 Good day, my lovely listeners! You are listening to The Forty Autie Podcast. Tune in every week to explore inspiring stories and insightful information that dive headfirst into the world of autism and mental health. With all those tantalising tongue twisters out of the way, let's get into the show. Today's podcast episode is proudly sponsored by Timo, the award-winning app designed to support neurodivergent people just like yourself with routine and scheduling. Head to your app store and type T-W-I-M-O to learn more. Good day, loyal viewers and welcome back to another episode of The Forty Autie Podcast. I'm trying very hard to spice up the intros to these podcasts. You've always got to keep it fresh, new, but I just end up laughing at myself and retaking it. We'll leave this one in. How are you doing anyway? Have you had a good day? Let me know. Get in contact on my email. This is a very long intro. Today we're going to be talking about everybody's favourite secret lover, social media. Today I am joined by none other than IndyAndy. This is the first person that has actually been asked for. People have commented on my YouTube channel and sort of suggested people to have on the podcast. And IndyAndy was one of those people. For anybody who doesn't know him, he is a very successful YouTuber. He has just started up his own podcast and he talks all about autism and anything that is related to that subject. How are you doing, Indy? I'm very well. Thank you. How are you doing, Tom? We had a little bit of a chat before we started the podcast. As with always, that's also something that I repeat on a near-constant basis. Life is a bit dull and down at the moment, but there's a lot of positives on the horizon. I'm feeling fairly hopeful for the short-term future. I wanted to ask you before we started this podcast, you have made your first podcast, your first podcast episode. How was that? What do you talk about? Well, for those who don't know the name of my podcast, it's called The Unmasked Podcast. And the first episode I did with Connor Ward, who is just, I don't know, a real supporter of the channel. And just as me as a friend in things, we talk quite regularly. And the podcast episode itself was actually kind of similar to what we're potentially going to be talking about today was to do with autism on YouTube, the creator-viewer divide, which Connor's kind of, I don't know what the word would be. I guess the expert on the him, it's kind of like his thing. But no, we just talked about those sorts of things, as well as going to our kind of love of Star Wars and things. Nice, nice. We both got to add a little bit of your personality into these things, don't you? Or else you're just a part of the corporate rollouts, the information stream. Also for talking about things that are completely off topic, which is something that my podcast is definitely wholesomely taking in. Yeah, I have to say, though, it was a really great podcast episode. And I think I still have a long way to go, of course. But I think that's just part of the journey, really, with doing anything new. You kind of have to take it one step at a time and just see where it goes, really. I definitely do think that it's podcasting quite, it's in a different world to kind of YouTubing. You've got to, with YouTubing, you've got to work on your body language, facial expressions, tonality, and all of those kind of things just towards the camera. But with podcasting, you don't have any of that sort of body language and facial expressions unless you record it, but you've got to work on your conversational skills, your knowledge around it. There's a lot of different kind of aspects to it. It's like a self-help course. Sort of work on your skills, social skills. Yeah, and also when you're doing an audio-based podcast, I didn't actually realise at the time, but on the first episode, my kind of, I don't know, speaking inflections were not really on point. So if you listen to it, I don't really, I didn't really go, yeah, or, mm-hmm, like acknowledging the person because basically I do the podcasts mainly in a video format because that's, I don't know. For me, it's great to actually see the person and have that kind of interaction. So really, my podcast is not necessarily a traditional podcast, but it is something I'm working on as I grow with it and things like that. But yeah, it was honestly just one of those things I forgot, just going, mm-hmm, yeah. Shall we talk a little bit about you, what your background is, who you are, what kind of stuff you do online? Yeah, no, sure. My background, well, I'm 26. No, I'm not 26. I'm 28. Why do I go 26? I've no idea. This is going brilliantly. I know, I know. This is just a normal conversation for me. That's great. I love it. No, I'm 28. I'm from the UK. And I don't know, in terms of normal life, I'm a accounts assistant. So I'm putting in voices, all of that lovely, jazzy stuff really, but YouTube is really my home, which is, you know, the place that I want to be on all of the time, because YouTube's great. But no, I've run my own YouTube channel called IndyAndy, basically talking about autism, you know, just my experiences as an autistic person. Pretty much, I've been doing that for, I've been doing YouTube for about four years, and it's just gone strength to strength, to be perfectly honest. It's just, what else would you want to know about me, Tom? I'm quite interested. Well, what was your reason for making the channel? Like, do you have any hopes for what it could become or anything you want to change, or any personal reasons that you want to do YouTube? I do it mainly as a release from my own reality. So it was initially escapism, to be honest, because at the time, I wasn't really at a great place in my life, because I was unemployed. I'd been unemployed for over a year. And I did YouTube as an escape. It was really my fiancée that got me into YouTube in the first place. So she showed me, I don't know, different types of YouTubers and things. And that's how we connected really. If I was at hers, we'd watch YouTube. If she was at mine, we'd watch YouTube. So she really got me into it, and I don't know, I just kind of thought, do you know what, I kind of need something to do, keep myself motivated as well. So I don't know, it was one day at my fiancée's mum's house, because we were living together at her mum's at the time. I just thought, do you know what, I'm just going to record a video, see what happens. So I just did a, I think it was a 25 questions tag, you know, one of those really, really general things. And actually, over time, I just started to talk about my autism, because I don't know, it felt like something that I had, what I needed to talk about to people at the time, because I'd never really talked about it prior to YouTube. And like, I never expected to be where I am today. Like, you know, when I went into it, I hope this is kind of made my point clear, really. I didn't go into it with an end goal, I kind of just wanted to do it for fun and see where it led. I completely understand, I started my channel when I was going through a really bad patch in my life. I was at university and I was dating this girl who had been dating for about two years. And I was really closer and I absolutely loved her. And so she was one year younger than me. I went to uni, we stayed together, I came down on the weekends, as she sort of went to her own uni, she went to quite a one that's this far away. And she broke up with me. And obviously, like, being a very sensitive and emotional, lovey-dovey soul like myself, I very much had a breakdown. And my outlet for the amalgamation of my ex breaking up with me and my mental health, I sort of needed an outlet. And most of my first sort of early videos on YouTube, where me just monologuing about my life struggles and stuff. I completely get that. It's definitely been one of, if not the most important things for me over the years, having to make videos, you've got to research and sort of look into things and and often provide your own personal thoughts on it. So it was quite like a spark for