As always, you are of course free to engage in any interests you like, as long as you’re not hurting anyone!!! 😂I hope that these silly little videos are a celebration of how autistic special interests can be anything at all! It’s all about the intensity of focus and not the topic. Thank you for sending these in! I’m sure I’ll make another one soon 💛 For now, if you missed the last one, here it is: Tier Ranking Autistic Special Interests!: th-cam.com/video/MvId9CFepf0/w-d-xo.html And you might like last week’s video… The Best Theory of Autism you've probably NEVER heard of...: th-cam.com/video/3mBbOOzhoGQ/w-d-xo.html If all goes to plan, I may be posting an extra video this week with a little announcement! As always, thank you for being here 💛
Next one you should probably add Vtubers because a LOT of decently popular vtubers seem to be neurodivergent themselves. Most famously Haruka Karibu of VShojo is openlyu autistic and many smaller vtubers have casually referenced being neurodivergent in their videos (two thatI remember mentioning it in their shorts are VReverie's Lilrya Prisvielle and Cheri Lupina).
8:55 - it could be a colored crayon? it seems crayon-ish, at least! (and the rubber doesn't look like a pen rubber to me, but maybe there are ones that look like that)
I just wish that people would know more about autism. Especially psychiatrists and psychologists. I often feel like I need to educate them on that matter and still they rarely listen.
*Maybe the real autism was the friends we made along the way and then only communicated with by text for the rest of our lives because talking on the phone is actually Satan.
Amber: Well, that makes sense. It's really the only interest that we are likely to have. Steve is interested in1970s superhero comic books. Dale likes to talk about cars. Cindy likes everything related to cats. Sheila likes make-up. Andrew is spiritual, he knows everything about every sect of every religion. Lucy loved stuffed animals. Stan aspires to be a writer. He started researching for a book he planned to write, set in the American Civil War. Ten years later, he never started writing the novel, but he sure knows a lot about the American Civil War. Alexandra is a leftist. She can tell you about every communist, Socialist and Anarchist groups from the 18th century to the present day. And Linda is into computers. If these people meet at an autistic meet at, they may have no interests in common, except for one. Autism itself. So that is what it would make the most sense for them to talk about.
I'm sure someone has thought of this before, but we need special-interest fairs -- similar to a school science fair but for autistic people who are looking for a new special interest to come and learn about other autistic people's special interests and maybe come away with inspiration and/or newfound knowledge and interest!
Oh my God, I want to share my special interests with people 😂 The people at the fair are actually there to hear about and experience different special interests, so it'd take away some of the nervous fear that I'm talking too much, lol!
At one point my daughters' special interest were the Nazis (no, she didn't want to become one): the power dynamics, the organizational aspects, how they came into office etc. She read every single book I had about them + a bunch more. So, as a result you got a 14 year old girl with a very profound knowledge of the subject. Now, imagine you being a history teacher and you're going to talk about the interbellum in Germany... yep, I had some explaining to do (next to advising her not to info-dump at school).
@@aaausername for me it started with Maus by Art spiegelman. The only reason I got those books from the library is because my mother didn't understand that it was an adult story because it was in a graphic novel format.
I think folks with a special interest in the Holocaust and related topics can be great helpers in the community by sounding the alarm for the rest of us when something is heading in the wrong direction. Like pointing out similarities in the past patterns and ones they're observing in present day. Personally, it would be too dark of a special interest for me because I am wired to be haunted indefinitely - vivid visualizer. So I rely on folks with stronger stomachs to teach me about their interests. And I know if they're neurospicy and have researched accordingly, they're trustworthy! 🤓 🫶🏻
Every so often, I will be analyzing something I did, or trying to process feelings, and I'll be asking myself, "what the fuck is that?" And then, like a lightbulb exploding, I'll realize, "oh, yeah, that's Autism right there." I mean, for Autistic people, is Autism really a special interest, or are we just each writing ourselves a user manual for our brains? I mean, we all kinda go insane before we realize we're Autistic, trying to cope. You have to research it just to survive.
@@amasterofone Me at 11:00pm: "I'm so tired, time to sleep." My Phone: **Ambiguous txt from an NT** My Brain: "Uh-oh, what does that mean? Hey, here's a bunch of weird feelings you can't identify and don't know what to do with. Make sure you react correctly, or you'll look creepy! Have fuuuun!" Me at 04:00am: 😡
I am autistic and my special interest is mushrooms. Despite not liking the texture of most of them, I am more intrigued by the scientific aspects of them. They are such complex organisms and there are currently over 100000 species discovered and many not discovered yet. I didn't think that anyone else would mention them being a special interest, so this made me exited. :)
mycologist groups are fun, and most new species are nowaday are first discovered by enthusiasts too! i remember a guy presenting his newly discovered truffle species.
I can't eat them, eeewww! But they are super cool.
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I've had a special interest in the Holocaust since I was six, and to be fair it did cause a lot of trauma. I had lasting nightmares for a really long time, and many teachers in elementary school had to censor my history projects because they didn't want fourth-grade parents attacking them, which is totally fair, but I was more than a little dismayed. I think the context of the special interest is important. I come from a Jewish family and the Holocaust was something extremely relevant to my family dynamic. The Holocaust special interest was (and still is) a way for me to try and understand the dark side of human nature. It's lately transformed into a genealogy obsession where I chronicle my family tree dating back many, many generations, which my family has happily supported because it gives them the information they otherwise wouldn't have known, ie my grandparents' grandparents, immigration dates, translations of letters that we previously didn't understand, etc. In conclusion, I think that the context is really necessary. I get enjoyment out of gaining understanding, and I get that understanding through a special interest in the Holocaust, I think that is different than just enjoying a genocidal event.
I had this special interest too even though I am not Jewish and I don't even live near Europe. I found it fascinating hearing peoples stories and reading books about it. Of course it is a very destressing topic and I certainly didn't enjoy it in that sense. I found it interesting and confusing how humans can be such horrible people but also how people can survive such atrocities. Humanity and human nature is so confusing, it give me a headache.
Even though we are not Jewish my special interest in the Holocaust was coming from feeling of being discriminated in marginalized for the first time. It was before I knew I was autistic but I was learning that I was lgbtq and I was learning that my people were being genocided for that reason and others. Later in life I would learn that I fit under more categories and would have been genocide victim myself if I had lived during that time. It was my first exposure to how dark people can be and I think my fascination with it provided some resiliency for coping with the real darkness I would personally experience later
I’m very happy to one of my current top special interests getting some attention. I’m also very happy to see other people also partaking in the Holocaust special interest. I personally am fascinated with how we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. The media has sneaky ways of sowing eugenicist ideas into people without them even realizing.
For me I would look at ‘violent crime’ for the psychology of it. Not the actual crime itself. One of my special interests is to try to understand people on different levels. I know it is a pretty broad subject.
Interesting fact: I am in the process of earning a psychology degree so that I can eventually promote alternative, scientifically-backed therapies aimed at autistic adults. Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy will be part of the research. Being autistic myself, no other classification of substances has helped me more. Never, ever take a psychedelic from someone you "vaguely" know, nor around people who give you bad vibes.
I love psychedelics! When I went on acid for the first time, I was in a depressive state. I couldn't see beauty in the world. During the trip, I saw the shifting and melting prism of rainbow, and it was so beautiful it made me cry. Afterwards, I could see beauty again. 💜
@@ambriasaunders1869 On my first trip I went to a hibachi japanese grill and ordered the most outrageous piece of sushi on the menu. When I got it I couldn't stop staring--I didn't eat but maybe two pieces and took the rest home... to look at. The sushi "evolved" like a living creature, going through cycles of life and death, each time configuring itself in a new pattern only to inevitably die again. You know those videos they do of underwater coral reefs dying and speed them up? It looked basically like that, but in reverse. Only of the best parts of the whole experiene, I think, is the "afterwards." The "afterglow" that many of us get is why microdosing has so much mental health potential.
Couldn't agree more my friend... If there ever was a "cure" for autism (As in a cure for the bad stuff Autism causes and an enhancer for the good stuff it causes) it's 100% Psilocybin. This will change your life, no joke. (But don't just take it, make sure you hyperfocus like crazy about learning everything about it before you take it lol)
I also have Autism as special interest. I research it for 14 months now since I realized i am autistic. I buy 1 - 3 books a month from autistic authors or books recommended by autistic people. I have 34 autistic youtube channels , not all are active but still. I read about autism on quora. I follow 40 autistic tik tokers I have my own experiences and memories. My brother and grandma are autistic. And I just cannot stop learning 😅
@@kylecope528Yeah, we want to know about ourselves but we often take it farther than that. I have read 10 books on autism and watched over 1000 TH-cam videos about it.
