DOD195: Representation Matters

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:02 Clip: I'm the cool dad. That's my thing. I know now what I can offer you that no one else can. Complete and honor dependent. I'm a man. I'm sensitive. I need to feel loved. I need to be desired.

0:00:22 Clip: Telling is the only part of being a father that I enjoy.

0:00:28 Tom: To Dear Old Dads, the podcast that's readying its TikTok. I'm Tom Curry. I've joined, as sometimes, by Eli Bosnick and Thomas Smith. Hello, gentlemen.

0:00:37 Eli: That's right. It's me. Oh, is it noon already? I guess I just woke up. Oh.

0:00:44 Thomas: What?

0:00:44 Eli: Here I come. Lazy daisy donuts get glazy. That's what they call me. Because I come on donuts.

0:00:54 Tom: That's a lot.

0:00:55 Eli: You miss me? Didn't You Miss Me person who listened to the show for the first time last week and was like, oh, finally, some healthy masculinity. I'm so excited to share. Hey, my men's group at my church, I found these fellas, and they're just swell. And I know some of us are big Jordan Peterson fans, but I want you to hear what these guys have to say, and I'm like, come on, you donut holes. Make your cream extra crispy.

0:01:21 Tom: I strongly suspect that there's a non -zero number of people who are like, oh, Eli's not here, click, and they just turn it off. I 100 % believe that that's the case.

0:01:28 Eli: I don't think. Think of the two or three people.

0:01:32 Thomas: Incredibly non -zero. The most non - zero.

0:01:35 Eli: Of the guy who gave us the four stars. And said would be better if Eli died. Over on Citation Needed. Think about how happy with that episode he was. It's the funniest thing anyone's ever done. Was the one that was a zero. Yeah.

0:01:49 Thomas: Like it's one star for each of the hosts and yours is a zero? Yeah.

0:01:54 Eli: It is perfect comedically.

0:01:54 Tom: What you got? Yeah. Jesus Christ.

0:01:57 Thomas: But I don't want to encourage this bullshit behavior. Fuck off. Give us five stars or don't talk about it.

0:02:01 Eli: It you have to give us five stars. It's like, it's so genuinely harmful to the podcast when you give us a four star review as a joke. There are very few things you could do that actually affect our livelihood worse than giving us four stars on iTunes.

0:02:13 Tom: It's better to just not do anything at all by a lot. Like, by a LOT.

0:02:17 Thomas: Either not do anything or five stars, please. Thank you.

0:02:18 Eli: It is better to shoot a gun near Tom. Gentlemen, do you know the only thing worse than shooting a gun near Tom? Why? It's giving us four -star reviews on iTunes and the auto ads. But you can get rid of those auto ads by heading over to patreon .com forward slash dear old dads, where for as little as a dollar an episode, you get a commercial -free version of every single show, plus a little parenting story at the end. Isn't that nice? Isn't Plus, we got new bonus content. By the time you're hearing this, there will be a new bonus episode up.

0:02:52 Eli: We've got our AMA for August. We talk about what to do when you have different political opinions than your parents. We talked about our favorite hats. Had a good time. Check it out. Patreon .com forward slash dear old dads. Repair to wear.

0:03:11 Tom: Did we do a rip into it last week? Thomas, when we were riding solo?

0:03:14 Thomas: Last week. I don't know. I don't think we did.

0:03:18 Eli: Lydia adds a layer to her tattoo every time we say it on the show. So you have to check and see if the maze has any new walls.

0:03:24 Tom: I All right, so we're going to do a listener email today. This email is from Sam. What? Whoa, whoa.

0:03:29 Eli: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tom, you're telling me that people can write to us, the dads, and get their questions?

0:03:34 Tom: They can, in fact, write to us, Eli Bosnick.

0:03:37 Eli: No, no, wait a second, Tom. What if I don't want it right on the air? What if I would just like a private conversation between me and my three favorite parenting podcasters? Should I send that email?

0:03:48 Thomas: Well, you can pledge a hundred dollars an episode.

0:03:48 Tom: You can send that email, but you have to become a patron at the yeah.

0:03:53 Eli: It's way more than a hundred dollars an episode. I just want to clarify right now.

0:03:56 Thomas: For me, it's way less, but for Eli, yeah, there's different tiers and we're realistic about it. Eli's a higher tier than me.

0:03:58 Eli: I don't know what that number is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

0:04:03 Thomas: I'm not going to.

0:04:03 Tom: Somebody wants to shoot a six or 700 bucks a month. I will answer your email.

0:04:07 Eli: Tom will answer your email. There you go.

0:04:08 Thomas: All I guess I'm the low tier everyone. I'll take it for a lot less, but but it's significant. It's

0:04:12 Eli: Just start throwing money our way, and when you get those responses, you'll know. But you can send those questions in, like Tom's about to read, to thedads at drolldads.com. That's thedads at drolldads.com.