me to improve myself in many different ways. As you start to learn things and find new things out, then your focus shifts from yourself to other people to kind of help them out. You know, I think when you do it over and over again, it becomes less about you and more about other people, I guess. I think that's the thing for me personally. I don't know about you, Tom, but that's the thing that it just suddenly creeps up on you, doesn't say. It's not like an instant switch sort of thing, you know, where you would do it for yourself and then instantly it's for other people. It's just become a gradual thing. But I think just to allude back to the previous question about, you know, where I want the channel to go, I guess for me, I just wanted to be like a, you know, resource for people to, you know, use whether they're professionals or parents. And I don't know, just be kind of like an escape from time to time, you know, because I think to the digital world. Yeah, like an escape to the digital world. That should really be like a book or I don't know. It sounds like a great film title or something like that. It links in quite nicely with the topic of the podcast. Oh, I like what you did there. That was great. But before we chat about that, when were you diagnosed and what kind of journey and process did you go through after that diagnosis? Yeah, well, I was diagnosed in 1996. I was born in 1992. So I was about four or five years old when I was officially diagnosed. Yeah, so for me, it has been like a reality my whole life, because I've known about it. But I got told about it properly when I was about 10, because I started to, I started to have a self awareness. Yeah, that exactly. That's the same with me. And it's the same with like loads of people that I talked to. It's like, why 10? It must be the age at which we realise how very different we are to other people. It must be. It must just be implanted in our brains when we're born. It's like 10, you become fully self aware. But yeah, I don't know what prompted me to ask my mum about it. I can tell you, we were actually waiting for the ferry to cross the River Tyne, because I live in the northeast of England, Newcastle, Pontine, where the Geordies live, all of that lovely stuff. And we were waiting for this ferry and I don't know, I just sort of prompted the question because I kind of started to feel a little bit different from my peers and things like that. Because I started to notice I was going into separate classes and things because I was basically a part of this like special, well, they called it the language unit. It's basically, it was basically for people with autism, ADHD or any kind of disability that impacts on learning basically at primary school. So that's kind of when I start to realise, oh, you know, I'm different from my peers and things. But in terms of the journey itself, it's been a long one, I have to say. Like I say, I was in like these specialised classes for communication because my communication, I mean, it's not great at the best of times now, but it was just social communication. It was something that I had to learn and actually communicating with people without doing the thing of just, you know, screaming for it, you know, that sort of thing. The journey has been really long and quite complex and, you know, involved a lot of people. So knowing my family, but, you know, professionals and things, it was mainly through school, I didn't really get any other kind of like health based support. I think I guess they must have decided that I didn't need it at the time. I guess like later on in life, obviously, things got more complicated with my journey. I was told that I was autistic when I was 10. I only really got support for things that were of difficulty and sort of asking my mum about different aspects of autism. But it only really hit me when I was in my twenties. I didn't really appreciate it for what it is and sort of the ways that it makes me different until that sort of later stage. Yeah, I have to say I kind of didn't really become appreciative of it until much later at the time. Like I think in secondary school, it kind of made things worse really, because I don't know. I think people who are listening to this podcast, if they've been through secondary school, you kind of, I don't know, you know. That's part of the autism experience. I love the autism experience. Yeah, I guess the social hierarchical stuff that comes with secondary school, it's just mind, an absolute mind field really. But it makes all of us just feel sick thinking about secondary school. Did you have much, much trouble in secondary school, like with like bullying or isolation or anything like that? If you want to talk about it, of course. No, no, I'm more than happy to talk about it, though the details are very vague to me, to be perfectly honest with you. Pretty much in primary school I was bullied and then I changed secondary schools. It was to a different location, basically, it was what it was close to the home, still got bullied there. So it kind of, I kind of thought, what's the common denominator? You know, it's not the people, it must be me sort of thing. Oh no. I think that's kind of where like kind of my like natural stammer comes from, because I'm, I don't know. I don't know. I don't really stick up for myself. Well, I didn't at the time, either. I completely understand that. Like it's, it's a lot of time, like we as autistic people build up many layers of different defense mechanisms for coping with. Because it's like, we really do understate it, even me saying it is understate. It is an absolutely horrific ordeal. It's traumatized a lot of people. And when you go through trauma, you kind of have to mold yourself to kind of fit with that environment, because you're not gonna, you're not gonna escape from it. And that can be quite tough. And I definitely agree with you. I think, you know, one of those things for me was staying quiet. And it's taken me like a long, long time to have kind of have the confidence to speak my mind and stand up for myself and the staff. It's a difficult task. It is. Yeah. I mean, I mean, for me in school, I was the person that had to work harder than most people just to understand them, understand the material and stuff. And, you know, when you just, when I, when I just had people, I don't know, saying stuff about like my ways or the way I look, or, you know, those nicknames that people gave you, I mean, I got the nickname sideburns, which I thought was quite entertaining, because, you know, they used my surname and then just put side at the front of it. Wow, very intelligent. Well done. But I think overall, though, if I didn't have those experiences, I wouldn't be the person that I am today. So even though, obviously, it wasn't great, obviously great, of course. But, you know, I don't think about that those those times with fondness, really. But I kind of just, I don't know, go into everything with like, well, try to be as positive as I possibly can to actually try and help people. Because, you know, I guess it's just one of those things that, you know, has come through from that experience, just one del people. Gives you kind of like a personal understanding of how cruel life can often be. I definitely feel that as well. Like, if someone explains to me like, oh, I'm really struggling and stuff, and they're getting all emotional about it. And I can't help but like, try to help because it's like, please don't be in this state of pain. It's awful for me to witness that. And it's even worse when I feel like people could do a tiny little bit more to help. But they just don't. It's very frustrating. I don't know, you kind of have to have that experience in order to help others, I guess. Yes. And if they haven't had it, then it's, I guess, you know, you have to be able to understand something before you can actually do it, I guess. I guess that's kind of the thing with everything that anyone does. I guess people who are like, Crohn's disease advocates, a large majority of those are people with Crohn's or my people trying to like