Yes, I agree. For me it is conventional too, but DSM5 with its restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus - would disagree. So it depends on point of view i think. And i think lots of autistic people understand what i meant when said it is my special interest.@@kylecope528
Do you think you'd be interested in doing a tierlist based on reactions people have heard after saying they're autistic? The higher tiers could be for ones that are supportive, middle tiers could be for ones that are silly/ignorant but ultimately harmless, and the lowest tier could be for ones that are plain ableist
A special interest I had as a kid was sharks! They are so diverse and there physiology is so interesting. I love their tooth-like scales, their multiple rows of teeth, how they swim through the water so gracefully, and I learned in college that some species have parts of their body that are warm-blooded (eyes and brain)!
I was both terrified of and obsessed with insects. I don't mean that I was freaked out when I saw a bug. It was much weirder than that. I imagined huge insects, or organized groups of insects, attacking me. I imagined that humans would learn to mick human behavior and lay eggs in them. Or that they would take over human society. Yea, it was weird. But I learned a lot about them.
Yep ex volunteer fire fighter here and got super into it for a while as it was a community service so there was no 'shame' in having that special interest. It even led to a career change for me! Also Meg IS the sorting algorithm for Autistic Special Interests.
Skateboarding happens to be one of my alongside punk rock and heavy metal music although skateboarding for me crosses over pretty closely with the TV show Jackass so I don't tend to take a lot of interest in the safety side of it honestly the injuries are one of the more fun parts of extreme sports because if you film it it can be pretty funny to laugh at when you're feeling better or even just recovering
I'm heavily into futurism and cyberpunk. I'm fascinated by societal development and I'm surprisingly good at predicting political/technological events nearly a decade in the future. It's all repetitive paterns, if you know enough general information you can see where this is going, like a car crash in slow motion...
The violent crime thing, I feel like the genre of true crime is manipultive, I like learning about it as a news story not sensationalized. But as far as dark events, I got into shipwreck stories a couple months ago. There are a couple youtube channels that go onto detail on them, like the Titantic, thats where it started, but then I learned about other ship wrecks from different eras. Fires, ships hitting each other, some were quick, some were long, I learned about a cruise thay was stuck at sea for almost two weeks and they had no running water, but gave everyone free alcohol. Then that turned into airplane tradegies and I noticed that people tend to not survive those, so it was started to become bleak. Then youtube tried to get me to watch aboug bus crashes, started with a school bus, and I decided the weeks-long rabbit hole was too morbid for me. But yea that was a time when I temporarily only listening to shipwrecks, which I remembered bc you mentioned violent crime. Edit: left this mostly unedited to show my autism while mildly hungover brain expressing-thing. Idk.
My special interest is horror but more specifically a sub genre called body horror. Basically horror that involves the body changing or deteriorating against the characters will.
I'm autistic and my special interest is classical music, specifically the violin family of instruments. I'm currently at school to learn how to make them. I've been playing violin for 16 years and now I'm back at school learning how to make them.
That sounds so cool! Both my parents are classical musicians, my dad plays trombone and my mum french horn. Unfortunately I got none of their musical talent, but I have always really wanted to learn the violin.
I have 2 main current special interests. Rainbow High dolls (over all dolls, but specifically RH right now. Dressing them, photographing them. Creating stop motion videos. Playing out social situations I don't understand to try and understand) And the Bible. Went to college for it and everything. Ouu currently specifically interested in Revelations.
Reading and Muusic Theory are my two persistent special interests. I also quite enjoy spreadsheets and making little programs on them. Either data sorters or bingo cards. Small stuff like that.
Imo the most interesting part of music theory is tuning systems, which is one of my special interests. There is so much to learn about, including historical tuning systems, non western tuning systems, non standard tuning systems (eg. 31TET), the harmonic series, chords in non standard tuning systems (eg. Harmonic sevenths), autotune, the philosophy around tuning systems, concert pitch, etc.
Yes, tuning systems, @@itdepends604 I'm neurotypical but some neurotypical people do some of the things autistic people do, and I have special interests. I lived in India for a year as a teenager and when I came home I thought the piano was out of tune. I had been playing the sitar for a year (at first I thought it was out of tune, but then I got used to it). Turns out my ears had adjusted to Just Intonation. I still loved playing the piano though, so I learned about Werckmeister III and the history of tuning. So interesting and understudied! Also thinking about the 1980s when bands tried replacing orchestras with synthesizers and it mostly didn't work because the synths were all equal tempered!
I'm undiagnosed but I juggle!!!!!!! I have always been super clumsy and derpy but I have tons of interests and a lot of them have very much improved that a ton - like stuff just jumps out of my hands but now like 8 times out of ten I catch whatever it is x'D I also did lots of rock climbing, kayaking and owned a small boat that I had to climb out awkwardly onto the side to get to the front for helping with docking and while I was absolutely shitting myself a lot of the time but had to do it and I'm much more aware of my body in space than I used to be and actually feel like I move kinda cool now and am very proud of it :'D
I'm just commenting as I watch I guess but I have always felt amazing in stationery shops, there's something about stationery that really tickles my brain just right, I have tons and tons of notebooks and a lot of them are actually full like I have ones for lyrics and ones for trying desperately to organise my life and ones that are just full of like, automatic scribblings from that time I kinda lost my mind a little
my special interest, aside from autism itself, is kpop! I think its a fairly common special interests, and a lot of the other autistic kpop fans i know agree its very special-interest-able, i guess. It's quite appealing to autistics lol. The albums and photocards are very collectable, and within kpop i guess its more normal to know a lot more details about the idols themselves than perhaps it is in the west 😅I have my own album collection, i'm trying to collect at least one version of each album by TXT (my favourite group), and i'm currently only missing out on one, soon to be two cause they're releasing a new one soon. It's certainly an expensive special interest to have, but its super fun! in conjunction with kpop i also have interests in wider korean society and especially the language cause i also happen to be super interested in languages and linguistics so all my interests happen to converge very well!
I really like this channel. I was recently diagnosed at age 34, and, naturally, I went into a rabbit hole of content about autism. Some channels get into much more serious topics, which is ok. There are a lot of important discussions about autism. But this channel is more like a really cute little place just to be ourselves and celebrate what makes us who we are. I really needed something like this and I thank you for it.
My special interests are cultures, mechanics, languages, and animals. I have avoided exploring them much due to poor self esteem and it seeming overwhelming, and the fact that when I get excited I lose the breathing contest. (I need gentle reminders that I'm not breathing.) I have decided to not avoid my special interests any more, though I am def procrastinating ok diving fully into any of them. And sorting things/making lists, love it! It doesn't have to be useful even I just like the task of sorting/lists that are just engaging enough to not get totally lost in memories, but doesn't require so much attention that I can't think clearly.
So, I’m diagnosed ADHD but highly suspect autism is in there too. I can definitely see martial arts being a special interest. There’s aspects of history, kind of maps onto interests in anime or other media, and for me, I can really struggle to like…move my body when I have to actually think about the movements. But once I know the movements so well that I don’t have to think about it anymore, then I can be shockingly coordinated and I feel a deep sense of calm when I can fall into it the movements. For me, that is playing guitar. I can never imagine myself like…playing guitar for other people. That isn’t what it is about for me. It’s more a kind of “socially acceptable stimming” for me. (Like, “oh David is just practicing guitar” by playing loops of three chords I think sound nice together…for like an hour. I learned to mask very early. I was bullied literally all the way back to my earliest memories at daycare. So…I learned to keep my stimming to things I saw other people doing. Like my dad bounces his leg when he is just sitting there and I copied that and do it when I’m bored in public). The funny thing is that I also have a special interest in music theory…but that feels totally different from playing music. For me, I think the special interest in true crime is something slightly different than the popular interest in true crime. A lot of neurotypicals seem to really get a sense of satisfaction from feeling superior to criminals and thinking of the terrible ways they should be punished…but for me, I am fascinated by the ways brains can be different. So I have an interest in the “big names” of true crime but I get really put off when people do videos or documentaries about like…someone who had a falling out with their spouse and do violence on them. That is just using a tragedy for entertainment because…even though we like to think differently, we are all capable of things we regret when we are pushed over the edge and it feels wrong to use someone’s death as entertainment. But Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, etc…I don’t like hearing so much about their actual crimes, I am just fascinated by the way their brains circled in on this compulsion and how it all seemed to come from different places for the different “bjg names”.