0:04:26 Tom: Right, so Sam says, my daughter has ADHD. She's also nine and very aware of her differences to the people around her. As such, seeing neurodivergent depictions in people has been a highlight for her when done well. I look at an episode of Bluey with Jack that is suspected of having ADHD. He's always moving, but it's still a boy character and she doesn't fully get to see herself. Recently, we've been watching the newest season of Survivor where they have an autistic contestant on this season. The woman has been very upfront about her struggles with autism and how she gets overwhelmed and overstimulated and needs a safe person. This really spoke to my daughter because she sometimes feels the same things about getting overwhelmed and over -stimulated.

0:05:05 Thomas: I mean, maybe don't do a game show like that. If you're, it's like he has diabetes and he really needs his medicine, but he's going to do survivor and they don't have it there. So.

0:05:14 Eli: Let's see how he does on Wipeout.

0:05:17 Tom: Diabetes and he's on judge on bake -off. Here we go. And he's done.

0:05:22 Eli: Now that's the stakes I need to half. This dessert, don't put me in a diabetic coma.

0:05:29 Tom: The most recent episode, this woman had a breakdown where she couldn't handle what was happening in the competition and needed her person that she found to help her get through the overstimulation. It was a pretty emotional moment, but, and I know we shouldn't read comments, the internet just tore her apart, saying, on the internet, they were saying it was overblown, how could she not speak out to her tribe? How does she not understand social cues? I know some of it's production and making a big deal out of it, but that whole situation got me to thinking about neurodivergence in media and how it's been portrayed. I look at shows like The Good Doctor or Big Bang Theory and just how off the mark some of these shows get neurodiversity.

0:06:03 Tom: So here's my question for the dads. Do you ever think about how neurodivergency is portrayed in media? I'm especially thinking about it more as people are trying to take away diversity in all of these different aspects and how kids have been able to see themselves when you have diverse characters like Moana or Tiana. And I think it's awesome having these more diverse characters. I just hate how neuro -divergency...

0:06:22 Thomas: Small small and autistic, I did not know that,

0:06:24 Tom: I just think diverse... I just All

0:06:26 Thomas: I was just joking, yeah. Yeah.

0:06:34 Eli: Especially because a lot of the time when someone calls a character autistic coded, they're speaking to the problematic trope portrayals of neurodivergency rather than actual neurodiversity. Right. Like people will be like, yeah, house is autistic coded. And I'm like, do you mean mean and smart?

0:06:50 Tom: Yeah.

0:06:50 Eli: And they're like, Yeah, and I'm Like, hey, don't talk about my child that way. That's, that's what a lot of this is, right? Is it's, it's not aimed at inclusion. It's aimed at marketable. It aims that sellable, right.

0:07:02 Tom: Oh, 100%. Yeah. To draw a distinction between legacy media and new media because I think they're both worth talking about. I think with legacy media, is often written into those shows and edited into those and acted into those as a way to say, aren't these people's quirks endearing, eccentric, and entertaining? And they also write those things in as a stand in to give people superpowers. Right. The good doctor is a great example of that. So in the good doctor, if you haven't seen that show and I've actually seen the whole show.

0:07:38 Thomas: Holy fucking shit. What the fuck are you doing with your time, Tom? Watch The Good Doctor?

0:07:43 Eli: You sleep, but you watched all of the good

0:07:45 Thomas: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

0:07:45 Eli: Doctor.

0:07:46 Tom: That? Watch whatever I watch, whatever Haley watches at night. So whatever she wants, like I literally when I was single, never turned on my TV.

0:07:51 Eli: Was just desperate to see a good doctor for

0:07:53 Tom: That was actually part of it. Like I like.

0:07:53 Thomas: She just I googled The Good Doctor. It's like, well, I don't blame her.

0:07:58 Eli: One. There's a whole show.

0:07:58 Tom: Part no, you're Not even actually wrong like part of what we watch is like is like medical porn where people get better And we're like that's nice. I

0:08:05 Thomas: And the porn part is, yeah, someone gives a shit and, like, tries.

0:08:09 Tom: Yeah. It's it's weirdly comforting to imagine a scenario that isn't real, you know. So you watch that show, that show is really about is: it's about somebody that has autism. But it's more about somebody whose autism gives them a savant like ability.

0:08:11 Thomas: Shade, yeah. Absolutely. Right.

0:08:24 Tom: Right. And that savant likability is portrayed as this kind of superpower. And they are trying to create entertainment. They're not trying to create anything actual. They're trying to entertain you. And so they take all these like really. And complicated and real and authentic experiences that neurodivergent people have. And they simplify them and they bottom line those things and they turn all of those things into fun, silly little quirks. And nobody sheds a tear over any of them.

0:09:06 Tom: So I don't think you're ever going to see on legacy media authentic representation because it's just not in keeping with the goals of that media.

0:09:14 Thomas: You also don't see authentic fucking anything on, you know, so yeah, I agree.