help others affected in some way. Like, just look at like people get into psychology. Most of the people at uni who are in psychology that I met, a large portion of them had their own sort of difficulties and mental health stuff. So it seems to be a trend or maybe it's like the human's natural communal way of overcoming things that are negative. Now that we are about 25 minutes in, of course, we are both very actively engaged with the internet through our social medias and our channels and podcasts and stuff. So I thought that today would be a good, it would be good to talk about social media, what the benefits, what the downsides, etc. First of all, let's talk about our own personal experiences as creators. Could you tell us about the positive and negative sides to using social media as a creator? I have to say that the positives do outweigh the negatives for me personally because I mean, I think social media has been great because I've been able to connect with people that I would never have met in my day to day life. So, such as yourself, Tom, to be honest, that's alright. Well, you know, we wouldn't have met without social media, you know, so that's obviously something I wanted to bring up. For me, social media has been quite positive and actually building like, you know, just different networks on social media has been really, really good as well. Those are the things I would do before YouTube were, you know, in collaboration with other people. So this whole indy-andy thing on social media is me on a canvas. It's like everything that goes on to that channel, it's all me, you know, all of the editing and all that stuff. And I guess that's the gratifying thing about social media, you know, people, you know, comment or talk about, you know, the things that you do in and it's actually quite infectious. It's, you know, it's quite motivating. And like, I read all the comments and things that people leave. And it's, I don't know, it's just a really positive thing about social media. You get that interaction with, you know, people you don't even know it's a nice thing. And it's, it's just lovely really. What about you? What do you think the positives are to being a social creator? I have found an immense sense of purpose in YouTubeing. Sean's sounds quite, quite silly on paper, but it's not necessarily the videos and podcasts themselves. It's more what that what opportunities they open for me to sort of pursue my goals. And you know, my goals is to kind of get to a point where I can speak on very public and mainstream platforms about issues that, you know, really should be kind of seen for what they are and fixed on some level, yeah, such as mental health and comorbidities and stuff. And there's, there's lots of different areas in which it's kind of opened me up to is, it's helped with my CV for just general jobs, my teaching job. It's allowed me to have a reason to educate myself about autism and the things that surround it. It's given me a way to, to help people on a more wide scale, I think. And that makes me feel good. Yeah, I'm gonna definitely agree with that. I think because obviously, you know, with YouTube and, you know, just social media, you can, it's reaching out to a much wider demographic and, you know, you know, a whole variety of people. And for me personally, what I really do enjoy about it is, you know, people sharing their experiences with me. Like some of it can be really, really tough. Like it's, you know, they go quite deep into it sometimes. But I think for me, it's, I don't know if what the word would be. I think it's, it's nice. And I guess it's nice really that people, you know, see me as worthy of, you know, me knowing their story. And I really respect people that do share that. But I learn a lot from that. Hmm. Yeah. It's not just like people from the USA and the UK who comment, you've got people who you know, like in places like India where autism acceptance or any sort of autism awareness is just zip. Got situations where there's people who are on their own in quite remote and small places, don't really have any friends, family, having very negative life experiences. You know, you just, there's such a variety of people and stories and stuff. And it's, I guess it's hard not to reflect on that when you read them. Yeah. I mean, like you say, just the locations of people. I mean, I've, I've received like messages from people from Brazil and stuff just saying like, you know, it's so different over here in comparison to where you are and, you know, just the kind of things that people talk about. It's, I don't know, like, I guess it's kind of a, it is a positive. It absolutely is. If you know, people are sharing their stories and, you know, wanting to talk about it, I think it's great. And I guess also the other thing as well, what I think what we're doing is really great is sharing those experiences with others for them to feel comfortable about sharing their own story or, you know, looking into, looking into it for them, for themselves. I think I guess that's that for me is, you know, the most rewarding thing, you know, if anything that I do as a creator, you know, helps someone, I really want it to be that for them to watch a video or, you know, if it helps them, you know, go into a direction where it helps them in the long run, that is the most rewarding thing. I guess that's the rewarding thing and the positive thing about being an autistic creator. I said social creator earlier. I don't know where that came. I don't know where that came from, you know. A sociable creator, especially with all that to be some level sociable in order to make it on YouTube, or at least good at talking to a camera. That's always weird. I was fine. I still find the act of talking to a camera very strange. Just to kind of briefly go over sort of the negatives for yourself, would you say that being on YouTube and being a creator does have any sort of negative impacts on your quality of life or your day to day or your social life or anything like that? Yeah, I would definitely say so. Like I say, I think it does have more positives and negatives. But I think what people don't realise is the amount of like work that goes into keeping like a schedule and like, you know, it's just all of the admin stuff. It's not just about creating the videos at this point. It's, you know, handling emails from companies wanting to work with things and doing just other opportunities. It's like, it becomes like an actual job without it actually, you know, being an actual job, I guess. Okay, yeah. You know, you know, right? Yeah, it's definitely, it definitely does take over your life to some degree. It's, it's like the more that you put in, the better results that you get. But even, even so, the results are very slow to reveal themselves. It's like, you've got to keep working really, really hard around the clock. If you're doing like a podcast, you've got to organise calls of people from different time zones and get them onto onto a service at the right time and sort of run them through the questions, record it, edit it for how long you want to depending on what quality you want, and then put it out and promote it and stuff. It's like, like it's at least 15 hours in that like, it's crazy. Yeah, no man, I definitely, I definitely get that. But I guess also kind of the negative one of the things of social media, which I don't know, it's become a lot more apparent to me is the opinions of others, I guess, when it comes to your own content and things like, I don't, I don't know, it's very, it's very weird, the internet sometimes, because you can have like 99% of the people I interact with are really nice. And you know, they get in there really, I don't know, responsive, but you get that 1% who, I don't know, don't say that the best things or the nicest of things and kind of get a little bit personal with it sometimes. And I guess that's kind of the negative thing about it, because even though it's the 1%, it kind of eats in at you and it's the thing for me that I kind of fix it on. And I don't know, I think, I think all of us have