I go into the Holocaust after discovering all about it at age 12. As a special interest it blossomed for me and I was too young to understand the social cue that sharing about it was inappropriate. I got in trouble a lot for even trying to get more books about of the material. I understand now as an adult, but at the time it was just impossible to ignore my first history lesson about genocide. It was just impossible to tear my brain away from it for a very long time. I don't think the adults around me understood the degree to which I was processing a lot about Humanity in that one interest.
@@aaausername there's a few of us like this apparently! My theory is that learning about the Holocaust awakened some feelings about being marginalized before we knew we were autistic
@@cyan_the_uranian for me I probably started getting into it because that's when I could finally read properly. I'm dyslexic so I couldn't read until I was 10.
@@jam5533 I love volcanoes! Also igneous and metamorphic rocks. I also know a fair bit about freshwater features and their geology, plus caves. I’ll be learning more about fault lines this year, which I’m excited for.
I had psilocybin mushrooms before knowing that I'm autistic, it was really intense: roller coaster between having fun moving unconventional body parts, experiencing color patterns, sensory overload, confronting childhood trauma and insecurities that even I tried to hide it from myself while it displayed in outer space setting with fractals, then coming down from the trip I found a new way to apply a newly learned music theory on the guitar. And that's also the first time I experience music having taste, images have sounds. The next day after the trip I wrote an essay about the profound confrontation and that has been a very helpful tool to deal with trauma with or without mushrooms later on: Revisiting my child self during the event of trauma and explained to my child self about the things like a caring figure. I recommend only try it first time when you have a "trip sitter" a person who had experiences with mushrooms both the highs and lows and is someone you trust, knows you, and knows what to do if an overload or a bad experience is happening. The location and your emotional state also has a lot of impact.
I've had different special interests at different times. At the moment, it's literary science fiction, for a long time it's been Irish mythology and early literature (got a Masters), fire-dancing (with poi, and choreographing). Every now and then, I get madly into learning a language (Welsh, Swahili, Arabic, British Sign Language, Irish Sign Language). The ADHD side of the brain lets me down though! Well, I recognise it's both the Autistic and ADHD sides competing to push me in various directions. I've never been any good at doing one thing at a time - if I'm in a productive phase, I usually have 4 or 5 projects on the go. Then burnout and all my time is watching TH-cam! Thanks for your channel, Meg, really enjoying it!
I completely understand! I have tried learning Latin, Old English, Old Norse, Spanish and Thai (not all at the same time). I am super interested for a while, but then I will have a bump with my mental health and it will fall apart. Also really well done on the Masters! I know they are really hard work from my own experience. They are difficult for anyone, but adding autism and ADHD I found it really overwhelming. I got a Postgraduate Certificate instead, but I want to go back eventually to finish it.
@@zaraandrews600 Thanks. I got a kind of free pass at uni because I'm also visually impaired, so managed to never hand in an assignment on time and repeatedly deferred exams! I'd love to do a PhD, but I know so many disabled and ND people who got totally burned out trying to do a PhD with no appropriate supports whatsoever. I was really lucky with my Masters, partly because I had a scholarship, but mostly because my department head was amazing and a big supporter.
My head canon is that the devil horns Megan wore for her “evil autism” video rubbed off on her and that’s why she’s more comfortable ranking special interests lower now /J
I got such a special interest in meditation that I found an Tantric Buddhist yogi guru, can discuss Tibetan Buddhist meditation systems in detail and have been keeping up practicing for two decades now. Some time ago I finally understood that I am likely rather autistic.
shoutout to the special interest autistics who love something but dont know many big facts. I love frogs myself and I have a whole collection of frog items and plushies even though all I can tell you about is that frogs are funny and silly and cute :)
I personally usually know big facts but i feel like its not known enough that autistic people can just like something and not know basically everything about it and that's probably because the representation
@@heymoondogs yeah exactly!! sometimes I just really *really* love a thing a lot and I wanna look at it a lot and stuff but sometimes my knowledge is just small! Doesnt mean I don't like it any less
About watching true crime - I get frustrated with people attempting to ascribe an "ethical" dimension to it. I think it is about being able to understand something which otherwise is not possible to see or get close enough to to understand. Why does violent crime happen? What is it "like"? I experienced the same with watching war footage from Ukraine. Not only is it important to be informed and engaged about the genocide being waged on Ukraine in general, but also, this is the first time war has been filmed at such a granular level. In the first year I found myself watching a lot of semi- explicit combat footage in an attempt to understand something that otherwise was to dangerous and shrouded in mystery to understand. After a while I felt I had constructed an honest picture of war, and don't watch many of these now. But it is frustrating at how heavy handed censorship of these materials is, or how judgmental people are about crime shows. They are literally things which are happening in the world, and I have a right to look in their general direction with out being painted as a morbid thrill seeker taking pleasure in other people's pain. That said there definitely are such people, who fetishize dark content to feed something dark in themselves, but I don't think that is the majority of true crime viewers. It sometimes feels like it isn't possible to have any thought with out people clamoring to judge how ethical it is.
I have to admit, I checked back I to this comment, which I don't normally do, because I suddenly became afraid I was going to get booed and I realized, I like you guys and don't want to get booed, but instead I found your comment. So I just wanted to say this is a beautiful community we have here, where different points of view are considered:)
mine is sea slugs, i highly highly recommend looking up pictures they are so cool looking and so interesting! theyre one of the most biodiverse kinds of animals in terms of body forms, colors, etc. there are kinds of sea slugs that can photosynthesize by stealing chloroplasts (kleptoplasty) from the algae they eat!! some also steal the stinging cells from their food source, theyre like the kirby of the animal kingdom :)
Oh my gosh yes! This isn't one of my special interests but I made a clay plate with a sea slug on it and everyone was so confused why I was doing a sea slug but it's because they are amazing!
Kleptoplasty is so cool! It reminds me of the theory that mitochondria and chloroplasts were originally their own organisms before they migrated into cells and were adopted as part of the plant and animal cell.
I think allistic people exaggerate how dangerous things are because otherwise they would get no response from other allistic people. Meanwhile, autistic people hear those exaggerations and become ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED that we are approaching THE MOMENT OF DOOM where we are going to die from this new thing that we as individual autistic people had never considered before. This goes for warnings about disasters, the things doctors say to you, the things parents say to you, et cetera.
I can relate to this. It's only been in the last year or two, since I realized I had ADHD, that it sunk into me that my lifelong persistent fear response/fight or flight/anxiety effectively acted as a moderating factor for my inattentiveness. But while it kept me from losing crucial things, and certainly kept me from being a risk taking ADHDer, keeping an eye on everything also fed my hypervigilant predisposition. The pisser is that I think it takes outright fear to keep me semi attentive. I gather neurotypical people may be able to say to themselves "gee, remember not to lock your keys in your car" without a jot of anxiety to motivate them. I need the fear to keep me alert, but my nervous system has paid a high price. I have MOMENT OF DOOM left and right now. The weird thing is, my mother (who had anxiety, and probably gave it to me prenatally) trained me to fear what I didn't/couldn't see coming. I realize now she saw my father's inattention in me (he had to have been AuDHD), and was undoubtedly triply terrified of her kid being careless and killing himself by accident. It was an easy skill for her to teach me, as it came naturally to her. I'm not too sure she realized I shared her predisposition, and took the lessons way too much to heart. A few things she said make me think she never realized I did.
one of my special interest is jewelry making. cutting gems is such a satisfying geometric process, and i can spend 12h straight on my workbench hammering copper, polishing stone or nacre, carving wood and bone...i just wish i had more tools and more room
One of the most ethical dilemmery special interests for me is 9/11 and it’s one of those that I just don’t talk about it to anyone because of the ethics around it. Like it’s about the times that everything happened, I don’t want to know the terribly bad stuff, just the times that the main important things happened. I hate that I have that special interest, but it’s there and I try to be as respectful as possible all of the time.
