineered late to rock. That's, I think that's just the issue of any reality TV shows, like not to sort of take away from that. I do think that a lot of what we see when it comes to like how a video comes across is the editing. It just is like the whole thing about like the awkward pauses thing. I've seen that in a lot of different other shows or things related to like someone's particular personality. They'll put on some like particular music that they want to portray them as and they sort of highlight some of their quips, which are just not the best, not the most favorable. Yeah, I think if anything really highlights just what the producers wanted to have put across, you know. It's not really necessarily related to the actual content of the people who are on those shows, it's what the what the producers wanted the show to come across as, you know. Never like reality TV shows. No, I don't. It really depends. Sometimes they are very mind-numbing and they make me feel better about myself. Any good show uses the art of tension, but when it's documentary, I don't know about you, but for me, I think in any interaction that I have, there are instance where like quite consistent instances where there is a long pause between conversation. Like, I don't necessarily feel those are awkward in myself, but I know for some people, particularly neurotypical individuals can find them quite irksome, cringe, you know, like uncomfortable, but they're pretty consistent for me. It's not always necessarily an awkward thing, it's just the pacing of the conversations that I tend to have are just relatively quite slow, you know. It takes time for me to process what they're saying and pretty surreply, depending on what my mental health is like to be honest, but you know what I mean? One autistic person I enjoy listening to reacting to another autistic person and enjoy reacting to bad reality TV shows about Waterston. Likes free ride skiing. No, you have to do stuff that is like silly, you know. You've got to be like, Thomas doesn't like his bread being cut into triangles because he doesn't see the pointer net. You know, here is stream elements, that's the bot. There's a little moderation bot. You can direct your anger at the bot, Jackie, for when it tosses you out of the chat for small things. I still have to get around doing that, to be honest. Seems like he likes to moderate in sense to me. He's an naughty boy. What should we call him? We should give him a name. This silent moment usually happens to me. Yeah, and I think some people can find it awkward, like for sure, but I'm fairly comfortable in myself and I don't tend to find silence that awkward. Like I'm not like, there's not like an itch inside of me trying to fill up that space, but I think that's more related to my personality and temperament, maybe. I don't know. You're wrong, but it's as if to give the impression that aren't these two autistic people being really disruptive to the general public or something like that. And I'm just like, ah, in that moment coming up to show their joy. Like even if we did do a moody phase, let's just show them singing. I don't know. I mean, maybe you disagree and maybe some people find the awkward moment kind of relatable because, you know, we all have them. Like maybe it makes you feel better because I mean, like even when there are awkward things happening on these dates, they often are still successful. So I don't know, maybe people find that hopeful. They're creative talks about how we just want to portray what happened as honestly as possible. I think honesty is kind of how he justifies using these potentially embarrassing moments in the final show. And in reality, portraying these autistic people positively is not the main motivation for making the show. Obviously, it exists first and foremost to entertain people, the audience. Yeah. I don't think there's anything, anything wrong with leaving sort of the bad moments in necessarily. I don't see much of an issue with that. I bet you don't know. That's the issue is kind of like a mystery, isn't it? You can only know by really talking to individuals who are part of the process and how the date actually went, you know. It's hard to know. But I think it's probably just representative of just how reality TV shows can be, to be honest. I don't want and expect these kind of oopsie-doopsie second hand cringe moments. Like, oh, they're getting it wrong. But isn't it so heartwarming? And I'm just so glad they're trying. They're so cute. Again, I'm sensing some infantilizing vibes here. Love on the spectrum isn't as harsh as many of them. Oh, thank you very much, Miss Pat. I'm really glad about that. I much appreciated for the super chat. It really does help out a lot. Thank you. I'm glad that some of my talking points have been helpful. It's good to hear stuff like that. Thank you. The reality TV shows are obviously, I mean, in the edits, they can turn people into complete villains and there's none of that. Yeah. Now, I just want to touch on something that isn't necessarily a negative of the show, but it was just something I really picked up on this time around and it made me feel really sad. It was so much masking this season and people pleasing. Masking