 Good afternoon! Actually, I'll put these on the side. I don't want those blue light glasses affecting my video quality. No, we don't. Hello, and welcome back to the Aspergis Grove channel. My name is Thomas Henley, and today we are going to be asking the question... Is everybody a little bit autistic? Isn't everybody a little bit autistic? You know, we've been walking around, you see those people, those autistic people. We're similar. You know, I've got... I've taken a test, I've been a diagnostic test, and I have found out that I am slightly autistic. So we're one in the same, you know? No. Personally, this phrase is one of the only phrases that I don't personally like. It's something that I'm going to rant about in this video. And I think there's a good reason to why I do not like this term. I don't like people coming up to me and saying, Oh, yes, you're autistic. Well, are we all a little bit autistic? No, Karen. No, we are not. Now, just to start off with, I know that in many cases, when people say things like this, it is a statement of inclusivity. It's something that you think is going to produce a good response in somebody. You know, make them not feel so lonely in the little autistic experience. But in a lot of cases, it sort of pushes down. It sort of minimizes the autistic experience. At the heart of why I don't like it is it implies that when you say that, it kind of gives you an ability to understand the emotional and experiential aspects of being autistic, which is quite different from most people. It's quite different growing up, being autistic, interacting with people in many, many different ways. The best examples that I like to give, varied examples that I've thought up in my big noggin, saying to an autistic person, we're all a little bit autistic. Are we at a heart or core? We're all sharing in this experience and I understand you. It's like going up to someone who is morbidly, severely depressed. Someone who's walking the line every day of their life, trying to cope with the conditions that they've been dealt with and saying, aren't we all just a little bit depressed inside? See, I can't even talk about it without laughing about it because it's just so silly For any of you people with those interest in politics, interested in those politics, are we? It's like going up to someone who is either of the liberal in the US and labour in the UK incline and saying, aren't we all a little bit conservative or republican? Aren't we all just part of this party, this group of people? Saying it like that and as a sentence on its own, it sounds completely logically sound, but in the wider context, it just has absolutely no meaning. It doesn't, it means nothing. You know, you're just considering that maybe some people might have what is considered to be more depressive symptoms of life. You know, you got a bit sad, or you have some sort of conservative, leaning personality traits. It's like saying that, it just means nothing and it's annoying. Okay, I'm getting a little bit carried away with this little speech, this video log of me talking to a camera. I do not understand everybody and every experience in everything in life, nor should anybody else. You know, I don't understand what it's like to be gay. I don't understand what it's like to be a woman. I don't understand what it's like to live in a low income country or sleep on the streets. But it doesn't mean that I can't relate to someone at some level. Just because someone differs in a certain way, it doesn't mean that I don't include them. In a lot of cases, it means that I'm interested. I want to hear about these experiences, these emotions, these hard hitting and perhaps positive experiences because it makes you a more rounded person so that you can better understand things. But it doesn't mean that I relate to every single part of this existence because that just would be silly, like you can't. Acknowledging someone's differences, learning about those differences, asking them about it and finding other things that you relate to each other. Many autistic people struggle with social anxiety, but also people in the general population struggle with social anxiety. That's just one aspect of autism that could be relatable, but it's not the entire thing. Having that wholesome, all-encompassing way of talking to people and socialising with people is much better than using this quick fire approach. It doesn't do anything. It's more just, for me personally, it's annoying. Of course, I'm not going to react badly to it. It's not a bad thing. I don't... You know, if someone said it, I wouldn't be like, get away from me, you horrible person. It's just, you know, it kind of leaves a bit of a stale taste in your mouth because you know that they're trying to do it with good intentions, but they're just putting absolutely no thought into it. The root cause of this... Everybody is a little bit autistic thing is completely based on diagnostics, completely based on tests. Things that are designed to root out and identify autistic people are being used to categorise and create autistic people in a funny way. If you just think about it, autism is a combination of genes and environment. You are born autistic. You develop into an autistic adult. At no point do you just get autism. You know what? You just develop into an autistic person out of nothing. Even if you have a large amount of these traits on the autism spectrum, it does not always mean that you are autistic. You may have a different condition. You may just... It may just be part of your personality the way that you've grown up, the way that things have shaped you, but it doesn't mean that you're autistic. That's the point that I'm trying to drive. It's not meant to categorise people on a spectrum and say, look, you're all the way at this end, but you've got a little bit of autism sneaking in there. It's just a flawed way of thinking about it. It's meant to identify people with common traits. There's not much else I can say about it, to be honest. Sometimes it can be quite minimising in the sense that if someone has a particularly negative experience with being autistic, I'm talking about these people who aren't sort of up on the advocacy work and the social media, political, social stuff. Those people, if you say that to them, it's like saying, your experience isn't different to me in much of a significant way. It doesn't make you feel good as... It wouldn't make you feel good for someone who doesn't have depression to say they understand because they have some minor traits of depression. It's just not comparable. Okay. Okay, okay. I don't think this is probably the closest thing that I've ever had to a rant. Is this what my channel's turning into? A ranting channel? I have no idea. But I think it's important to talk about these things. No matter how silly it is, is everybody a little bit autistic? Is a very commonly searched thing? And I feel that even some scientists sort of propagate this idea that everyone is a little bit autistic. Yes, maybe on paper because of the diagnosis, but I digress. I cannot push the point further. I just want to highlight that I'm not coming at this from... Well, I am sort of complaining, but it's not incredibly important to me. It's just something that I've heard a lot and it didn't leave a great taste in my mouth. Of course, you know, some of the people who have said this to me have gone on to be really good friends with. They just didn't understand autism. And I hope that this video gives you a way, gives autistic people, you guys out there. Lovely family. Gives you some form of explanation for this if you don't like this term either. I know lots of people sort of encompass this as sort of a part of neurodiversity or autism advocacy. But I just think it's a bit silly and it's not something that I like. And I haven't heard this opinion out before. So there is a possibility that some little monkeys down in the comments made us like this video. But I hope that my opinion comes across in the best way possible, in the most logical way possible. That's pretty much it. Thank you very much to my patrons, and specifically Mr. Patrick Vitty, for always supporting my work, no matter if I'm having a bad mental health day. Julian Marks, of course. Shelly Nearing's and a very new Patreon supporter, Kittens. Thank you, Kittens, for joining my family and supporting my work. Thank you very much for watching social medias. Of course, all at Asperger's Grove for any single social media site that you could ever want. Stay up to date with that stuff and visit the website, the new website that I've designed. Not I've designed, but I've worked on. With a lovely friend who hosts my podcast on the local radio. Stay cool, stay fresh. Always get down in the comments. Have a little conversation about this. Very interested, hear your thoughts on it. And I'll see you in another episode of the, I was gonna say, the 40-odd podcast. In another episode of the Asperger's Grove channel. Doesn't make any sense. We out the moped, whoo-la, whoo-la Just sweet out the moped, whoo-la