this to a degree, but I tend to focus on the negative thing, like if it's like, even if it's the tiniest thing, that's the thing that sticks out. And I'm just trying to figure out what's what they're saying is valid or are they really right about this? And so double checking your videos and making sure that you are. And yeah, I completely get it. It's just sometimes it can eat up, but yeah, but it's kind of one of those things where if you see something bad, you just try and hide it as soon as possible and divert your attention. I think, you know, sometimes you can get critical comments, which you can also see as negative sometimes, which I don't know, it's not the best way to be, I guess, but I don't know. Like, I think, you know, if it's constructive, that's fine. You know, I can take constructive criticism, if it's like something about the video, but when it gets personal and things I can't change as a person, it's just, I don't know, it just makes me want to close my laptop and go on the couch, pull a blanket around me and just be like, no. It does, it does drain you in that way. But like, especially with podcasting and doing YouTube videos, even making videos, even if you're not speaking to someone, because you've got to, well, you don't have to, but it helps to use your body language and all those kind of nonverbal signals and craft things. It does tend to drain my social battery. Like, you just require so much intense concentration and thought and planning. And most of the time, if I'm in the stage of making videos and podcasts and stuff, I usually don't have a lot of energy to spend time with my friends or at least time as well. Oh, no, especially with the time, like I say, I think it's mostly positive and quite, and quite rewarding as well in multiple ways. I'm not going to quit anytime soon, that's for sure. Let's talk about the positives of social media for everybody, you know, like non creators in its many forms and platforms. What does, what does social media bring to autistic individuals? Oh, I have to think back to when I wasn't actually creating, when I wasn't actually creating. It could be things that, that people have told you or I've heard a lot of people saying like, I felt like the only oddball of you, like an alien in the world and I never felt part of society. But now that I'm surrounding myself by autistic people on social media, I feel like I'm part of the world again. That kind of thing, you know? Yeah, no, I think that's the thing for me, just to agree with your point really. I didn't really hang out with a lot of autistic people or autistic people that I could relate to, you know, and I can't have that experience. That's when, you know, when I was doing YouTube, I ended up finding these people on YouTube and I was just like, oh my gosh, like people kind of, I don't know, even though it's not the same experience, of course, but they made me realize that, oh my god, there's people who, you know, get me for me and, you know, it's okay to have, you know, cuddly toys in, you know, your bedroom and stuff, you know, it's okay to, you know, obsess over, I don't know, your favorite TV show, you know, even if people who are adults may think, you know, why do you like that? It made me kind of rediscover my autisticness. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree with you as well. We're going to say this a lot in this podcast, but it's just the autism effects. I feel like, at least I've heard from people as well, about them having an idea or an expectation for how they should be before getting a diagnosis or before reading into autism and watching videos and stuff, but once they did those things, they sort of readjusted what they should expect from themselves and what is going to work and the kind of things that are going to bring them happiness and the confidence that comes with wearing it on your sleeve, you know, there's, I think for autistic people, social media is kind of like, it is like a haven for interacting with like-minded people. It's honestly quite spooky the first time that you watched a video about autism because you're like, I thought I was so individual. I thought I was this unique, amazing person with this quirky personality, you know, that good old Tom, but nope, there's lots of people who equally display those characteristics. But also as well, because people display those characteristics and you just relate to them, then it's, I guess it makes the whole conversation about it so much easier and, you know, making those connections, I think, is a lot easier as well. But I guess it depends on what platform as well. It depends on, you know, how, you know, you make those friendships because I think certain social media is a lot easier than others. I mean, I love Instagram, to be honest, when it comes to social media. Like, I think YouTube at this point, you know, it's kind of a social media, but I don't really see it as that. I'd take a half and half between like a video website and like a social media, like it has like social media elements, of course. But yeah, no, I quite like Instagrams. So, you know, I guess it's intuitive and there's so many, I didn't actually realize this until this year, to be honest, I didn't realize how many like autistic creators there are on Instagram. I did never actually fully massive. And I think over lockdown, I saw, you know, just deep diving into it more, there's so many. And it's, I guess it's one of the more positive social medias as well. So, I don't know, I've made quite a few acquaintances and friends through that. And so, I guess it just depends on the individual, you know, how they use that platform. For me, Instagram is just one of those places. I definitely feel a lot more at home on Instagram. It's something about it. I know that it's in the past been sort of critiqued as being quite narcissistically driven, but I feel like a lot of the autistic content creators, they tend to make their own posts, they like design them at different aspects to it. They do like a little short kind of bit of writing on a certain topic. They spread information and talk to people who kind of need that support and help. And it's just, I mean, sometimes it can be a bit annoying, but that's like the only bad thing that's come out of it for me is you know, like just getting messaged by spam bots. I mean, I can't remember the last time I had a spam, I guess spam bot. If anyone decides to message me in whatever medium, you know, please be aware, it does take me a while to actually get back to people sometimes. You know, I think social media is great, but I guess for me, you know, it's just I need to figure out how I'm going to respond. And you know, sometimes I might take a while or I might see the message and think, I'm going to reply to that, you know, now and then it's five days later. It's like, Oh gosh, I need to reply. You left it on red. So it's time for a quick mention from our sponsors, Teemo. If you love visual support in your scheduling, Teemo is for you. The app was designed for people with ADHD and autism and helps empower users to schedule visual routines that work. Users say that Teemo can help reduce stress and support executive function, which are both two things that I struggle with myself. Learn more at www.teemoapp.com or just type in twimo into your search bar. Thank you so much to my Patreon supporters. Your support means the world. Anyway, let's get back into the show. The hardest thing for me is the social time pressure. I often can leave my inbox alone for days just because I just don't have the energy to start a conversation. It sounds weird if an error is because he's listening to this. It sounds very weird, but I think you understand what I mean. It's just like starting that conversation and engaging with it is like it distracts you from it's like a transition into a conversation and then out of one and then into another one. And it just kind of leads me into a bit of an anxious state, just constantly like messaging. No, I don't really get that. And it kind of becomes a juggling act, even though I'm not a juggler and in no