is basically covering up autistic traits in order to fit in better. I have a video that I posted recently on four different types of masking. So in the show when one guy, Tanner, is introduced, he's concerned about his eyebrows and he asks the crew something like, am I doing my eyebrows right? And it's left in a sort of a quirky, funny moment. Like, isn't that a strange thing to say? Why is he worried about his eyebrows? But a lot of autistic people have had negative feedback about our facial expressions and about our faces not looking animated enough. Yeah. That's concerning to hear about. As I said, I haven't watched this new season. Probably because of my impressions from the last seasons, to be honest. I think maybe if I was able to like stream the actual show and not be like copyrighted strike or anything, I probably would do it. But to watch it in my own free time to relax, I don't think it's like I might just do it just so that I can be up to date with it. But, you know, four different four different types of masking. Interesting. I might have to watch that video. But yeah, I mean, I think that the most common one is like related to smiling, you know, I've had a lot of situations where people in the past when I was quite young would sort of I don't know that they'd sort of pick up on my lack of ability to like smile properly. And I sort of agree with them. I don't think I was really, but the thing is I wasn't a very smiley person. Like I was a smiley person, but it's not like I ever had like very intense feelings of happiness. That sounds awful, doesn't it? But yeah, I mean, usually when you smile, when I used to smile, I used to go like this, that used to be my smile. That was my genuine smile. Like, and so I don't know if I could necessarily say that I mask my smile now to something different. I think I just learned sort of how to do the facial expression that sort of better. I don't know, would you call that masking? I don't know. I'm not sure. It's not really anything that I do like unnaturally. It's not something that I think about doing, but I do smile in the ways that people would say is like how you should smile, like with your eyes sort of squinting, like smiling with your eyes, people say, I think. But I don't really feel like that's like a sense of masking for me. But if you are thinking about it constantly, I think that's where it becomes an issue, when you're like constantly trying to make facial expressions to appease other people around you. I think that's an issue 100%. Thomas, you have a very natural and genuine smile, I think. Well, thank you. I have perfected it over years of looking in the mirror and spreading facial expressions. But yeah, I used to get comments like that. I'd be interested to hear if there's any other like types of masking that that Meg's picked up on. That is quite concerning. As we get older, we can start kind of going over the top with our facial expressions in order to overcompensate for that. So perhaps Tanner has been told, you know, in order to look animated, he needs to raise his eyebrows. I think he just wanted to look happy enough for the camera. And as you can imagine, it can be pretty exhausting to have to be that conscious of your own face when you're interacting with somebody all the time. There are numerous times where you can see cast members of beating themselves up and being so hard on themselves for making little mistakes or what they perceive to be mistakes. For example, they may have had a preplanned question for a date and then they forget to ask that question. There's one 24 year old man on the show called Connor and he goes to the speed dating event, which is, you know, a whole other thing. It's called like life with the spectrum. They have puzzle keys to share. It's very loud when it's time for people to move on to the next date. They ring the spell and they shout like ladies on the move. And I was like, I don't understand because it's an event for autistic people. I never understand why there are so many things that are supposedly made for autistic people, but seem like such a sensory assault. Like, I don't know. I would just personally find that so jarring. It doesn't really make much sense to me, but I don't know. Maybe the people that really enjoy it. But anyway, he goes to this event and while he's having a date with somebody, they have a piece of paper where they can check yes or no to people. And while he's still talking to somebody, he checks no. Then one of the crew members says to him, you might What a G. Here's something that they don't like. Nope. That's like a little tally less next to it. Oh my God. Oh dear. I prefer to tilt my face and my left eye forward. I developed it over years to be more comfortable. Remember trying to force my eyebrows up to get the lines of my forehead when I realized in my 20s I had none. So on the long drive, I tried to keep my eyebrows up the whole time. He wanted to develop forehead wrinkles. Oh dear. I hated the so-so sensory overload there. I've never been to a speed dating event. I don't think it's necessarily something that I would enjoy doing. You might not want to tick the box while they're there. And you could just kind of watch his heart sink. We can