Amphibians. I keep various frogs and toads as pets all originating from different countries, I go out and rescue toads from being run over during breeding season. Everything is 'frog' in my house. They are so interesting (and some of them are cute as) 😊
Whoever put sorting algorithms in there, you NEEEED this book called Algorithms To Live By. It's got a whole chapter on sorting algorithms and how to use them practically irl. The book's focus is about how computer algorithms and compsci have everyday analogs (explore/exploit: should you go to a known favorite restaurant or try a new one?) and also analogs to other things in science, like crystal annealing and amino acid composition. I get way too excited about this book and also I think it's very funny in an extremely nerdy way-I love that the premise seems so intensely silly and yet I, personally, find the advice useful, because I too am nerdy and silly 😂 I think and problem solve in metaphors and analogies a lot. I love finding the similarities in structure between different systems and pieces of information. It's a little like tangible math. Or from one of the other special interests videos, the thing about collectibles being the "same item but a different color"-reading about someone's planning the seating chart at their wedding being analogous to their thesis work on amino acids and borrowing the algorithm real quick to solve the seating chart thing is like "same problem different color" to me and it delights me 😂❤ (I also love parallel structure in character arcs in literature, or exploration of themes through character foils and contrasting examples, and the use of callbacks or repeated phrases in fiction, and okay so maybe analogies are my special interest a little bit lololol)
I like martial arts. One day after college it was useful to dodge someone who was trying to like tackle me in a subtle way (crazy people at street, idk). Then a couple of years ago in a bar there was a guy trying to taunt me and I just ignored him for 30 minutes, maybe more. Then he got mad and came to me, kicked my chair, I grabbed his leg at the place and yelled at security (again, crazy people. I hate Mexico...) I wasn't violent in both cases, and it helped me to react in a subtle but effective way. Bonus, martial arts come with philosophy. So the mind is as important as the body.
@@imautisticnowwhat I didn't have to fight. That is also key. You can choose your battles (I didn't have to fight so I just used a fraction of the skill to avoid conflict). Actually I feel good because I was able to avoid violence.
My special interest is the English language. I don't speak it natively, but I try to keep learning new words and getting better at understanding spoken English. The really nice thing about having a language as a special interest is that it can be engaged with passively - all I have to do is set my devices' UI to English, read books in English, watch videos in English, play games in English, or listen to music with English lyrics. All of these are nice activities on their own, but adding the English component to them just makes them extra nice to me.
@@aaausername It probably is, but that's what 30 years of genuine interest in something does - you get good at it. It took a long time to suppress my instinct to correct other people's grammar and spelling, as I learned they're usually not receptive to it :)
I have rather obscure special interests in colour and form, the two subjects being inextricably linked. In particular, my interest is mainly focused on the causes of colour in biological and mineralogical substances but also including manufactured media. It goes hand in hand with a special interest in optical phenomena, specifically optical phenomena associated with gem materials like sapphires, opals, pearls and even butterfly wings. It's one of those things that most people wouldn't give much thought to, yet, I find that it's a very interesting subject with lots of info to acquire to satisfy my curiosity.
I had a sorting algorithm phase and I can see how reading about what it is can make it seem INCREDIBLY boring. Trust me, you need to watch a sorting algorithm video to understand, it's so much fun. However, BE WARNED that they can be a bit of an eyestrain so DO NOT watch them if you have photosensitive epilepsy or are otherwise sensitive to flashing lights or stripes/high contrasting patterns.
Spinning and weaving is my special interest! Spinning handspun yarn is SUCH a wonderful textural experience. Merino wool has such a lovely texture, but it's a little harder to spin unlike a more crimpy fiber like corriedale or blue faced Leicester! Flax is also a joy to spin, which I know is kind of a controversial opinion in spinning circles, but I don't really have much trouble with it. It spins up quite nicely for me. If I spin with a drop spindle, it's like stimming (constantly twirling and spinning the spindle in my hand and twiddling it) but I'm making something at the same time. Weaving is really nice too... once I get past all the steps involved in preparing to weave, like winding the warp, sleying the reed, threading the heddles, lashing on, winding a bobbin to put in the shuttle... Well, all those parts aren't my favorite, but once I'm on the loom? It's such a meditative, repetitive action, I love it once I get past the preparations! When you beat the reed back and see the cloth you're making, it's such a satisfying experience.
So for awhile I thought I didn't have a special interest because I enjoy so many things. But then I realized when talking to some people from school... (while we were out to eat as a group) that I talked for over an hour about 1 topic without letting them say anything... so I've realized that my special topic is "Paranomal hunting" this includes histories of super haunted locations and the most interesting stories of what people come across when they visit the haunted locations. I even know all about the tools and the best methods to talk to the other side. I am obsessed!!! I even watch ghost stories before bed every night.
My interests are definitely running and any thrilling activity in nature (woods, mountains, oceans), film, psychedelics, and comedy (writing). But I also love medical mysteries and solving puzzles involving pathology. We’d be great detectives. 😊 The ocean and just being in water is something I enjoy. It’s meditative and relaxing. I also hate heat so cooling off after a run by jumping in the ocean is amazing. Many autistic people definitely seek out thrills like skydiving and rollercoasters. I love those types of things.
It took me a while to figure out what my special interest was, because it's so broad lol, but I think the best way to put it is The Grand Scheme of Things✨, which is ironic seeing how Autistics are supposedly detail oriented. To me, the most intriguing topics are those that transcend my personal experience and reveal the larger patterns and meanings of the universe. My mind tends to lose interest in anything that it perceives as ‘insignificant’ or irrelevant to this big picture.
Homesteading is my special interest. But I hope I don't lose interest in it anytime soon, I bought property and live in a tiny house. I have chickens, ducks and turkeys and a big garden. So I'm deep into it lol. I have not met any other autistic people with this interest. It's such a big category with so many aspects to try out.
I haven't exactly pulled it off fully, but when you wrote this I immediately recognized the impulse, which I've had since I was a child. Living directly grounds me, where the complexities of modern life do the opposite, and I always speculated if I would have been happier in an earlier, more agrarian time. When we bought our first house, I spent an incredible amount of time working on it. Before I took my current job, we were trying to come as close to growing all our own food as we could.
I want to let you know that I think you are adorable and I really appreciate that you allow people to be themselves and info dump. You often hit home with my household and I and make me think without feeling horrible.
My current special interest is knitting. Specifically designing hand knitted garments. I've been doing lots of research on designing and pattern writing and I have four knitting projects on my needles at the moment. I love it.
This was over too quickly! I love hearing about these. I got the opportunity to info dump a little bit on someone a few days ago. He said that he wondered where the days of the week came from and how we ended up with a seven-day week, and so I told him everything I know about the names of the days and months and how we got them. (I don't know nearly enough. There are still lots of gaps in my knowledge.) He actually seemed really interested, so that was fun! Im interested in this, though, primarily because of my overarching interest in words and etymologies. The history and evolution of languages and how they relate to one another really gets my brain firing!
So glad they enjoyed the learning about the days! Yay! I learned a little bit about the naming of the days and months from a funny Ted talk, I think. What struck me was this guy's proposal for four-week months. Keep the seven-day weeks, but none of the 28-31 days per month nonsense. I CRAVE consistency in scheduling. So when he shared the idea for months that make for tidier holidays and like each date would fall on the same weekday each month and many other perks... 🤯 🥰 I've been wishing we could switch over to that system ever since. 🤭
Oh, so interesting to hear about how you learning about stuff can affect you. I did the same getting interested in Spanish Flu years back, and it really came back to bite me when Covid started.
oh my gosh, I have a massive fear of fire from a fire safety video shown in school too!! But the one I watched was about a firefly who played with matches and burnt off his wings and destroyed his village... subsequently have never touched a match in my life!
One of my special interests is pens. I love writing, and I can't use pens that feel wrong when I'm writing with them. Those blue and black Bic pens that every bank has are the bane of my existence. I love writing with glass dip pens, and my favorite to write with is a fountain pen I've got from 1944 Germany, I found it in a house I was cleaning out and it still worked, and now it's got a special display in my art case. My most prominent special interest though has definitely lost me many friends. I love learning about dead bodies and the process of decay on a human body. Turns out a lot of people conflate that with being dangerously weird somehow. I'm in school for anthropology, and have finally found people that get it.