0:09:19 Tom: It doesn't match the goals, you

0:09:20 Eli: To speak to the opposite side of it, when you look at representation done well, and the listener used Jack in Bluey as a great example of that, because Jack isn't tokenized. In fact, Jack, if he is neurodivergent, so you guys know who the fuck I'm talking about? Jack the dog. So he's one of the dogs that has a lot of behaviors that a lot people recognize as being either on the ADD, ADHD, or ASD spectrum, right? The thing that the show does really well is that he's just a kid, and those are the things he does. Does, right? Then the friends sort of deal with it and work around it. It's not even the plot of the show, necessarily, right, it's not like, uh -oh, Jack is here, and Jack always needs to turn around three times before breakfast, otherwise he has a screaming meltdown, but Jack is just one of the cast members of this group of children. He has behaviors that this listener has already pointed out their kid gets to identify with, but they're not outgrouped as a part of them. Right. It's just and sometimes you will go through these experiences. Jack is a real child, a real complex person, in this case, dog, who goes through these things and sometimes has these needs. And that's the representation that's incredibly helpful to kids. Right. Is when it's not otherized or they're waiting for their superpower to drop, but it's just they see themselves represented in media and they recognize that they are not alone. Right? So much of representation is just about not feeling so. Fucking lonely.

0:09:35 Tom: I've never seen blue. Know, one of the problems with like representation, I think of a lot of these kinds of, neurodivergencies is if I'm watching something like the good doctor and I'm supposed to see a representation of myself I would feel a huge like well why the fuck don't I have a savant like ability to instantly fucking die like where's my you know ultimate piano playing powers or whatever right it it really emphasizes parts of that experience that are not commonly true, right? I'm not saying they're never true, but I'm saying that they are not commonly true. And I think that that would do the exact opposite. Rather than seeing myself, I would now see a version of myself that once more I don't live up to, right.

0:11:26 Eli: I can't even blank becomes the mindset there.

0:11:29 Tom: I can't even be fucking neurodivergent like this fucking savant doctor proper. And that's a terrible message to put out there for who are just looking finally for a place where they can see themselves. I media has a total inability to deal with that kind of stuff at scale. Don't think that they can do it at scale I think it's great that they do it on Blu -ray. To I see that expand in ways where, for example, the neurodivergences of somebody intersects with other people in ways that make everybody feel bad, right?

0:12:04 Eli: Right.

0:12:05 Tom: In this house, everyone has some element of neurodiversity. And there are times that those neurodiversities make them or other people feel bad.

0:12:10 Thomas: I was gonna gonna say the same thing yeah

0:12:12 Tom: Right. Not going to be portrayed very often in legacy media, because like that's a complex set of emotions that doesn't sell coke ads very well.

0:12:21 Thomas: Well not only that truth of the matter is I don't even have a fucking solution to that like it's like I can't I'm not gonna rely on uh on the family or they're not gonna come up with a great packaged fucking mass market solution to hey what do you do when neurodivergence is really causing a lot of friction but it's also it's not really anyone's fault but you're also mad because like it sucks but like it'S not what do YOU do you also don't want to be mean about it but it really I can't emphasize enough it's sucking but it's also you feel bad and guilty because it sucks and it shouldn't suck because no one's fault but it was really really sucks and the negative what do you do

0:12:58 Eli: Are you ready to have your mind blown Thomas? Do you know what show? Genuinely addresses this issue with delicacy and subtlety young Sheldon not

0:13:09 Thomas: No I don't there's nothing in the world that could make me watch that I'm sorry

0:13:09 Tom: Does it really?

0:13:10 Eli: See I know I am aware of the words that just came out of my mouth, but I swear to you that if you, like me, were forced to watch the entirety of Young Sheldon by your sister and your mother, you would realize that about, oh, I'm going to say halfway through the show, they started to have a real conversation about neurodivergence and how it affects the family. And And then it's also encapsulated by the writers of Big Bang Theory. So it is truly, it's like having a circus ride through your grandmother's funeral. It is insane. It absolutely insane, but it's out there.

0:13:22 Thomas: My god there

0:13:38 Tom: What? Yeah,

0:13:45 Thomas: Could be the cure for fucking cancer in that show and I'd be like well Well, hopefully someone else makes a show that has it.

0:13:52 Tom: We still got chemo, right? Chemo is still an option.

0:13:54 Thomas: I guess I'll die.

0:13:56 Eli: Had this with Max. So like Daniel Tiger, there's an autistic kid named Max, right? Who has headphones and needs not to be there when there are loud things. And like, I was a witness to my son seeing himself and his needs reflected for the first time in one of his favorite shows. And it's vital. It's tremendously, tremendously important, right?

0:14:20 Eli: And Daniel Tiger does it incredibly well. Probably sounds like this person's child is a little bit older. So Daniel Tiger might be a little too baby for them. But like, it was a huge deal. And I remember him wanting to watch the episode with Max and TikTok chime time over and over again. And right, he wasn't able at the time, he was able to say why he liked it. He would just be like, click clock time chime, right.