be so incredibly hard on ourselves when we mess up. The cast members also seem to say sorry all of the time. There's a scene where Dany apologizes numerous times because she needs to go to the toilet, you know, when she's kind of excusing herself. I relate to that so much. Like I've said in one of my very first videos I posted on this channel that I really struggle with how to let exit an interaction and go to the toilet. I know how to do it. You want to know how to exit? You want to know how to exit an interaction? Just say I've got to go now. Let's say later to be nice talking and just go. Or like if you need to go to the toilet to say, right, I've got to go use the loo and just go. Like the longer that you you stay and try to like transition from doing it the more awkward it is. And people generally don't get very upset if you just kind of I mean it really depends on the person but I don't think many people are going to be upset that you you just say, oh, I've got something to do. I'll see you later. You know, take care. You don't got to think too much about that. Just just leave when you need to leave. Although I have come across some autistic people. I was talking to I think someone before. And there was just no like those none of that like transition time out of the conversation. It was literally just like, well, it's been good. And then they just then they just went. I kind of liked it though. I was like, oh, okay. That's how you do it, I guess. Like I'm being rude to the other person and then I see other people do it. Like it's just the easiest thing like, oh, sorry, excuse me. I'll be back in a second. And I'm like, how that's wizardry. It just feels like you are. You got to you got to take in a deep breath. You're gonna go, well, it's been lovely. I'll see you later. Oh, my God. Do the one finger finger up and sorry, be right back. Yeah. No, you mean falling on going trade. You I have a five wrinkled head. Wow. I don't I don't have many. I don't think I've got I've got a couple of wrinkles around my wrinkle line around my neck. I think that's mostly because I put on a fair bit of weight. And now I lost it. I think that's probably why you are watching a group of people who've had a lifetime of being told that they're doing things wrong. I've spoken quite a bit on this channel about a particular threat response that often comes into play when you're masking autism called fawning. So it's basically when you try and make yourself pleasing to whatever is threatening you. So you might be very smiley and kind of passive and just sort of put your own needs last and make sure the other person is okay and feels okay and interaction above anything else. There was one particular example of fawning on this season that really got to me. So one of the cast members is a 65 year old man called Steve. He was there on the last season as well. He went on a date with somebody called Sharona, who seemed like she was very warm, but she was also quite extroverted and very affectionate, physically affectionate. I don't think she had bad intentions, but Steve was clearly so uncomfortable. And he just couldn't tell her that he just said, thank you, thank you, thank you again and again to her. And then when he was interviewed afterwards, he said, yes, I was uncomfortable. It was too much for me. But he didn't feel like he was allowed to or like he was able to kind of stand up for himself in that moment. That's not good to hear. I don't know, is that do you think that's something related to sort of gender as well? So do you feel like, I don't know, I've been in a lot of situations throughout my life, which have been particularly unwarranted, I would say. I'm not going to go too much into it. But there's been a fair few occurrences where people found it okay to like make physical contact with me when I didn't really want it. Yeah, I mean, I've never really been one to form. I'm usually quite direct and blunt when it comes to stuff like that. But yeah, I can imagine it. It's quite hard, especially when someone is quite extroverted in that way, you know, don't really know how to navigate it without coming across as being like closed off, you know. I did it too much growing up and doing better with this. I had days like that, it's a horrible feeling. Yeah, yeah, me too. Maybe he flirted. Is he saying maybe he flirted too much? He's a beller. Say, you know, this is too much. Watching this, I just find it heartbreaking that autistic people have to carry this stupid stereotype of lacking empathy when there were just so many examples of the cast members putting themselves last. Tana, who I mentioned earlier with the eyebrows, was so conscious of making the people around him feel good. It was like it was his life's mission and it just seemed exhausting. And this brings me to the thing I really appreciated about the show. Jennifer Cook, the autism expert who comes in to kind of help some of the autistic individuals before they go out on their dates and give them some tips. She is actually an autistic person herself, and she wrote the book Autism in Heels. And I had tears in my eyes when she told Tana that it was okay for him to be quiet during a date sometimes, that he didn't always need to put so