way could I juggle. But it becomes like a massive, massive thing. And I guess it does kind of impact in a way on someone's function and how they are able to function as like an autistic person or something for me. I mean, for us as creators, we're kind of just used to it is the thing that comes with being the creator. But I don't know for someone who likes being on different social medias and stuff, it can also be a little bit of a challenge. It's a bit kind of addicting as well. There's always more that you can do. You can always make one more post. You can always do another story. You could always add a different aspect to your channel, to your page. You could always contact people and develop connections. The problem for me is that it's not like it's unlimited. So if I get myself into that and I'm kind of in the flow state of using social media, it's so hard for me to start. I can't just compulsively watch things on it and stuff. Which I suppose could lead us into the sort of the negative side to social media. I guess one of the problems with it is, we've heard a lot of things like FOMO, Fear of Missing Out, people on Instagram generally are just irregular old Joe. Post pictures of them themselves living the best life. But it looks like they're living the best life because they're not posting the pictures of them laid in bed, eating Cheetos, getting all the dust in their chest air. They're posting pictures of them on holiday or just had a haircut or in their most scenic, precise position that looks just amazing. I just think there's so many pitfalls that people can fall into. What is your experiences with that? Have you heard anybody talking about how difficult it can be sometimes or do you have a personal experience with that? I guess you generally hear comments about people seeing things and being like, I wish I was like this person because of what they're seeing on a social media or whatever. I guess for me, when people are living their best life and they're pristine, like you say, I just don't think about it because I don't know, the more I think about it, the more I think, oh, I wish my life was like that or even though I don't want that life, I think social media can sometimes make you think that's the life I would like to have. It makes you feel, oh, I wish I had more of this or more of that. In that sense, I think on someone's mental health, that can be quite impactful if they're not necessarily aware of the things that do go on within social media. A lot of it, I don't know if it's a thing generally, but I feel like a lot of it is just for show or for a specific purpose. I tend to stay away from that and stick to people who I don't know are real and just show the Cheetos and the hair and the wholesome stuff. That's the kind of stuff I'm personally more drawn to. I'm drawn to more real people and real experiences and stuff, but I can definitely see that being an issue for some people. When I was writing an outline for this podcast, I was kind of thinking of the different types of people and people in different situations that could have a differing relationship with social media. If they have had a very bad childhood, which is often the case with autistic people, they've got very low self-confidence, then it can sometimes make you feel a bit inadequate, make you feel like you're not working hard enough or make you feel like you're not good looking enough or all those kind of things. If you're in that kind of low confidence state, you don't really have any friends, you don't really have any long, close relationships, then you can sometimes fall into a little bit of an envy hole. That makes sense. Just brewing with both negative emotion towards other people and yourself. Yeah, no. I definitely sympathise with that because when I was first starting out on YouTube and the things, I would see my friends doing well. Even though I wish them all of the success in the world and they're my friends and I love them dearly, and I want them to succeed, at the time it made me feel like, what can I do to improve things like that? Even though that's not the way it should be, that's kind of the way it was for me at the time. But I guess for me, it's just about just realising your own value in yourself and yes, social media can be a massive escape, but also realising just your own value and being yourself and just being cool. I don't know what you mean, but I like it. I don't know what I mean either, but I don't know. I guess just being yourself and just also, I don't know, just trying to see things of base value, I guess. Just thinking about the positives rather than the negatives and just not letting yourself be consumed by that, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. I agree with you again. One of the things that has become quite a media story, something that makes headlines is social media's effect on everybody's general ability to function, their productivity there. A lot more children and adults these days display a lot of traits of ADHD or at least ADD or something like that. Because these social media sites, if you allow them to do everything, if you allow them to send you notifications and send you dings and play sound effects and stuff, it trains your brain to drop whatever it's doing, whatever you're doing, look at it and then reply and then it has a way of getting its claws into you and keeping you in that social media site for as long as possible. Have you found that it does affect your productivity sometimes? Yes, absolutely. I've pretty much always got my phone nearby or in my hands. I don't know. It's not that I'm attached to my phone. I use it generally as a coping mechanism for when I'm out and about because regardless of what people see on YouTube, a person that makes these videos and talks confidently, I'm not the most sociable person. I kind of need that prompting when I'm talking to people. So quite often when I'm out and about and just with family stuff, I will literally have my phone in my hands as a crutch. Sometimes I'll get absorbed into reading YouTube comments or whatever. Or if I'm just at home, I'm saying to myself, right, I need to do a wedding plan because I'm planning to get married. Yeah, at some point, I was meant to get married this year, but it got pushed back because of everyone. Of course. Yeah, because of everyone's favourite topic. This happened to a few of people that I know. How is your soon-to-be-wife feeling about it? I think she just is feeling the same as me. We just do it and just have the day that we want and things like that. But we rescheduled it for September, but then we re-rescheduled it for April next year. We're optimistic. We're trying to be optimistic about it going ahead. It's a very ropey situation that we find ourselves in. It's all right. I completely diverted from what we were talking about. I completely get the distraction factor. For me, most of the time, I've got my iPad on me. I'm always holding it. It's an iPad mini. I go back with it everywhere. I get the mic taken out of me from my friends for having my iPad on me all the time. I use that to, as you said, look at YouTube comments and check social media. I use it to play music and I use it to play games when I need to. I do get that. It's like a escapism anchor. Which is good in small doses. I guess the problem comes in when it controls how you go about your day or makes you so ingrained into it that you lose precious time of sleeping and precious time that you could have spent doing something creative or fun or socializing or stuff. I'm basically talking about my experience with YouTube. That's the main thing. Just constantly watching videos that constantly ping. Constantly as shoved in my face. I can't stop sometimes. If I'm really feeling I'm alone, I'll just watch them for hours. I was going to say, sorry. Go on. If they had something to do, like wedding planning and then I'd go into TikTok and see TikToks on cats. That's me for half an hour. I love cat TikToks. Honestly, they're just the most adorable things in the world, especially when you get the kittens and stuff. I'm not