@aaaaa-rz4lb I have dabbled with it a bit, but my hands are nowhere near steady enough to make it look very good. It always comes out very messy! I just really love the feel of writing with them, I still send letters just for the excuse to use my pens on stationery.
When you said stationary, I wasn't looking at the screen and immediately thought, There's no way I could stay stationary for long enough to consider it an interest. It's only necessary as a survival skill to either avoid danger or to ambush prey. But I guess the other kind of stationary qualifies. I like to have multiple types of writing, measuring, sorting, and bonding impliments handy just incase i need to document something quickly. And if I see something unique in a store I'll occasionally add it to my Box O Stationary in the back of my truck.
the section on stationary - my grandpa loved to label everything he owned with a dymo label printer, even down to putting instructions on the shower (turn hot tap all the way, adjust with cold tap ONLY). And my mum tears up envelopes and scrap paper and collates them with a big paper clip to make her notepads. She gets the same brand of diary every year and writes down the weather and what she ate (plus some reminders), which is the only non-scrap thing she'll write on. No wonder my autism went unnoticed.
I'm so happy to know that I'm not the only one who had/has extreme fear about random things like fire, carbon monoxide poisoning. Mine was TV satellite dishes. I would have a panic attack every time we were playing outside and my dad would change the channel because the satellite would move 😭😂😂
I'm AuDHD, and I can go absolutely feral about mushrooms, moss, lichen and more recently algae! I've always loved nature but these do something special to my brain. I can't retain infos that well but looking at them? UGH I have life long SpIn in arts and witchcraft too. Pretty much the most consistent things in my life single childhood. And I've been really into Monster High for a couple of years, both collecting dolls and loving the series 😊 Of course, neurodivergence is also a special interest since I have to know about it to explain how it works to ignorant people around me 🤓
The thing about sorting algorithms is that you get into it thinking "ah, this should be pretty simple" and then there are thousands of different ways of sorting a list of scrambled numbers and each one has their pros and cons and so the rabbit hole begins 😂
I am not autistic, but I am ADHD and other neurodivergent things, plus my husband and kids are all autistic. I have found crochet is a big special interest. My husband likes to play computer games like RuneScape and watching videos about autism, like your videos and my son is also on video games. My daughter is 8 and likes to swing.
I’m also terrified of fire, it might be a phobia but I’m not sure if I can use that term without knowing for sure whether or not I have it. I remember being taken to a fire safety presentation when I was like 4, and the images of the burnt stuff they showed me are burned (pun not intended) into my head despite it being so long ago. They had a few burnt objects like frying pans but the one I remember the most is a toy school bus. There were little human figures in the bus that were supposed to be removable, but they had melted into the bus and the faces of the figures were distorted. The wheels no longer rotated either. At first I was like “I don’t want that happening to my favourite toys :(“ and then I started thinking about what could happen to me. I literally had nightly nightmares about house fires for ten years straight after that. I still get panicky around fire of any sort, even if it’s just a little candle.
I found it a nightmare when I had to work with bunsen burners at school. I nearly accidentally set fire to a bin in class because I freaked out holding a splint with fire on.
I had a special interest in the Monkees about a year ago. I even got to interview Micky Dolenez when I was 16. At the moment I don't really have any (except kinda fairies and kinda autism and the crazy connections between them that I am currently activly chosing to not info dump about.
My special interest is drawing and painting. And my current hyperfixation is crocheting. I think i might be dispraxic so i struggle a lot with crocheting. I've been working on a pencil case since last tuesday and it's still not done. It frustrates me but i can't stop help.
I like crime dramas, but I'd like a happy ending to eventually happen. I like resolutions. You know the kind of resolutions I like? Resolutions that match my morality.
I'm currently really interested in The Habsburg Empire, particularly from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V onwards. They were crazily inbred and examining the family tree is absolutely fascinating. I can't find many people with whom to discuss this interest, however. Other long term interests include: singing, cats, comedy (usually have a specific programme as an obsession), Myers-Briggs, string quartets, finding connects between languages, maps, the composer Dmitry Shostakovich. Oh, and autism, of course.
I am more into English history, but I listen to TH-cam videos on historical figures from time to time and it is super interesting to learn about the Habsburgs. I know there are two Habsburg lines and I found the story of Isabella of Aragon very interesting. She was declared mad so that her husband and father could control the Crown of Castille. Also she was the older sister of Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII of England.
@@zaraandrews600 Isabella's sister, Joanna, was the famously mad one, but Isabella had a pretty bad time, too. I'm also interested in the offshoots of the two Habsburg lines, particularly after the death of Charles II of Spain (the most famous Habsburg of all). The houses of Two-Sicilies and Bourbon came from the Habsburgs and were also crazily inbred. Isabella II of Spain's family tree is unbelievable!
i like the Mr Ballen channel for true crime, he actually has a charity that helps victims and he focuses more on them and who they were/are. for me, i think of it as a way to honour the victims, a way for them to be heard and their pain to be witnessed. As someone who's spent most of their life in a bad situation (still in one) having someone acknowledge it and also seeing that validation the other way around of "that's not ok, you shouldn't have to go through that" can be a bit therapeutic. honestly it was funny with the juggling i was like "learning about or doing?" and then you asked on the violent crime one XD generally, some of my special interests have been (in no order because of ADHD): Nature/animals campng book/animated series (occasionally live-action series)/games visual and literary art (because it's all art but people don't always include writing as art) martial arts and some related things like swords supernatural/paranormal Religions/myth Languages/culture/history a little bit of space cooking psychology autism of course/disability stuff in general queer facts especially like how being trans works because i am and people don't understand it so i gotta explain somehow occasionally people sometimes music maybe, i'm not as big on the details of music as much as "i love this" with alot of things there will be a specific part of it i focus on like with space i might hyperfocus on just Saturn or with music i might play a set of songs over and over to learn all the words or even watch a music video, which is unusual, but probably won't learn the names of the band members. same with reading, i might hyperfocus on a book but it's rare i'll know any details of the author's life.
I feel I must defend myself by saying fires and building collapses are a TOP TIER special interest. Beyond that I love engineering/industrial disasters in general e.g plane crashes, train wrecks, bridge collapses, dam faliures, nuclear accidents, chemical spills, shipwrecks and a variety of other wholesome kid friendly topics.
One of my more morbid fascinations: When the Germanwings pilot intentionally flew a plane into the side of a mountain in 2016 I became obsessed with plane crashes and near accidents as well as the physics of how planes fly, a planes instruments and the procedure during instrument failure. It lasted for about 2 years (AuDHD here) and I learnt so many interesting things
Lately, I've found stock sound effects as a special interest, and honestly speaking it's more of a funny curse. I could be enjoying a film quite nicely, then they use a sound effect I've heard in a few other things and I always pick up on it. Every. Time.
My special interests are usually characters. Once I find one I like it’s over for me, they’re in my brain forever. My hyper fixation with Grell from black butler went at its peak for like three years and they are still a beloved character in my mind forever to be honest, so many of my favourite characters now are just ones that remind me of her a little. I have a few that are general though like: dog food (don’t ask I don’t have a dog I just love them and work in a pet store so I became hyper focused on learning all about them bc it’s so interesting to me), hamsters, bats, horror movies, Halloween, the color purple and cruptids. Purple is my favourite hyper fixation but it’s the one that annoys people about me the most. I’ve had people say shit to me like “I like purple too I’m just normal about it” and it hurts my soul. Idk why I like it, there’s nothing to research on it so it’s not interesting but I guess my interest is actually collecting purple things and being surrounded by them. Specifically a blue toned lavender purple. Whenever I am holding something of that color my entire mood is better which is fun for me because I can easily surround myself with joy. There’s nothing wrong with loving something wholeheartedly and shamelessly even if it’s just something small like a color 💜💜💜
I'm really interested in behind-the-scenes stuff, such as outtakes from movies and TV shows, seeing how things were programmed in games, seeing what parts of live-action media were added in post, that sort of thing. It adds to the magic for me, rather than taking away from it, as it does for many people.
Stationary! I used to buy so many notebooks, sketchbooks, different formatted paper, (i write and draw and I want go scrapbook and journal too). So many pens. I was not be able to walk through the office section without buying pens, pencils when I started having my own money. Its died down bc I noticed that I have enough, but collecting is fun. I also collect dice, card decks (52 and tarot decks), minuture things.