much pressure on himself to always be the one who was talking. It wasn't always his responsibility to carry everything. No, I think that's one of the issues with a lot of dating advice that is out there. Like a lot of it is focused towards neuro-typical individuals, but and it's kind of like, particularly on like the men's side, because I haven't had that much experience looking at sort of female sort of dating experts or anything, but it does seem like they're trying to craft you into being this very extroverted person. And I don't know about you, but whenever I've tried to do that, it just doesn't it hasn't really worked. And I don't really feel like I'm being as authentic as I could be if I'm to be like very sort of extroverted and talkative. I am very much like a sit back and kind of listen kind of person, you know. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think sometimes the feeling that you're expected to be that kind of extroverted person, just put a lot of pressure on yourself, you know, it can be quite difficult to to be yourself or like be in the moment and and also it can it can have a pretty large impact on like your own emotional state, you know, I just worry about snoring. Quiet dates the best just existing for a while. 100%. Everything she said, people will like you even if you're quiet, even if you get sad sometimes. And then my heart just cracked into a million pieces. And then she gave a tip which I thought would be helpful for so many autistic people that if you know you kind of have an awkward silence in a conversation on a date, then you can always say something like, I can't think of anything else to say, but I'm having a really nice time. I thought that was really lovely. And then I did actually go on to use that in a date. This is a message I think so many neurodivergent people need to hear. I think this is a huge difference that I see between introverted people and autistic people with how they can sometimes interact. Introverted people who are not autistic are often more comfortable just being quiet, just being a bit less expressive, just, you know, kind of sitting there being in the moment. And I feel like often autistic people who are masking can put a lot of pressure on themselves in social situations. And if they are just sitting there being quiet and not so expressive, we can feel this sense of guilt, this feeling like we're not trying hard enough and kind of have this energy inside ourselves that we need to push, push, push and be as social as we possibly can and be extroverted if possible even. I think we can just feel a lot of pressure to come across as having good social skills because maybe we've been bullied in the past, we've received feedback that we're not doing a good enough job in the past, just feel like higher stakes for us. And I just love the way, you know, Jennifer Cook just kind of helped autistic people to collectively like breathe a sigh of relief and go, Oh yeah, it isn't my job to make everyone happy at the expense of my own happiness. Wow. And to be honest, I'd even say like, I think one of the issues is that this kind of extroverted personality is painted as being like the best case scenario in dating situations. I don't think that that's necessarily the best way of looking at things because there are a lot of people out there who are also introverts who also do not like to talk a lot, you know, or perhaps are looking for someone who is a little bit more laid back and quiet and the listener type, you know, it's not always got to, it's, you know, when you think of like the perfect person that you could be in a dating situation, it's not going to translate to every single dating situation. It's going to be very, very different person to person, you know, you got to think about that. I think that's important. What are you guys talking about? Needed therapies I can do online since it's cheaper and free for me plus I don't have to travel anywhere for needed therapies. I'm doing some speech therapy at the moment. Interesting, Brittany. Yeah, I think also doing it remotely gives you a lot more opportunities to find somebody who will be good for you in terms of therapy, 100%. Oh, who would have thought it? I also love that she encouraged the autistic cast to be direct about sex, about asking for consent. I thought that was great. That comes naturally to a lot of autistic people. It makes sense to us. And she also spoke a lot about enthusiastic consent, which I think is great and probably something that every person, but particularly every autistic person should have a look into if you're not sure what enthusiastic consent is. Another thing I really appreciate about this show is how it does kind of demonstrate the diversity of the spectrum for so many different reasons. Sometimes people complain online that they wish there was more diversity. I think there's probably always more that you could do, but I think it's good. I think it really demonstrates why saying things like they're a little bit autistic or they're severely autistic. It's just kind of a little bit silly. How on earth would you rank these people on love and the spectrum? You know, if you ask people to put the cast members in a line and rank them from