a massive fan of cats, but I do like kittens. Well, I do think that there are some very large positives for autistic people in terms of using social media. There are also some negatives, but I guess one of the dilemmas is what which platforms should you use? Do you think that there's any specific platforms that can have negative impacts on someone's mental health or someone's particular attitude to life? Yeah. In particular, probably Facebook for me. I used to be on Facebook all of the time and just get myself absorbed into people's statuses about, I don't know, whatever they're doing. I still go onto Facebook, but I don't really post anything on their personal profile or anything because I just don't. Too much posting. Yeah. Posted out from doing the YouTube stuff. Pretty much. And also, I don't find myself to be that interesting in my personal life. I mean, what am I going to say? At, I don't know, 7pm tonight, I sat on the couch and just bingeed Star Trek Next Generation, which I have been doing and I've been enjoying very much, but Facebook for me, it just comes off as very confrontational sometimes. I guess in particular, when it comes to autism groups and stuff, it can be just one of those places where you can't get support off people and when people are supporting you, it's great on there, but I don't know. Everyone's very opinionated on those groups. Very, very. Yeah. Just on Facebook in general, to be honest, but I know we've obviously talked about our positive outlook when it comes to Instagram and things. I guess for me, that would be quite a good alternative to Facebook, even though Facebook owns Instagram. I just, it's kind of weird how that's actually worked out. It's like Coca-Cola with like Fanta and what other kind of, I think Coca-Cola owns like a large amount of their branded stuff. Yeah. I think they own Sprite, they own Oasis and things as well. Absolutely all sorts, but it's just kind of weird how Instagram, even though it's owned by Facebook, it's just the polar opposite of it. For me, I definitely feel a lot safer on Instagram, especially with the other autistic advocates that talk on that as well as autistic sticks, just doing their thing. You can kind of craft your own circle around you, which can be a good thing, but I guess it has its negatives as well. If you choose to surround yourself by people that make you feel bad, then maybe that could affect you. I've kind of started to do that. Do I really want to see these posts? Do they actually make me want to be on Instagram? You can't really do that with Facebook groups. You can't. You could block everyone that you don't like and that would hide the messages, but it's not really possible, is it? You post something in a group and you get a lot of positive, nice things, but then you get this reigning hellfire of in-depth critiques of what you said on Instagram, something that you didn't really put a massive, massive amount of thought on. Sometimes you get even emotional abuse of people messaging you and saying, how dare you say that? You just don't get that on Instagram. I know what you mean. I actually had that on their Facebook because I posted, it was like a news article on there, something that had happened. Literally, I just set my peace on it, set my thoughts on it, posted it, didn't think anything of it, then the next morning I just saw all of these comments being like, they're talking about this, you have no experience or whatever else. I ended up deleting the post because I was like, I can't be bothered. I can't be bothered with it. I've also noticed actually, because I use quite a lot of social media anyway, Reddit for me in terms of the autistic community has been, in terms of my content, really amazing, but also Reddit's obviously just for the people who are really into forum type of things, which I'm personally not, but I do really like the communities over on Reddit, especially for the autism-based stuff, because obviously you talk about personal experiences and stuff in a lot more detail. But also they share like art and all of that amazing stuff, which I really, really love. I guess it's a lot more critical sometimes on Reddit. People are a lot more critical. I guess that kind of comes with the anonymous part. Or is Reddit anonymous? Not particularly. I think you have to have a user. Well, I guess it kind of is and it isn't. I guess it's kind of like anything like, I don't know, like Twitter or something where, you know, you just have like a username. You can like have a picture as your profile and stuff. I guess, yeah, yeah, no, I actually kind of agree. I guess it's, you can be kind of anonymous on there. I've been on Reddit a few times, but I've never fully got into it because it's like, I was trying to expand my social media, but I just realized that I was just spreading my time out even more thinly between these different social medias. Most of my experience comes from Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. And let me tell you, like, I absolutely hate Twitter. I think it's awful because of the format and how you have to be very short in what you say. People respond to you very shortly as well without much further reading, just kind of the extreme version of face value and they analyze the words that you use. And I've received the most criticism and the most criticism for what I say and believe on Twitter by people who don't know me. And you do get that on YouTube. That happens a lot. But it's like, I hardly ever use Twitter. And when I do, when I say something that I believe in, it's like, I just get people who just give them a snapshot of their thoughts in their brain. And they're not always the most positive and constructive. Yeah. I'll tell you what, actually, I don't mind Twitter. It's not my go-to social media, but obviously for the airhole creator scenario that we are both in. Oh, God, yeah. In terms of Twitter anyway, it's not my go-to social media. It's really confusing because especially on a mobile phone or something, you can go into someone's tweet and then see all of the responses and then it becomes like, I don't know, a tree growing out of the ground. It just, I don't know, you just go so deep into it. It's ever expanding and it's just like, it's too much sometimes. It's like brandishing off into different conversations if it's popular. No, it is. It actually is. And especially if you go into, I don't know, the certain hashtags. I mean, on Twitter, you have hashtag actualistic or hashtag asking autistic. And you go into there and sometimes people post on Twitter, specifically Fred upon Fred upon Fred. And then you have individuals posting on each individual Twitter. If it's like a thread of, I don't know, 20 tweets or something. Jeez. It's just, it's just a lot really. Hello. Oh, sorry. I thought you cut out. Oh, no worries. It's okay. We just, we just didn't read the flow of conversation. I was like, where's he going? But yeah, I do think certain platforms are better than others. I think Instagram has its downfalls. Just as sort of my own personal advice, I think that one of the main problems with Instagram and within the autistic community, or just to prevent anybody at all in a certain group is that you tend to follow people that say stuff that you believe in. And the people who have opposing opinions or, you know, places and companies and organizations that you hate, I personally try and follow those people. Because I think you can very much get yourself into like an echo chamber with certain certain communities. And it can be hard to, it can be sometimes quite, quite hard to read something that you don't agree with and not emotionally respond and go into full on keyboard frenzy mode. I think it's, it's a very healthy thing to do to listen to someone's opinions because you can use those opinions. You can, you can analyze it and you can sort of read into it and have another reason to, you know, support, support your, your belief or idea. Or you could just be completely changed. You could agree with them. And I'm not saying, I'm not saying that you're going to go radical or anything