The juggling stuff is giving me war flashbacks lol. In middle school one of our teachers created a "circus club" for some of the students. The first thing he tried to do was to teach us how to juggle with two balls. Most of the students got it after the second session, maybe third if they really struggled, and then they went on to learn with 3 or 4 balls. What about me? Well... after training every week for nearly a year, i kept being unable to do it with 2 balls, constantly dropping it on the ground. The teachers and students were puzzled. After a while they thought I was doing it on purpose lol. I say that laughing now but omg i was so badly embarrassed at the time. 😂
ICT which is word document, PowerPoint presentations, excel spreadsheets, making websites, blender where you make your 3d animation and stuff like that is my favourite
My special interest in high school was Jack the Ripper. I took a forensic science class and we had to profile him. Mine matched the one from the FBI. For the longest time I wanted to study serial killers in college & grad school. Still kinda do. Have a friend who studies historical crimes.
I think one of my first special interests was crime, but only fictional stuff. I am super into Nancy Drew. I also get hyperfixated into games with that same thing. For example I have played nearly all of the free games from Hiku Games, which are Adventure Escape Mysteries.
I'm here to defend the mushrooms! you'd be amazed how crazy and mindblowing mycology is, you'd get it and rank it higher for sure if you knew all the cool facts I know 🤣 now I'm heading back to the video!
Chemistry was my first interest, and then math, and now philosophy... I realize the 'other minds' problem, and the circular nature of language association. Making the epistemology of meta cognition, experience of phenomenology, and the conventions inherent to pragmatism the only real way to keep language use rich enough, through rigorous definitions, to be meaningfully shareable.
As always, you are of course free to engage in any interests you like, as long as you’re not hurting anyone!!! 😂I hope that these silly little videos are a celebration of how autistic special interests can be anything at all! It’s all about the intensity of focus and not the topic.
Thank you for sending these in! I’m sure I’ll make another one soon 💛
For now, if you missed the last one, here it is:
Tier Ranking Autistic Special Interests!: th-cam.com/video/MvId9CFepf0/w-d-xo.html
And you might like last week’s video…
The Best Theory of Autism you've probably NEVER heard of...: th-cam.com/video/3mBbOOzhoGQ/w-d-xo.html
If all goes to plan, I may be posting an extra video this week with a little announcement! As always, thank you for being here 💛
Next one you should probably add Vtubers because a LOT of decently popular vtubers seem to be neurodivergent themselves.
Most famously Haruka Karibu of VShojo is openlyu autistic and many smaller vtubers have casually referenced being neurodivergent in their videos (two thatI remember mentioning it in their shorts are VReverie's Lilrya Prisvielle and Cheri Lupina).
8:55 - it could be a colored crayon? it seems crayon-ish, at least! (and the rubber doesn't look like a pen rubber to me, but maybe there are ones that look like that)
I have a bunch of special interests: Tornadoes, North Korea, chilli peppers (as in the fruit/plant), liminal spaces, Spongebob, the list goes on
my special ontrests are, fallout(the game), fallout shelter, fallout (the series), The Walking Dead, manga, reading, editing, drawing
"autism has become a common special interest in autistic people"
*maybe the real autism was the friends we made along the way*
I just wish that people would know more about autism. Especially psychiatrists and psychologists. I often feel like I need to educate them on that matter and still they rarely listen.
LOL, and just when I thought that particular joke was getting old.
@@SmallSpoonBrigadeIt never will 😜
*Maybe the real autism was the friends we made along the way and then only communicated with by text for the rest of our lives because talking on the phone is actually Satan.
Amber: Well, that makes sense. It's really the only interest that we are likely to have.
Steve is interested in1970s superhero comic books. Dale likes to talk about cars. Cindy likes everything related to cats. Sheila likes make-up. Andrew is spiritual, he knows everything about every sect of every religion. Lucy loved stuffed animals. Stan aspires to be a writer. He started researching for a book he planned to write, set in the American Civil War. Ten years later, he never started writing the novel, but he sure knows a lot about the American Civil War. Alexandra is a leftist. She can tell you about every communist, Socialist and Anarchist groups from the 18th century to the present day. And Linda is into computers.
If these people meet at an autistic meet at, they may have no interests in common, except for one. Autism itself. So that is what it would make the most sense for them to talk about.
I'm sure someone has thought of this before, but we need special-interest fairs -- similar to a school science fair but for autistic people who are looking for a new special interest to come and learn about other autistic people's special interests and maybe come away with inspiration and/or newfound knowledge and interest!
LOVE THAT!
My university has these!! I’m gutted because I missed the last one, but I think it’s so cool that they exist
GENIUS UR A GENIUS
Omg yes yes yes yes!!!!! I love learning about other peoples special interests and info dumping mine
Oh my God, I want to share my special interests with people 😂 The people at the fair are actually there to hear about and experience different special interests, so it'd take away some of the nervous fear that I'm talking too much, lol!
At one point my daughters' special interest were the Nazis (no, she didn't want to become one): the power dynamics, the organizational aspects, how they came into office etc. She read every single book I had about them + a bunch more. So, as a result you got a 14 year old girl with a very profound knowledge of the subject.
Now, imagine you being a history teacher and you're going to talk about the interbellum in Germany...
yep, I had some explaining to do (next to advising her not to info-dump at school).
Oh my gosh that's such a cool interest! I had a similar one - the Holocaust. I have so many books about it.
@@aaausername for me it started with Maus by Art spiegelman. The only reason I got those books from the library is because my mother didn't understand that it was an adult story because it was in a graphic novel format.
@@Authentistic-ism I know that book - I haven't read it though because I'm not really into graphic novels.
I think folks with a special interest in the Holocaust and related topics can be great helpers in the community by sounding the alarm for the rest of us when something is heading in the wrong direction. Like pointing out similarities in the past patterns and ones they're observing in present day.
Personally, it would be too dark of a special interest for me because I am wired to be haunted indefinitely - vivid visualizer. So I rely on folks with stronger stomachs to teach me about their interests. And I know if they're neurospicy and have researched accordingly, they're trustworthy! 🤓 🫶🏻
@@jmaessen3531the people that point out the similarities now seem to end up demonized for comparing much less grimm situations to the holocaust.
Every so often, I will be analyzing something I did, or trying to process feelings, and I'll be asking myself, "what the fuck is that?" And then, like a lightbulb exploding, I'll realize, "oh, yeah, that's Autism right there."
I mean, for Autistic people, is Autism really a special interest, or are we just each writing ourselves a user manual for our brains? I mean, we all kinda go insane before we realize we're Autistic, trying to cope. You have to research it just to survive.
That is so relatable, it was the 'tism all along. *smacks forehead a la "could've had a V8*
@@amasterofone
Me at 11:00pm: "I'm so tired, time to sleep."
My Phone: **Ambiguous txt from an NT**
My Brain: "Uh-oh, what does that mean? Hey, here's a bunch of weird feelings you can't identify and don't know what to do with. Make sure you react correctly, or you'll look creepy! Have fuuuun!"
Me at 04:00am: 😡
@@dmgroberts5471 yuuup thanks brain 🧠 😖
Yup
Went crazy
Total breakdown.
Told myself it can't be normal maybe I've got a problem.
Did excessive research.
Found out everything made sense.
@@zacrintoul Welcome to Logic's chosen people.
"You can commit martial arts and juggling, but dont commit violent crimes"
I can see the merch now
I am autistic and my special interest is mushrooms. Despite not liking the texture of most of them, I am more intrigued by the scientific aspects of them. They are such complex organisms and there are currently over 100000 species discovered and many not discovered yet. I didn't think that anyone else would mention them being a special interest, so this made me exited. :)
That's so amazing!! I went down a bit of a rabbit hole looking into poisonous mushrooms after filming this video 😅
mycologist groups are fun, and most new species are nowaday are first discovered by enthusiasts too!
i remember a guy presenting his newly discovered truffle species.
my family is big into wild mushrooms... my grandfather was the one who pulled us in, never considered it could be his special interest.
MUSH!ROOOM
I can't eat them, eeewww! But they are super cool.