least to most autistic, which would be a very dehumanizing thing to do, can I just say, we shouldn't do this, but just say we did it. Do you really think everyone would say the same thing? Who do you think is the most autistic cast member here? Who wins the award? The cast really demonstrates this idea of the spiky profile where autistic people can have quite extreme strengths and weaknesses. My husband hasn't seen this season of love on the spectrum, but when he watched the previous seasons, he did say like he felt like he came away understanding what autism was a lot more. I think the show could help people to understand what is meant by spectrum. It's not that every person on this earth is a bit autistic and there's like a spectrum that goes from human to autistic and everyone falls somewhere on that line when we say spectrum. Yeah, I feel like this is a pretty common misconception about autism. I think usually it's founded in like, like for most people who say that it tends to be as a reaction to me telling them that I'm autistic. I think like the cognitive processes that led them to saying that is less about trying to undermine my experiences as an autistic person more about they sort of perceive it as something negative themselves. And so they say that everyone's a little bit autistic to make me feel less bad, you know, I think that that tends to be the way that it goes when people say that. But it's not true. Just just as just as saying I have a little bit of a generalized anxiety disorder is not true. Like it's it's it's hard to get across to people. It's very difficult. It's a different brain. We're not all a little bit autistic. We're all a little bit human though. That's very true. Who is Fagi here? Hello Fagi. How you doing my friend? Spectrum we just mean that there are some people who are autistic, not everyone is autistic. And those people who are autistic are so different from each other. Apparently 50% of people in Britain think that everyone is on the spectrum somewhere. Yeah, I mean, maybe this is helpful representation for those people. But do these positives make up for the fact that the autistic cast are not paid anything for taking part in 2022. The following was posted on backstage.com. This isn't an acting gig. It's all about people being themselves. We are fun, respectful production aiming to raise awareness about autism and celebrate difference. We are open to a diverse range of people who want to represent the spectrum as best we can. As we are a documentary series, we cannot pay for participation, but we do cover any meals and transport costs incurred. So they say as we are a documentary series, we can't pay. And I do think there is a bit of a fine line between reality series and documentary. Yeah, I don't know. It feels more it feels more akin to a reality TV show rather than a documentary. I didn't get documentary vibes from it. I don't know. I mean, I suppose you could argue that maybe individuals who do go on that show tend to get a bit more exposure if they wanted to get into social media worlds. I mean, we've seen it, particularly with Kaelin and I think Michael as well. I don't know. What do you guys think? Also, if you are enjoying the stream, make sure to like it, because it does help a fair bit. Or not like or don't don't not like it. You can do either of those two. And if you want to support me more in my journey of scouring the internet for autism content and reacting to it, please consider becoming a member for as little as 99p. You get access to all of these streams, unedited uncut over on my profile. Because usually when they do these streams, they'll be live for probably about six hours and then they'll take them off and they'll go to the member section. But it really does help me out as a full time content creator. The pose documentary sounds a little bit more high brow and reality TV in recent years has come under fire a little bit for being exploitative for not paying people in off. So I don't know, maybe that's why they've kind of made that distinction there. I do wonder if autism wasn't a disability if they would be able to class it as a documentary, which is maybe something to think on a little bit. But apparently you don't usually pay documentary participants. I suppose in this case, it could be argued that it could compromise the integrity of the project, you know, if people were signing up for the show for financial gain rather than purely because they wanted to find love. Also, and this is something that I'd never really thought about before. It can be seen as kind of exploitative to pay someone for their involvement in a documentary because they may agree just because they're desperate for money and not because they actually want their story to be broadcast to everybody on TV. What do you think about that? I do feel like it's a little bit convenient if you can use morality as a reason to justify not paying the people who make your project possible. But in a debate that I Well, maybe you could like maybe you could like compensate them. Like I know that it's kind of the same thing as paying people, but like, come on, like I think just looking at like the employment statistics for autistic people, you know, every