like that. But if you do read into it, and you look at a wide variety of opinions, then kind of makes you a more individualistic kind of person. Does that make sense? I'm trying to explain in the right way. Probably the word I would use is well rounded individual. Yes, that's what I was looking for. Thank you. No problem. But what, what sort of advice could you give to people around sort of adapting how they use social media? I think for me, things that tend to help firstly, just, you know, if you've got a lot of social media or you're using a lot of social media, if you need time to yourself, they turn notifications off. Quite honestly, there was a point where I was receiving daily messages on Facebook Messenger, for example. I was getting so kind of overwhelmed with people just messaging me. Now, it was just a mixture of people. So, you know, friends and family and stuff. That was just too much. So I was just, I was just like, you know what, I need to turn the notifications off. So I did. And then, of course, I did my policy of leaving a few days to respond, but that's what I kind of needed to do. And I think for those who, especially if they're on the spectrum as well, if you're feeling overwhelmed by it, just the simple act of turning notifications off for a period of time can be incredibly helpful. Also, maybe allocating time to doing that would be helpful. To be honest, it's probably something I would, I should really be doing for myself to actually manage my time a little bit better because when I, I don't know, edit a video, sometimes I'll get like bored with the process or I just need like that distraction. So I will go on to TikTok to look at like TikToks of cats. I don't know. What, what would you say, Tom? Apart from sort of widening your circle, I think it's, you know, it's, it's good to have that, but it's, it's important to follow them with the intention of sort of, as you said, rounding yourself out and developing your own opinions and stuff. But if you have like, like friends, people that you met in the past, and every time that something of theirs comes up, and you just, you just feel some large amount of negative emotion or just any, any sort of negative emotion towards them or to yourself, just unfollow them, like, or mute the notifications that you get from them. Or, you know, with Facebook, you can unfollow people, they don't know about it, but you can still say, stay friends with them, but you don't have to see the posts. Doing that with like, for example, on Instagram, sort of, if you follow models that have the ideal for you, maybe don't follow them. If they make you feel bad about yourself, and it's not constructive in any way for you, then just unfollow them. Even if they look nice, or even if you can sort of daydream about yourself being that, you know, sometimes that can be a motivator for people. But if you find it, that's the case for you, when it doesn't motivate, you just kind of hold you back and make you feel awful about yourself, then, you know, sort of crafting your circle or your, the things that you like and follow is quite a good way of using it more consciously, I guess, rather than, oh, this person looks great, I'm going to follow them. Ooh, this person, a little bit sexy. You know, it's it, you just got to have that awareness about you and it can eat away at you if you're having a bad day, like, just a post from someone that you don't like, and then picture of this amazing person with this amazing life, like, you just don't need it. Follow real people who talk about everything. One of the things that I personally like to do, and now it's probably a bit difficult with the current situation, but they are taught by people very sporadically, but, you know, the people that I meet up with time to time, like my best friend and things like that, that we talk over messenger and stuff, but I don't really tell them like, a lot of what's going on, I save a phone actually meet the person. Yeah. Yeah, for me that it just kind of creates that, you know, need to go see them and come off social media sometimes because I think we can all get absorbed by social media. But for me, that's kind of a thing which kind of optimizes like my time of, you know, being on social media versus, you know, in the real world where there's real people and real experiences. Yeah, I think I get what you what you're saying, like, as I've been using social media more for YouTube and stuff like that, I have a very low tolerance for talking to people online. Like, as I said, my social battery is usually quite drained and my energy levels in my time and I used to solely use social media to talk to people. And although that was that was good for me to kind of network and make friends, it didn't transfer very well to the real life, you know, and I'd find that I spend the majority of my socializing on these these platforms rather than meeting up with people or calling with people. So sometimes like adding that aspect of the person, adding a more real engagement to talking with people I think is important, you know, sending a voice message or calling someone, you know, sometimes that can be, you know, enough to stop you constantly like looking at your messages and waiting for someone to reply and, oh, honestly, like you can you can get yourself some right states if someone hasn't replied to you in a certain amount of time. I've experienced that as well. And I know people that that say the same, and it's it's just about kind of having or scheduling a time to talk to someone in a more personal level, I think is is is the best way to use it. Message people, ask them what they're doing, see if they want to talk or have a call or meet up, and then go from there. Like, I don't think it should solely be your method of communication, if that makes sense. No, no, that makes total sense. And just with the whole voice memo, memo wing thing, I actually prefer doing voice memos over actual typing out messages. It's it's it makes it more person personable, or I think that's the word personal. It makes it more personal. And I don't know. It's just it's just nice. It's just nice when you go, you know, you actually hear someone's voice instead of reading on a on a message, yeah, on a message. And, you know, it's actually easier, I think it's actually easier, which actually, I guess, helps if you're, you know, you don't have the energy to, you know, type out a message to a long conversation. It actually makes it easier, I think. You just got to get over that initial fear of talking. But to be honest, for me personally, like, like I stammer quite quite a lot anyway. It's just a part of me. And, you know, I don't really mind it. It's obviously a nuisance, but, you know, it actually helps, you know, from like a social point of view, just actually, you know, send voice memos off. It does actually help in certain situations, you know, just getting that practice in, especially during these times where we can't, you know, obviously see people day to day. By the way, your stammering absolutely has no effect on the quality of your conversation, your communication. Honestly, like, I have a little bit of a stammer. And I guess it is something that sort of comes with the bundle of nerves that my brain was formed by. But it doesn't detract from it. If anything, it gives you a little bit more realism, relatability. And it's one of the nice things about the internet is that, you know, if you excel in certain areas, and you're good at talking, and you're good at communicating thoughts and feelings, it doesn't really matter about kind of the superficial stuff. Like, people say that I speak like a robot, and I'm like monotone. And I agree. But it works for this podcast because it's a chill one, apart from when they're just reading their voice. Yeah, I mean, to be perfectly honest with the whole stammer thing, I don't know, because I'm surrounded by non-autistic people quite a lot of the time. I think, you know, I see people just generally talking. It's the first thing I notice, like, oh, they're not, they don't stammer. It's just, it's just the