I've had a special interest in the Holocaust since I was six, and to be fair it did cause a lot of trauma. I had lasting nightmares for a really long time, and many teachers in elementary school had to censor my history projects because they didn't want fourth-grade parents attacking them, which is totally fair, but I was more than a little dismayed. I think the context of the special interest is important. I come from a Jewish family and the Holocaust was something extremely relevant to my family dynamic. The Holocaust special interest was (and still is) a way for me to try and understand the dark side of human nature. It's lately transformed into a genealogy obsession where I chronicle my family tree dating back many, many generations, which my family has happily supported because it gives them the information they otherwise wouldn't have known, ie my grandparents' grandparents, immigration dates, translations of letters that we previously didn't understand, etc. In conclusion, I think that the context is really necessary. I get enjoyment out of gaining understanding, and I get that understanding through a special interest in the Holocaust, I think that is different than just enjoying a genocidal event.
Thank you so much for sharing this! 💛
People can be fascinated with something without enjoying it.
I had this special interest too even though I am not Jewish and I don't even live near Europe. I found it fascinating hearing peoples stories and reading books about it. Of course it is a very destressing topic and I certainly didn't enjoy it in that sense. I found it interesting and confusing how humans can be such horrible people but also how people can survive such atrocities. Humanity and human nature is so confusing, it give me a headache.
Even though we are not Jewish my special interest in the Holocaust was coming from feeling of being discriminated in marginalized for the first time. It was before I knew I was autistic but I was learning that I was lgbtq and I was learning that my people were being genocided for that reason and others. Later in life I would learn that I fit under more categories and would have been genocide victim myself if I had lived during that time. It was my first exposure to how dark people can be and I think my fascination with it provided some resiliency for coping with the real darkness I would personally experience later
I’m very happy to one of my current top special interests getting some attention. I’m also very happy to see other people also partaking in the Holocaust special interest. I personally am fascinated with how we can make sure it doesn’t happen again. The media has sneaky ways of sowing eugenicist ideas into people without them even realizing.
For me I would look at ‘violent crime’ for the psychology of it. Not the actual crime itself. One of my special interests is to try to understand people on different levels. I know it is a pretty broad subject.
Interesting fact: I am in the process of earning a psychology degree so that I can eventually promote alternative, scientifically-backed therapies aimed at autistic adults. Psychedelic Assisted Psychotherapy will be part of the research. Being autistic myself, no other classification of substances has helped me more.
Never, ever take a psychedelic from someone you "vaguely" know, nor around people who give you bad vibes.
Set and setting ❤
I love psychedelics! When I went on acid for the first time, I was in a depressive state. I couldn't see beauty in the world. During the trip, I saw the shifting and melting prism of rainbow, and it was so beautiful it made me cry. Afterwards, I could see beauty again. 💜
@@ambriasaunders1869 On my first trip I went to a hibachi japanese grill and ordered the most outrageous piece of sushi on the menu. When I got it I couldn't stop staring--I didn't eat but maybe two pieces and took the rest home... to look at.
The sushi "evolved" like a living creature, going through cycles of life and death, each time configuring itself in a new pattern only to inevitably die again. You know those videos they do of underwater coral reefs dying and speed them up? It looked basically like that, but in reverse.
Only of the best parts of the whole experiene, I think, is the "afterwards." The "afterglow" that many of us get is why microdosing has so much mental health potential.
WOW, that's cool. I would love to try psychedelics one day, for my autism and out of curiosity.
Couldn't agree more my friend... If there ever was a "cure" for autism (As in a cure for the bad stuff Autism causes and an enhancer for the good stuff it causes) it's 100% Psilocybin. This will change your life, no joke.
(But don't just take it, make sure you hyperfocus like crazy about learning everything about it before you take it lol)
I also have Autism as special interest. I research it for 14 months now since I realized i am autistic. I buy 1 - 3 books a month from autistic authors or books recommended by autistic people. I have 34 autistic youtube channels , not all are active but still. I read about autism on quora. I follow 40 autistic tik tokers I have my own experiences and memories. My brother and grandma are autistic. And I just cannot stop learning 😅
Which TH-camrs would you recommend? 🙂
I honestly view this less as a conventional interest and more of what we need to do to understand ourselves.
@@kylecope528Yeah, we want to know about ourselves but we often take it farther than that. I have read 10 books on autism and watched over 1000 TH-cam videos about it.
Yes, I agree. For me it is conventional too, but DSM5 with its restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus - would disagree. So it depends on point of view i think. And i think lots of autistic people understand what i meant when said it is my special interest.@@kylecope528
You can try Jenny Aspie,WoodshedTheory,Dana Andersen,I am MindBlind@@piiinkDeluxe
Do you think you'd be interested in doing a tierlist based on reactions people have heard after saying they're autistic? The higher tiers could be for ones that are supportive, middle tiers could be for ones that are silly/ignorant but ultimately harmless, and the lowest tier could be for ones that are plain ableist
That's an amazing idea!! I'll add it to my list 😁
"You can't be autistic you have empathy" blergh argh simultaneously one of the nicer and most brutal comments
@@Skittenmeow I had a therapist tell me that. ....actually two....
@@UnmaskingElysium I've heard it a few times, and the discomfort never quite goes away
Scripted reply, "Oh my. You really should educate yourself before saying such things." Let's Google it.
A special interest I had as a kid was sharks! They are so diverse and there physiology is so interesting. I love their tooth-like scales, their multiple rows of teeth, how they swim through the water so gracefully, and I learned in college that some species have parts of their body that are warm-blooded (eyes and brain)!
And sharks are very much misunderstood by many humans.
I was both terrified of and obsessed with insects.
I don't mean that I was freaked out when I saw a bug. It was much weirder than that. I imagined huge insects, or organized groups of insects, attacking me. I imagined that humans would learn to mick human behavior and lay eggs in them. Or that they would take over human society. Yea, it was weird. But I learned a lot about them.
Yep ex volunteer fire fighter here and got super into it for a while as it was a community service so there was no 'shame' in having that special interest. It even led to a career change for me! Also Meg IS the sorting algorithm for Autistic Special Interests.
Agreed! Haha Meg you're like the sorting hat, only far more pleasant and funny! 🎉
Haha! Noticed that she was actually working a sorting algorithm in this video too!!!
Skateboarding and snowboarding are amazing special interests if proper support are given for safety. Incredible social and physical benefits.
If I wasn't such a wimp, I'm sure they would be! 😂
🤩 i would LOVE to learn!
I’ve been wanting to snowboard for ages!
Skateboarding happens to be one of my alongside punk rock and heavy metal music although skateboarding for me crosses over pretty closely with the TV show Jackass so I don't tend to take a lot of interest in the safety side of it honestly the injuries are one of the more fun parts of extreme sports because if you film it it can be pretty funny to laugh at when you're feeling better or even just recovering
I'm heavily into futurism and cyberpunk. I'm fascinated by societal development and I'm surprisingly good at predicting political/technological events nearly a decade in the future. It's all repetitive paterns, if you know enough general information you can see where this is going, like a car crash in slow motion...
Please find a place to unapologetically infodump this to the world (if you want to of course) I feel like you could really help humanity out.
The violent crime thing, I feel like the genre of true crime is manipultive, I like learning about it as a news story not sensationalized. But as far as dark events, I got into shipwreck stories a couple months ago. There are a couple youtube channels that go onto detail on them, like the Titantic, thats where it started, but then I learned about other ship wrecks from different eras. Fires, ships hitting each other, some were quick, some were long, I learned about a cruise thay was stuck at sea for almost two weeks and they had no running water, but gave everyone free alcohol. Then that turned into airplane tradegies and I noticed that people tend to not survive those, so it was started to become bleak. Then youtube tried to get me to watch aboug bus crashes, started with a school bus, and I decided the weeks-long rabbit hole was too morbid for me.
But yea that was a time when I temporarily only listening to shipwrecks, which I remembered bc you mentioned violent crime.
Edit: left this mostly unedited to show my autism while mildly hungover brain expressing-thing. Idk.
My special interest is horror but more specifically a sub genre called body horror. Basically horror that involves the body changing or deteriorating against the characters will.
Body horror is great!
That sounds to scary for me but good for you
Franken Fran has the tism rizz.
heh i'm interested in most other horrors but are very much avoiding body horror cause i can't stop my mind from imagining it on myself O.o
Cronenberg is an endless source of Joy.
I was formally diagnosed on Thursday morning this week. Your videos have been funny, interesting, educational and cathartic. Thank you, Meg. 😊
Congratulations on your diagnosis!! 💛 I'm so glad I could help a little 😊
Congratulations.
I had my assessment two weeks ago tomorrow and I'm still waiting to hear the results! Fingers crossed that I'll hear tomorrow.