0:14:36 Thomas: Yeah, it's awesome. No,

0:14:44 Eli: He it was because he saw himself reflected, he saw his experience reflected, and he was able to emotionally talk about it, even today, right? We talk about like, Max's emotional language is still pretty underdeveloped, right, we watch stuff together, when talk about stuff together. One of the wonderful things that has come of his leaps and bounds that have happened with speech is he like, he's like, daddy, I need you. Daddy, I Need You is his new favorite catchphrase, which can I say is super fun at 530 in the morning. Then he'll be like, the car is sad. And I'm like, uh -huh, car is said. Hey, you know, we torture people like this, right? You know, this is how Uncle Tom got to be Uncle Tom. I'm just letting you know. All right. I'll see you in 10 minutes.

0:15:23 Tom: My God. So now I'm curious because it seems like there is at least a couple of shows which are geared toward kids that do a pretty good job of reflecting neurodivergency, at least of a couple or stripes into the audience. Do you think that that will eventually port into more adult content as those kids grow up? Neurodivergent kid is going to become a neurodiversion teen and adult, right?

0:15:48 Eli: Yeah.

0:15:48 Tom: It's not just necessary for them to see that when they stop faking it.

0:15:50 Thomas: I grow out of it.

0:15:57 Eli: You beat it out of them.

0:15:58 Tom: But do curious because I think maybe my take may have been more pessimistic. Maybe I have a bad take on that.

0:16:04 Thomas: I think that like with kids media, there's this extent to which people are like down for the cause. They're like, all right, we're going to make something. It's going to help people. And the primary function isn't selling and entertaining. Entertaining and I think the incentives are a little rougher when it comes to any sort of like adult thing because nobody's making the adult show to be like boy we gotta help thomas feel better about his situation

0:16:26 Tom: That's true. Yeah. Yeah the goals are very different, right. And also the funding comes from different places for kids media too.

0:16:31 Eli: Kids media is also made by the best possible humans. Right. Truly, when you go. Yeah.

0:16:37 Thomas: Bluey's so fucking good god

0:16:39 Eli: When you go to work at PBS, it is because you are. What do talented people do, right? Start a podcast and they're like, give me a dollar and I'll dance. Right?

0:16:50 Eli: Imagine, imagine for one second, podcast listener, that I had realized I was funny when I was four years old and I'd been like, I don't know, I guess I could just use this to make like really good jokes for the Muppets that everyone would enjoy so that Sesame Street became a completely ubiquitous brand that kids, yeah, nope. Come on the donuts. I'm back, everybody. Give me your money.

0:17:05 Thomas: Boring yeah that come on the donuts muppet did not last more than a few episodes

0:17:16 Eli: He didn't. Donutty the cum donut. But yeah, dude, you watch old episodes of Fred Rogers. Fred Rogers, here's the thing. All Fred Rogers had to do on one episode was be like, and we're all going to meet at this compound at five o 'clock on Wednesday. And we're going to embrace the real truth. I'd fucking, we'd all have been there in a second.

0:17:22 Thomas: So good love that guy yeah

0:17:38 Eli: He chose to be great. His whole life for all time and then he died

0:17:35 Tom: My god yeah oh

0:17:36 Thomas: Ready to drink the cyanide yeah if he sucked we would have heard about it by now right there's no secret fucking fred rogers sex dungeon that no that guy just was good yeah isn't it amazing that there's one of him there's one is do we not get like five you know like there's a lot of people yeah

0:17:58 Eli: We we crucify we kill those people yeah

0:17:49 Tom: We would have heard about it yeah there's like no skeletons in that man's closet at all like wait remember Haley. And I were on a flight and we watched the like Mr. Rogers movie. And we're both sitting there watching the Mr. Roger's movie with like tears quietly coursing. And, and I'm like in a public fucking airplane. I'm just like, I don't care.

0:18:18 Tom: Fred Rogers is better than all of you.

0:18:18 Thomas: He's so great that even a fucking Hollywood production of it, you're still like, God damn it. I know this is corny, but I'm still crying. He's so good.

0:18:24 Tom: I still have these feelings. Like, yeah,

0:18:27 Thomas: He's such a good man.

0:18:27 Eli: And then that they one time eddie murphy did a very funny sketch about it on snl and they were like hey how do you feel about eddie making those jokes and he was like I don't really think we need to do ugly things about the way I treat children and they So what am I supposed to do?

0:18:45 Thomas: I didn't know about this.

0:18:46 Eli: Just be nice the whole time? Yes. Shut up! You shut up! No, I wasn't. I'm just a good guy. That's a lie the internet made up. You are! You were a Christian. I never spoke about it publicly. Fuck! Fuck! Can you imagine how Christian you'd fucking be if Fred Rogers had been your pastor?

0:19:11 Thomas: And

0:19:12 Tom: A hundred Christian.

0:19:12 Thomas: He's the ultimate perfect example of Christianity. Like he's actually like, that's what it should be. If every Christian was like that, they'd be better than other people.

0:19:21 Eli: This would be my only podcast if every Christian was just

0:19:23 Thomas: That's it and I'd be like god I wish I could believe that bullshit that all those good nice people believe because it seems like it makes them better than us that's what it would be

0:19:30 Eli: And me desperately struggling through the Bible for a third time. Now hear me out. Hear out, this book is boring.