every little helps. I don't know. What do you guys think? Yeah, you agree, sunshine? I don't know if I'm autistic. I don't feel I have the right to suggest it. But why do we relate strongly with autistic people? I can't really say myself, just from, you know, obviously seeing your messages and profiles. But if you do relate to a lot of the experiences that autistic people have, I highly recommend following a bunch of creators from the spaces, both like I would probably say on Instagram and YouTube, probably good places to go to. There are also some more informative pages, one page, one podcast that I would highly recommend is Dr. Megan Neff's podcast and page is near at Mary Divergent Insights. They do a lot of good stuff. Registered psychologist also autistic. But I do also have a lot of stuff on my channel. If you want to go check it out, a lot of podcasts, a lot of stuff you can dive into, eat teeth into. That I saw on Reddit, a lot of people claim that it was kind of okay not to pay the cast of Love on the Spectrum because people are not paid anyway for being on reality TV shows. Someone even said, documentary series treats autistic participants the same way as neurotypical participants. Internet gets mad. But it isn't true because the cast of Love is Blind, they are paid. The only prize at the end of Love is Blind is True Love. But rest assured, the contestants on the dating series are still paid a small salary. According to a lawsuit filed by a contestant, the cast are paid $1,000 per week, up to $8,000 throughout filming the whole show. But the contestants were kind of arguing for the amount of time they were expected to be filmed but ended up working out as less than the minimum wage in California. The cast of Love Island are paid $2,000. Now, even if you feel like the cast of things like Love is Blind and Love Island, they're not paid like loads and loads compared to the overall budget for the whole of these shows. They're still being compensated for their time and for the time that they're having to take off work in order to take part. I don't know, what are we trying to suggest here that the autistic people wouldn't be missing any work anyway? I mean, to be fair, maybe they won't. Love is Blind, they basically live on set. Love Island, I've never watched it but I assume they basically live on set. They're being filmed constantly. I don't think that's how Love on the Spectrum works. It's more like organized interviews and then organized dates, little bits and pieces that are recorded. So probably technically, you know, if they do have a job, they can still go out to work and film around it and sometimes actually go to their workplaces and film them at work as well. And probably some of the participants don't work, but if you don't work, it might be kind of nice to be paid a little bit of money by Netflix. It could be argued that Love on the Spectrum is preying on the desperation of families and autistic individuals to find love. And you know, I'm not necessarily suggesting it's awful and everyone has it. But I do think it's kind of important to remember that this is not being done. I think if anything, it's capitalizing on the differences like the lack of experience that some individuals might have with dating. I don't know. But I do see that in other shows as well. So I'm not too sure. It really depends on how you feel about the whole production side of things, I guess. I mean, it's definitely like a whole host of conflicting opinions, as I said from both inside and outside the autistic community. So I'm not too sure. Shored, sure. Can ever understand the greed factor? Maybe not a straight pair check, but a share of the wealth after the facts. Yeah, I think I think you'd be right then over. Seem to be doing better. I hope you're feeling better, Thomas. Thank you, Pat. I'm not not doing the best as of late, but I'm happy to be back streaming properly and doing some reaction videos, because I really do need to. And I think for the rest of this week, there'll probably be no videos, but I will be trying to live stream a fair bit, both today, tomorrow, Friday. And we do just for a little bit of tidbit, if you want to save the dates, be it Friday around 6pm, I'm going to be doing the 40 Autie podcast here on the live stream with my good friend Mike from after Autistic AF after 40, of course, if you want to save that date in the calendar. I'm going to be trying to go live around 6pm. It might be a little bit after, but it'll generally be around that time. So stay tuned. It should be good. Purely as a charity, sort of much making service for autistic people. Is this much making service an equal exchange of values? Some would say yes, and the sister of a participant who was on the first season of the US Love on the Spectrum said the following on Reddit. They were very upfront with us that they would not be able to compensate us, but would cover any expenses incurred. To be honest, money was the furthest thing from our minds. My brother has yearned for a girlfriend for years. His entire adult life, all he wanted was a partner in life who would accept him for who he is. He is a sweet kind man and has so much to offer someone. But despite his and our numerous attempts over