thing I don't consciously think about. But I do kind of worry about how other people perceive it. So, so thank you for actually just saying it's not an issue. It makes, I don't know, it makes me feel like nice about myself, I guess. Honestly, like, I only follow one podcast, really. And it's not mine. Don't worry. I follow this podcast called the Triforce podcast, which is a group of middle-aged dudes talking about games and literally anything. And the guy who makes it, he's called Lewis, he has a stammer. Like, he stammers like his podcast is like, massively successful. It doesn't have any impact on how people perceive you. And if it does, that's their problem because it's just like, who cares? Like, it's literally something that you can't control. So, Andy, what are the three main things that you want people to take away from this podcast? Three main things, I guess, for me, that people should take away is that social media, as lovely as it is, and as amazing that it is, you know, you shouldn't believe everything that you see on social media as, I don't know, just a general rule, you know, like what we've talked about, you know, with their Instagram and the way that you kind of see someone's reality or their version of reality. You know, I think just be mindful that, you know, not everything that you see online is necessarily like a true reflection of the person. Secondly, that autistic people, you know, I think using social media, you know, big, big thing for all of us on the spectrum and can be an absolutely incredible place, especially when you get a bunch of autistics in a room together using, you know, social media and all that lovely stuff, I think. Social media has really, really helped autistics. It helped me and I can only imagine it's helped yourself, Tom, as well in a multitude of ways. And I guess the last bit to take away from this podcast is that just being yourself on social media, I think is a great thing. And, you know, you shouldn't be ashamed for, you know, the things that you can't do, be proud of the things that you can do, you know, saying on social media and, you know, just helping others because of, you know, the experiences that you've had, you know, through social media and, you know, whatever else. It's a good thing. And I think people do it more, that's kind of why I do, you know, YouTube to try and, you know, help others through my experiences. And, you know, if I could do that, you know, I feel fulfilled. I guess for me, that's something that I want people to take away from the pod, really. Really? Thank you very much for those. We have the very last question. What does autism mean to you, Andy? Oh, God, it's such an open-ended question. It is indeed. For me, autism used to mean, I don't know, that it was a bad thing, you know, it used to be, I couldn't do this or I couldn't do that. And, you know, because of that, I thought quite negatively of myself. Now, because of doing all this stuff on social media, being a content creator, YouTuber, that definition has been redefined. So, for me, autism means being a genuine person who, yes, may have struggles, but, you know, it's about seeing past the things that are, like, visible and actually trying to understand the person within. Because if you understand the person within, it honestly opens up so many doors and you learn so much from other autistics as well, you know, despite, you know, the challenges. Like, I stammer on pretty much every word, but, you know, I think if people take the time to actually listen to what I'm actually saying or, you know, try to understand my point of view through my actions and all that stuff, I guess people can then see the person that I am despite the things that I'm not necessarily the best at. Brilliant. Thank you very much for that. There are answers all, which is the beauty of an open-ended question to counteract the ambiguity of it. Okay, so this has been perhaps the longest episode that I've recorded in a while. I wanted to create a episode that was a little bit longer because people have sort of asked for me to have you on and, you know, we've had that bit of history sort of working together on YouTube and doing that kind of stuff. I thought it'd be nice to give people an idea of sort of who you are and sort of try and introduce, you know, the things that you podcast and stuff like that. So thank you, thank you for coming on to talk to me. Oh, it's been an absolute pleasure, Tom. Just thank you so much for having me on. And I was just going to say, you know, it was really surprising that people suggested me to come on to your podcast. Anyone that suggested me, just thank you. And yeah, just again, Tom, thank you so much for having me on. Like I said, before we hit record on this, you know, this was on my bucket list of things to do. So thank you for fulfilling that dream for me. Andy, this comes to this part of the episode where we give out our links. And I'm sure that you've got quite a few links for us that I can put down in the description. Would you like to tell people about where they can find you? Yep, certainly. So you can find me on YouTube at www.youtube.com for slash Indy Andy, and that's Indy Andy spelled I N D I E A N D Y for your Facebooks, Twitter, Instagrams, it's Indy Andy UK. TikTok, I think it's the same as well, but I don't really post on there. My podcast, the unmasked podcast is on the YouTube channel, Indy Andy. It's, you know, it's basically part of the same, same thing, but you can find all the episodes on, you know, Spotify or Anchor. Is it unmasked podcast? I have trouble saying that as well, but yes, I think it's, I think it's like anchor.fm at the unmasked podcast with spaces or dashes or something. But yeah, so there we go. Find it in the description. Yes, it'll be in the description. Yes, have a look. Have a look and hopefully you enjoy it. Well, I definitely encourage all of you to go follow Andy's YouTube channel. He posts very regularly and a lot of stuff around autism. And as you've probably gathered from the podcast, he's a really lovely dude. He deserves to get the recognition and he puts the work in for it. So always go over and check his stuff out. And if you like it, then give it a subscribe and stuff. In terms of finding the Forty-Ottie podcast, you can always find it on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and of course on the Asperger's Grove channel on YouTube. If you want to, I would always recommend going to the Apple podcast and Spotify because that's kind of where it's based. YouTube stuff is just, you know, for people who don't have that. Of course it is, of course. Other stuff that you can follow if you want to stay up to date with my life, know what's happening, the other kind of things that I'm doing in the mainstream, you know, you might miss out on that stuff if you don't follow the socials. Very easy to find on all social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, at Asperger's Grove, you know where to find me. You know where to find me by now. And of course if you have a story, a story or experience or knowledge of a certain topic around autism and mental health that you want to talk about, you can send me a message, send me an email at Asperger's Grove at gmail.com. Thank you very much again, Andy, for coming on. And this is the part that we had a little bit of a joke about. The good old ending of the podcast. How do you do it? You've just gone through the motions, you've got over that initial anxiety about being recorded, you've gone through it, you've gone into the zone, and then you've burnt out. And now how do you end it? I guess one way of ending it is if you're on Apple podcast, you know, make sure you leave a review in a five-star rating because, you know, it helps, it helps time out, of course. But I guess a way to end it, I don't know, to be honest, maybe say in there, hope you have a nice day and goodbye maybe. That might be something. That's too respectful. I can't do that. I know. It's too respectful for me. With my ego that's bursting at the seams, of course. Have a good day, guys. See you later. Bye.