0:19:35 Thomas: It still sucks god I'm trying trying

0:19:37 Tom: There's nothing in here that says that there should even be a Fred Rogers. I don't, I'm looking anywhere for a, yeah, there's like, if I, if isolate out of context, a handful of this, I can get there kind of, but.

0:19:42 Thomas: Like a couple jesus quotes there's a couple of them just yeah Yeah,

0:19:48 Eli: You guys want to read Luke again and only Luke?

0:19:52 Thomas: Yeah,

0:19:54 Tom: To talk about the more Important representation, I Think, of neurodivergency, Which is not legacy media, because Legacy media is a fraction Of the time people spend Engaging with media. And, yeah.

0:20:04 Eli: It's Dustin Hoffman's performance in Rain Man.

0:20:05 Thomas: Well, where

0:20:08 Tom: As they get older, they spend very little time on legacy media by comparison to the amount of time they spend on their phones.

0:20:15 Thomas: Are you getting these fucking numbers? You

0:20:17 Tom: Are you kidding me?

0:20:17 Thomas: Mean the top shows and all of the you watch all the good doctor?

0:20:21 Tom: Example of how people engage with social media in the world?

0:20:22 Eli: You're one third of this podcast, Tom.

0:20:25 Tom: Using me as the representative example that

0:20:24 Thomas: You're you know, that's that's the numbers. It's just the no, I guess I'm curious what this take even it. Where are you? Where's that coming from? This is mass market. That's why.

0:20:33 Tom: People spend more time on their phone than they do watching TV?

0:20:37 Thomas: Oh, OK.

0:20:38 Eli: Getting to the internet.

0:20:38 Thomas: Fair enough. Yeah, sure. Sorry. Sorry. I was like, what angle are you taking?

0:20:41 Eli: Thought he was about to plug an indie film? He was about be like, if you guys get down to Tribeca.

0:20:45 Thomas: I didn't understand what was happening, but also even if a reason that one app crashed. What was that again? Fuck. Oh, God. No, no, no. Remember the one that was absolutely stupid that was the short Quibi?

0:20:50 Eli: TikTok. Quibi. Quibi?

0:20:55 Thomas: There's a recent Quibi crash, Tom.

0:20:56 Eli: Are we talking about Quibi?

0:20:57 Tom: Vine.

0:20:58 Thomas: No.

0:20:59 Eli: Ruled.

0:20:59 Thomas: Quibi.

0:21:00 Tom: Don't know what that even is. I have

0:21:01 Eli: Tom

0:21:01 Thomas: That's awesome. That's perfect. You missed Miss Quivvy?

0:21:01 Eli: Missed Quibi?! Okay,

0:21:04 Tom: Idea what that is. What the fuck is Quibi?

0:21:05 Thomas: Sorry. I'll get out of this and let you continue. The point was people don't watch shows on their phones was my point is all.

0:21:11 Tom: That's exactly my point, too. Yeah, that's

0:21:19 Thomas: They don't want it in landscape. They want it portrait or landscape mode, Tom. I think there's an opportunity here.

0:21:23 Eli: Tom, let me Pitch you, let my you pitch Quibi Okay, so you know how people love Their phones? You know how People love their phones? Yeah? If we made seven minute TV shows That weren't on your phone But you had to turn it sideways You watch Either portrait or

0:21:28 Thomas: Is great. No, you don't. That was the thing. You could either do it sideways or portrait for some reason.

0:21:42 Tom: -minute show for.

0:21:43 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:43 Eli: Look at that. Tom is all of America. Ooh,

0:21:46 Tom: What the fuck do I want to watch a seven minute show for?

0:21:47 Thomas: How did you miss this? Tom, this this had more money behind it. The ads, are you, this is so funny. Well, okay. It was during COVID. So you might've COVIDed it out of your mind, dude, but it's so funny is there a documentary about this yet? Cause I want to watch that. Did anyone make that? 'Cause they put zillions of dollars in this ads were everywhere. They had huge celebrities doing, each had a show, like you they each had a show that had the 10 minute episodes or whatever and they was everywhere commercials were everywhere and five minutes after it launched they were like well that sucks and then it was gone boy

0:21:51 Tom: Did this even happen? No, I I'm sure I was working so much during covid. I didn't. Yeah.

0:22:19 Tom: I think you underestimate like the level to which I have purposely left the world.

0:22:24 Thomas: Except for when the good doctor comes on. No, wait, sorry oh

0:22:24 Tom: Like, I watch on TV. We stream. I don't have any way to watch live TV in the house. So I wouldn't have an idea. We haven't seen a commercial in 10 years.

0:22:33 Thomas: Yeah same oh you don't watch sports that's a big source of commercials that lots of people see yeah good point

0:22:39 Tom: I and like my engagement on social media is essentially zero.