the years, there was just no one out there that wanted to give him a chance. And that's all fine, I understand. We would never just expect that from someone. But the tears my mom showed on the show were real. Our fear was that he would end up alone, and that thought was terrifying to us. We didn't know what kind of situations they'd provide him on the show, and to be honest, we didn't care. The fact that he would be going on his first date ever was so exciting to us. Not to mention, the global awareness that was brought to the autism spectrum was somewhat unprecedented. What is a couple of thousand dollars or whatever the compensation would have been compared to this kind of opportunity? If the company had to compensate, they may not have been able to fly back and forth around the country to film all the participants they did. Or to have Jennifer Cook fly. We would have gladly forgotten that compensation in favour of those costs. Obviously, I can't speak for anyone else on the show or anyone who felt jilted by the production team. I can only speak on behalf of me and my family and our experience. I will say this, we did not feel taken advantage of in any way or at any point during this process. The production team was passionate about this topic, and we felt the love and care they had for us and our story at every turn. We are beyond grateful for them and feel blessed to have been chosen for this journey. It felt collaborative, more than exploitative, like we were all working towards the same goal. We never felt like we were disadvantaged in any way. And now he's so happy in celebrating his one-year anniversary with Rachel today. As well as finding love, as with many other reality TV shows, many cast members have gone on to build a career for themselves, making on social media. Michael, who I mentioned earlier, who was on Ellen, has built a really successful career for himself. He has a podcast that's doing super well, he's done a TED talk, and he's playing an autistic character on an Australian TV series. I'm sure at this point he probably doesn't care too much about not being compensated with a few thousand dollars. And maybe he doesn't care about a bit of poor... Yeah, I think it's important to recognize there that there's not going to be every single person. I think Kaelin's done pretty well for themselves as well. I think they've got about a hundred and... They've got a fair amount of followers over on Instagram. You get paid $1,000 an hour. Do you? Where do you work? And can I join? It was... Is it IR? It was recently something to change. Hi, Thomas. How are you? Hello, Danielle. Not too bad. We're doing all right. And hello, Onin. Welcome, my friend. I'd see you again. How do people concentrate on chatting video at the same time? I just can't. By the way, how can you dine out to the channel without it being shared in a flashy way in chat? I can turn it off for a second if you want. I think I can cancel the stream elements thingy. I don't know. I think if you do a super chat, it'll just pop up, to be honest. But the best way to support me is by becoming a member. I think you are a member already? Yes. Maybe I'll think about that. Sorry if it's... I was meaning it to be a more interactive, fun way of doing super chats, but I can disable it if a lot of people are not too favourable towards that. Poorly timed laughing on Ellen, either. But obviously, there's no guarantee of success online after leaving the show, and that might not be something that everyone involved is interested in pursuing anyway. Perhaps we should trust that the folks from Love on the Spectrum US knew what they were doing and were not, in fact, being taken advantage of. After all, wouldn't it be rather ableist of us to assume that was the case? Now, what do you think of that? I think it can both be true that the cast members saw enough benefit in taking part of the show that they were prepared to do it for free, but also that maybe being paid to do it would have been nice. It would have signaled to these autistic individuals and also to autistic people everywhere that we all valued. It would be the showrunner saying, you gave something to me, and I'm going to then give you this in return, because it's a huge risk putting your face out there for millions to see. Again, it is not a charity much-making service. I also don't feel like it's ableist to be a little bit more concerned about exploitation when it comes to autistic people. We are statistically more likely to be abused, more likely to face negative life outcomes, and more likely to face things like make crime. Overall, I have mixed feelings. Oh, make crime. Make crime, make crime, make crime. I've done a few things about that. Maybe I should do another one of my presentation videos at some point about that particularly. Don't they used to have anonymous donations on YouTube? I don't know actually. I don't have a Ko-fi. Yeah. I mean, if you want to donate and you don't want it to be seen on the chat, you could do it after the livestream maybe, if that would work. I would appreciate that anyway. Thank you. I think it's hard to say, because normally there's about 30 people here, but that's double, which is great for Thomas. Yeah, it tends to be this. I think more people want to join in when we do have a video to react to, which is cool. But I'm trying my best to keep up with the chat. It can just be a little bit too hard sometimes. I don't want to break the video up too much, but also I don't want to ignore your messages. I'm just trying to stay up to date. It is just stressful to be seen that it's all right. It's just my own problem. I get that flashy thing. Encourages me to participate and support you. I really appreciate that, Dave. The concern would be if the future instances of autistic people being hired without compensation feel similar to artists being told to do it for exposure. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't feel too. I've actually been thinking, to be honest, of once I get my disability support come through to help me with my person's help move communications and stuff. I am going to perhaps like apply for some some reality TV shows, because I do think that it could be like a quite a good thing to raise awareness of autism in the mainstream, like not particularly just on autism specific shows, but to include somebody who is autistic on that kind of thing. And I do think I'd be able to handle it. I think obviously when it comes to mental health and stuff, that might be a bit of an issue. But I think when it comes to sort of interacting with people, whether they're neurotypical or not, and also being on camera, I feel like that would be fine for me. I think I could handle that. So I may I may make some some applications to go into that. It'd be cool. It'd be it'd be interesting. You should apply for the traitors. I don't know the traitors. It kind of it's it kind of fills me with nerves, because I feel like I'm pretty good at spinning the neurotypicals, you know, I know I know what they look for. And I'm just a bit bit kind of quirky and unreadable in a sense. So maybe maybe big brother or might might go on big brother. Maybe I do have experience with live stuff. So I think it's great that you'd want to do that. Just as a challenge during imposter syndrome, what do you mean us? I think it think it any for anyone, it would be hard. I don't know. I feel like I could do that. You know, I think it'd be good exposure. And I think it would I'd be able to sort of counteract some of the myths and stereotypes that people have around autism. I think it would be a good thing. But we shall see in the future. Could be could be something soon who knows. Do I want the show to be canceled? No, do I think we should boycott it? No, I don't. On the one hand, would I love it if there was an autistic show runner or member of the production involved here? Yeah, I think that would be great. But then I'm extremely grateful for Jennifer Cooke and the message she's been able to communicate to the autistic community through this platform. Also, yep, would I love for them to listen a bit more to autistic people and get rid of things like the silly likes and dislikes? Yeah, but am I grateful for the diversity shown here, especially like journey's story on this season? Yep, I am. Let me know what your thoughts are, though. I'd love to know what you liked and what are your likes and dislikes, your actual likes and dislikes, but also give me your love on the spectrum, likes and dislikes. If you'd like to support videos like this, and you'd also like to get some bonus videos from me, I currently have six exclusive videos up on my Patreon, and you get two new exclusive videos every single month as well. If you join the four US dollar tier and upwards, you also get access to the discord community, which I think is a great place if you're considering whether you might be autistic or not. Sometimes it can be super validating to spend time with other neurodivergent individuals. If you're not sure if you're autistic, you are completely welcome that you don't have to be definitely sure, you know, you can just be kind of exploring. If you want to stay here on YouTube and you want something light and wholesome, I have a video that I made recently reacting to some Instagram reels, some amazing Instagram reels made by autistic people. One of them being one of the participants from the last season of Love on the Spectrum. Kaelin, who unfortunately didn't come back this time. And if you are in need of some spicy toys in your life, click the link in the description. Thank you for getting this far with me. Anyway, I want some, some spicy toys. I'm so juvenile and immature. My God. Great video, I think 100%. Always a great one from Meg. I do think that it's just kind of the outro sequence, but I'm always very astounded at like the work ethic that makes shows. And also the nuance and like their personality, you know, spot on for a content creator can see why they're so popular in the autism online spaces. And I guess I'd like to ask you, what do you think of season three? Have you watched it personally yourself? Please let me know down in the comments. And if you want to stay up to date with me and what I'm doing and you want to support me, like, subscribe, of course, that old funny one. And consider becoming a member to view all of these videos uncut and enjoy the, the, how do you say, the quirky side of Thomas unfiltered.