0:22:43 Thomas: Bought I'm pretty sure Tom - they bought Super Bowl at you know your point made I get it but a sign of how much money they put into it and how funny it was that it failed instantly. That's all I'm saying.

0:22:48 Tom: Have more importantly, the issue of like neurodivergency as portrayed in new media and social media and new media. I think is vastly more important and more interesting and more problematic even than on legacy media. And I would I stand by that people spend much more of their time on their phone engaging with new media than they do with old media. I think that's just undeniably true.

0:23:29 Tom: And yahoos that are not experts at all on what they're fucking talking about about this is what adhd is you see adhd as the constant example I see it constantly where there's all this like adhd you might be add if you might have adhd this all this is your brain on adhd there's so much of this and none of it studies have come out none of this stuff or very little of this in any way accurately portrays what attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is like at all

0:24:02 Thomas: Absolutely, yes. And there is true stuff. But importantly, there's not a way to know what's true. Like there's true stuff out there, but there's so much bullshit that even if it's out there. How the fuck do you know? Like it's it's so it's så hard to tell. I just realized, has needs to write a paper on this? Is there some like bare evolutionary process happening whereby because ADHD people are going to consume the most things because of their focus that there's like this evolutionary force of like, well, they're clicking on 1 .2 videos per every one that the normies are. So therefore they're gonna like take control and proliferate the fucking market and then all the content is gonna be I seriously someone do the math on this this is like genuinely when there's like an evolutionary it's

0:24:43 Eli: I bet this has been a project at Meta at some point.

0:24:46 Thomas: It's you like when when you learn about evolution and they're like well here's what happened that thing got like one green feather and that gave it 1 .03 percent better chance you know and it's over a million years that took over the whole world you know it's I wonder if that's what's going on because I was just thinking And you're so right about this. And all of media is that now, like all of social media is so much of it. And literally people with ADHD will just click through more things. My son, Remy, if I give him a phone accidentally, one time he got his hands on a phone. I forget what someone was not paying attention. And he clicked through 400 YouTube videos in like three seconds. I also might be responsible singularly for, for this phenomenon. So it could be that too. Mm

0:25:21 Eli: Yeah, no, no. That's that's a big part of it. And also like fracturing of attention that social media does simulates a lot of the difficulties of attention. That come with a bunch of different neurodivergencies. Now, that's obviously a super broad and sweeping statement. But like the is definitely built to fracture your attention. So if you already have fractured attention, the algorithm. Is sort of going to be a rhythm that is more comfortable to you.

0:25:47 Tom: And I think, Thomas, you hit on something that I think is very, I mean, it sounds conspiratorial, but like... ADHD spending is a part of ADHD. Not everybody experiences that symptom, but it is a real and defined symptom. So if you are tailoring content, one thing I think that's interesting is that a lot of this bad content, so any asshole can create content, we're proof of that.

0:26:11 Tom: And you obviously don't need to know anything about anything in order to do it.

0:26:10 Thomas: Well okay you don't Tom but someone has to run the fucking mechanics of the show Tom you don'T have to know anything you don' have to do any work you just talk and somehow it goes on the internet it's really easy no I'm just kidding

0:26:19 Tom: You don't need. Oh, that's true. Yeah, I literally couldn't. Yeah. Well, to be a talking head, you don't. That's for sure. Then it just shows up there. I don't know. You pay Ian to do it. That is how that works.

0:26:31 Thomas: But I was on purpose saying evolutionary because I actually don't even know I mean I think some of this is sinister but but it's also, it would just be a market outcome. Like it just would be, even if there wasn't any planning about it.

0:26:44 Tom: I think that is particularly pernicious and is worth being nervous about if you're a parent is the amount of content out there that talks about a of different neurodivergences, ADHD, autism. There's a slew of them that of it uh the other one did that uh dissociative identity disorder that has that's that's oh that's got a whole corner of its in and of itself

0:27:00 Thomas: OCD, there's some bad OCD ones for sure, yeah. Oh, what? Oh, I haven't seen that, Jesus.

0:27:04 Eli: Tourette's. Yep. Story so fascinating in psychiatry, it's almost impossible to talk about.

0:27:16 Tom: Yeah, there's there's corners of the Internet and some places that are not corners like the ADHD stuff is just straight mainstream. And so is the autism stuff. And this content is so bad and it's så poorly researched and it has so little connection to reality. And we were talking before the show. There's a study about this that just came out relatively recently where they're like, yeah, most of the ADHD content has literally nothing to do. It's just wrong. It's bad. It is not connected to the reality of the experience of ADHD. And it's not some of it, it's most of it. Over 50 % of what people are seeing.

0:27:51 Eli: Importantly, the more popular a video is, what this study found is the more likely it is to be incorrect.

0:27:58 Thomas: Yikes. Is that why I can't get any purchase anywhere? I'm trying to do stuff that's based on facts and I can'T get many views. Is that my problem? Okay, well, that'll be my excuse. Use. Oh

0:28:10 Tom: So building a worldview. About what these disorders are how they are reflected what they mean what they look like what helps there and none of it is connected to reality? Most of it isn't so so they're they're walking around self-diagnosing themselves with something that doesn't even match the disorder's actual guidelines so self - diagnosis we talked about as a problem but like if If you're building a sort of world that says this is what ADHD looks like, and then you diagnose yourself with it, you are can, people out there diagnosing themselves with a disorder that doesn't even match what the disorder is.

0:28:17 Eli: What helps?

0:28:30 Thomas: Can

0:28:45 Tom: Fucking nuts.

0:28:45 Thomas: Yeah, I Dr. Alan Smirbeck on SIO. I've talked about a lot of this on SIO and OCD and a lot of it is even stuff that probably you or I, if you don't have OCD, wouldn't realize is actually bad. Like there bit you bit of content that was around like managing OCD. Rituals Um, and stuff where people, you they need to check that they've turned off the burner for a million times, that kind of stuff. And there's all a this video content about like, yeah, what you can do is you can get a camera and you can set that up. And, Stormy was like, Yeah, that's actually bad. That's actually worse. You're you don't want more ways to enable you to check on the thing that is your compulsion, you actually need treatment for it. Like there's just another example. There's so many, there was another I've covered too on the show, but yeah, it'S like self -diagnosis using reasonable resources might be one thing that you could do to

0:28:50 Eli: Stormy deep.

0:29:32 Tom: Scholarly

0:29:32 Thomas: Help.

0:29:32 Tom: Resources.

0:29:33 Thomas: Yeah. Like actual resources, not

0:29:33 Tom: Like, not fucking TikTok, man.

0:29:35 Eli: A doctor, for example.

0:29:36 Thomas: Fucking TikTok.

0:29:38 Tom: But one of the problems too that this sort of bullshit creates is it pathologizes the normal. An enormous amount of pathologizing of perfectly normal behaviors as if those behaviors were neurodivergent.

0:29:53 Thomas: Oh God. Can I give the example I give every time that drives me fucking nuts?

0:29:57 Tom: Yeah!

0:29:57 Thomas: I still see people share the meme. It's not Not TikTok, but I'm sure it has been made into a TikTok by now. I just don't use TikTok. But the one where they're like, hey, normalize. When someone is sharing a story about their lives, I share something related that's connected. That's because I'm neurodivergent. It's how I really, it's like, no, that's everyone. Everyone does that. Literally everyone does that, it was just, you're describing having a conversation.

0:30:18 Eli: Well, assholes. Right.

0:30:21 Tom: Or they'll like, you know, they'll pathologize like, have a hard time getting to your work on time and procrastinating?

0:30:27 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:30:28 Tom: So they don't draw distinctions along the continuum that would differentiate being a normal person who's like, I don't really want to do my work today versus somebody with an actual disorder where that inability to do the work begins to negatively affect their lives. When you look at actually distinctions that make something a disorder, like attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, these things negatively impact your life.

0:30:57 Tom: If they don't negatively impact your life, you don't fucking have that thing. Instead, they're pathologizing somebody being like, sometimes I want to lay around and eat some ice cream. And it's like, that's just because you're people. That's pathology.

0:31:09 Eli: Well... Often the hacks that are sold to people as false neurodiversity hacks are things that work very well on neurotypical people, right? Like making a list or doing a chart or this kind of thing, right. Like you see a lot of people selling the, like the ADHD planner, the ADHD binder, the Doctors would do them. And in some ways they do. And for some conditions and some variations they do, but all of this, all of it is a doctor's job, not yours.

0:31:20 Tom: It's totally the wrong solution. Right. Yes! Like, Haley and I got together, I thought I understood what ADHD was, but I had a social understanding of it. And when she and I got together, I was wrong about everything I thought I understood. I did a huge amount of reading. I mean, like hours and hours of reading in good researched places so that I could really understand, like, because if want, the thing is like, I don't want to judge somebody for something they can't control, but then I also don't wanna let somebody off the hook for the things they can. And if we have a bad understanding of these neurodivergencies, we don't know how to draw those distinctions properly, right? So it can lead to people being abusive to us and using a neurodiversity as an excuse to do it, right, or we can be judgmental about behaviors that they have less control over in ways that are damaging to the relationship or to your friendships or

0:32:09 Thomas: Tom, you're just here to rub it in our faces that you're such a better partner than I am. Yep. Yep. Oh, my God. Yes. Yep, absolutely.

0:32:45 Tom: To workplace.

0:32:45 Thomas: It's such a fine line to get such a fine line. But you know, Eli. You sent us the Tourette's this paper that was really interesting about it, where they could tell people were faking Tourette's on TikTok based on them only displaying like one of the symptoms, but it's because it is like the one that everyone commonly associates, and that same exact thing happens with ADHD, and probably with all of them, where the way that an expert would know is they're, they're always emphasizing the visible symptoms. A symptom, another thing Dr. Stormy D said over on SIO is like a symptom. Like you can have plenty of ADHD symptoms and not ADHD. Like you just can't, it's actually a lot of things share a lot OF symptoms. So you need an expert to be like, Oh, okay. Well, yes, you, you could tick the box on several ADHD symptoms, but it turns out it's Actually this other thing that has overlap and you need to actually know know that like what people do and what this is creating is take the most visible symptoms and the most commonly associated ones overemphasize those and then people who just have those are going to think they have full-blown ADHD when they may not like they might but like they also may not and it's harmful

0:33:44 Eli: Right. Because if you have something else, a medical treatment for ADHD, especially if it's a pharmaceutical treatment for ADHD, could be really terrible for you. Right. If you're actually having a manic episode because you have bipolar disorder, you know, putting you on Ritalin or some other kind of medical speed is really fucking bad for you, right? But you can only do that if you're working with your doctor, right. And I know why people do it, right, as someone who has struggled with their mental health their whole life, right, I understand the frustration of going into a doctor for years at a time and saying, hey, this is how I feel. This is what I'm doing. These are these behaviors. And the doctor not having a clean checkmark to the box and then a perfect response and an exact pill that I needed at exactly that moment. It's fucking frustrating. And you know what liars always do? They always offer a solution.

0:34:37 Eli: 100% of the time. It's how you can tell pseudoscience is bullshit. Is it that you will never hear a homeopath go, yeah, I don't have anything for that. They got something for everything.

0:34:45 Thomas: We haven't we haven't cracked that one yet we havenT cracked that one but uh it's a shame or sometimes

0:34:50 Eli: They've got something. They're ready to go.

0:34:47 Tom: Well of the other things that you see with a lot of this material like that that you find online around these neurodivergences is they portray these neurodivergent behaviors as fun and funny. Oh like, these are just fun and funny. And like people who are struggling, like people have, you know, been unsuccessful in school or have had, your relationships fall apart or who have had struggles connecting with other people or reading social. They they're don't not having a fun and fun and quirky experience. Fucking mean. Of the content or the bulk of the concept, because that's what gets viralized, right? Well, the shit that gets viralize is the stuff that people who are neurotypical can also see themselves in. Why it gets viralized, right? If I see something and I'm like, I sometimes do that. Like there's just more neurotypical people. That's how things are going to get viralized. There needs to enough audience in it. They things fun. They make things quirky. They makes things funny. And in doing that, they of undermine the experience of people who are like, hey, you blindness, for example. Is a real problem in my life it has hurt me it has damaged my ability to hold a job for example or get to class on time or it's made my partner angry with me because you

0:36:09 Tom: Know it's

0:36:08 Thomas: I hijack a show talking about Quibi when it has nothing to do with anything.

0:36:14 Tom: All that stuff like these fun and funny videos that try to portray all of these things as quirky, they undermine the lived experience of the people who are actually like, hey, this is a disorder. It's not funny. I'm not like loving this part of the experience. And that's not to say that no parts of the experience, you know, have positivity to them. I really don't want to say very intentionally. I am not saying that. Please don't write me an email that I said that. But I really think that just that the algorithm fuck

0:36:41 Eli: Do it. Write him three emails. And then be that level of patron where he has to respond to you.

0:36:47 Tom: Yeah all right hey kick it in I'll respond but

0:36:50 Thomas: A per email fee, though, by

0:36:51 Tom: The viral nature and the algorithmic nature of social media is not going to push that content the same way like it's going to the content that everyone's like that's great and then they laugh about it and it's fun and funny yes

0:37:04 Thomas: Overdramatic the other way, where it's like, yeah, like super harmful when it's not

0:37:09 Eli: Ever heard a doctor talk about real stuff? It's the fucking worst. Make it on social media.

0:37:14 Thomas: Entertaining. No, except for your boner problems.

0:37:19 Eli: Yeah, those are good. We like those.

0:37:17 Tom: It's boring right oh

0:37:20 Thomas: Then it's a little fun.

0:37:29 Eli: Right, gentlemen, before we go, math is confusing because 15 plus 15 is 30, but 16 plus 16 is 32.

0:37:39 Thomas: Oh, I got to tell the kids that one. Oh they'll love that one, so good, I

0:37:39 Tom: My god Oh, my God.

0:37:47 Clip: Want to meet sexy DILFs in your area? Email the dads at DearOldDads.com or, better yet, send us a message on Patreon. You can follow us on all social media by checking the links in the show notes. And if you need more podcasts in your life, you can find Tom on Cognitive Dissonance, Thomas on Serious Inquiries Only, and Eli on Godawful Movies and all the Puzzle in the Thunderstorm shows. Dear Old Dads is edited and produced by my favorite DILF, Tom Smith who also wrote and recorded the intro music which is used with his permission this podcast is a production of Daddy Issues LLC copyright 2022 all rights reserved

0:38:29 Eli: Come on, you donut holes. Like, give me a dollar and I'll dance. Right?

0:38:35 Thomas: So you might've COVIDed it out of I guess I'll die.

0:38:38 Eli: Sheldon not What am I supposed to do? Just be nice the whole time? Yes. Shut up! You

0:38:54 Tom: Do that. Like