@@imautisticnowwhatThank you. I’m now laughing hysterically 😂 at ‘chubby tv’ so thanks for that.
@@jamesedmonds7519Thank you! Fingers crossed for you. I’ll let you know if there is cake when I find it.
I'm autistic and my special interest is classical music, specifically the violin family of instruments. I'm currently at school to learn how to make them. I've been playing violin for 16 years and now I'm back at school learning how to make them.
That sounds so cool! Both my parents are classical musicians, my dad plays trombone and my mum french horn. Unfortunately I got none of their musical talent, but I have always really wanted to learn the violin.
some special interests:
Godzilla
Physics/Astronomy
Linguistics
Dinosaurs/Paleontology
Anthropology
Linguistics YES!
Omg I love anthropology!!
I have 2 main current special interests.
Rainbow High dolls (over all dolls, but specifically RH right now. Dressing them, photographing them. Creating stop motion videos. Playing out social situations I don't understand to try and understand)
And the Bible. Went to college for it and everything. Ouu currently specifically interested in Revelations.
Reading and Muusic Theory are my two persistent special interests. I also quite enjoy spreadsheets and making little programs on them. Either data sorters or bingo cards. Small stuff like that.
Imo the most interesting part of music theory is tuning systems, which is one of my special interests. There is so much to learn about, including historical tuning systems, non western tuning systems, non standard tuning systems (eg. 31TET), the harmonic series, chords in non standard tuning systems (eg. Harmonic sevenths), autotune, the philosophy around tuning systems, concert pitch, etc.
Yes, tuning systems, @@itdepends604 I'm neurotypical but some neurotypical people do some of the things autistic people do, and I have special interests. I lived in India for a year as a teenager and when I came home I thought the piano was out of tune. I had been playing the sitar for a year (at first I thought it was out of tune, but then I got used to it). Turns out my ears had adjusted to Just Intonation. I still loved playing the piano though, so I learned about Werckmeister III and the history of tuning. So interesting and understudied! Also thinking about the 1980s when bands tried replacing orchestras with synthesizers and it mostly didn't work because the synths were all equal tempered!
I'm undiagnosed but I juggle!!!!!!! I have always been super clumsy and derpy but I have tons of interests and a lot of them have very much improved that a ton - like stuff just jumps out of my hands but now like 8 times out of ten I catch whatever it is x'D
I also did lots of rock climbing, kayaking and owned a small boat that I had to climb out awkwardly onto the side to get to the front for helping with docking and while I was absolutely shitting myself a lot of the time but had to do it and I'm much more aware of my body in space than I used to be and actually feel like I move kinda cool now and am very proud of it :'D
I'm just commenting as I watch I guess but I have always felt amazing in stationery shops, there's something about stationery that really tickles my brain just right, I have tons and tons of notebooks and a lot of them are actually full like I have ones for lyrics and ones for trying desperately to organise my life and ones that are just full of like, automatic scribblings from that time I kinda lost my mind a little
Kayaking is not a special interest but it is so much fun!
my special interest, aside from autism itself, is kpop! I think its a fairly common special interests, and a lot of the other autistic kpop fans i know agree its very special-interest-able, i guess. It's quite appealing to autistics lol. The albums and photocards are very collectable, and within kpop i guess its more normal to know a lot more details about the idols themselves than perhaps it is in the west 😅I have my own album collection, i'm trying to collect at least one version of each album by TXT (my favourite group), and i'm currently only missing out on one, soon to be two cause they're releasing a new one soon. It's certainly an expensive special interest to have, but its super fun!
in conjunction with kpop i also have interests in wider korean society and especially the language cause i also happen to be super interested in languages and linguistics so all my interests happen to converge very well!
I really like this channel. I was recently diagnosed at age 34, and, naturally, I went into a rabbit hole of content about autism. Some channels get into much more serious topics, which is ok. There are a lot of important discussions about autism. But this channel is more like a really cute little place just to be ourselves and celebrate what makes us who we are. I really needed something like this and I thank you for it.
Thank you so much for this feedback! It's so lovely to hear that 💛
I spent 4 hours learning how to solve a rubiks cube and now I'm a pro speedcuber and I got 10th at my last competition.Edit:yes I'm Autistic btw
My special interests are cultures, mechanics, languages, and animals. I have avoided exploring them much due to poor self esteem and it seeming overwhelming, and the fact that when I get excited I lose the breathing contest. (I need gentle reminders that I'm not breathing.) I have decided to not avoid my special interests any more, though I am def procrastinating ok diving fully into any of them. And sorting things/making lists, love it! It doesn't have to be useful even I just like the task of sorting/lists that are just engaging enough to not get totally lost in memories, but doesn't require so much attention that I can't think clearly.
So, I’m diagnosed ADHD but highly suspect autism is in there too.
I can definitely see martial arts being a special interest. There’s aspects of history, kind of maps onto interests in anime or other media, and for me, I can really struggle to like…move my body when I have to actually think about the movements. But once I know the movements so well that I don’t have to think about it anymore, then I can be shockingly coordinated and I feel a deep sense of calm when I can fall into it the movements.
For me, that is playing guitar. I can never imagine myself like…playing guitar for other people. That isn’t what it is about for me. It’s more a kind of “socially acceptable stimming” for me. (Like, “oh David is just practicing guitar” by playing loops of three chords I think sound nice together…for like an hour. I learned to mask very early. I was bullied literally all the way back to my earliest memories at daycare. So…I learned to keep my stimming to things I saw other people doing. Like my dad bounces his leg when he is just sitting there and I copied that and do it when I’m bored in public). The funny thing is that I also have a special interest in music theory…but that feels totally different from playing music.
For me, I think the special interest in true crime is something slightly different than the popular interest in true crime. A lot of neurotypicals seem to really get a sense of satisfaction from feeling superior to criminals and thinking of the terrible ways they should be punished…but for me, I am fascinated by the ways brains can be different. So I have an interest in the “big names” of true crime but I get really put off when people do videos or documentaries about like…someone who had a falling out with their spouse and do violence on them. That is just using a tragedy for entertainment because…even though we like to think differently, we are all capable of things we regret when we are pushed over the edge and it feels wrong to use someone’s death as entertainment.
But Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, etc…I don’t like hearing so much about their actual crimes, I am just fascinated by the way their brains circled in on this compulsion and how it all seemed to come from different places for the different “bjg names”.
I go into the Holocaust after discovering all about it at age 12. As a special interest it blossomed for me and I was too young to understand the social cue that sharing about it was inappropriate. I got in trouble a lot for even trying to get more books about of the material. I understand now as an adult, but at the time it was just impossible to ignore my first history lesson about genocide. It was just impossible to tear my brain away from it for a very long time. I don't think the adults around me understood the degree to which I was processing a lot about Humanity in that one interest.
Same oh my gosh, I started becoming interested in it around the same age.
@@aaausername there's a few of us like this apparently! My theory is that learning about the Holocaust awakened some feelings about being marginalized before we knew we were autistic
@@aaausernameIt seems like we all became interested in the Holocaust at age 12. Makes sense because that’s when they taught it in my school.
@@cyan_the_uranian for me I probably started getting into it because that's when I could finally read properly. I'm dyslexic so I couldn't read until I was 10.
Musical Theatre 🎭 has been a special interest since I was a child and is still one of my favorites topics to this day! 😆🎤🎶🎵
I think mushrooms as a special interest would be more like learning to identify the edible ones and foraging, which I think I could totally get into.
My special interest is geology! I love collecting rocks and reading about geological formations.
Same here! It's very interesting, with the history and the diversity of the different rocks!
@@jam5533 I love volcanoes! Also igneous and metamorphic rocks. I also know a fair bit about freshwater features and their geology, plus caves. I’ll be learning more about fault lines this year, which I’m excited for.
@@dr-amethyst-77 Awesome!
Volcanos are a minor special interest for me.
I had psilocybin mushrooms before knowing that I'm autistic, it was really intense: roller coaster between having fun moving unconventional body parts, experiencing color patterns, sensory overload, confronting childhood trauma and insecurities that even I tried to hide it from myself while it displayed in outer space setting with fractals, then coming down from the trip I found a new way to apply a newly learned music theory on the guitar. And that's also the first time I experience music having taste, images have sounds.
The next day after the trip I wrote an essay about the profound confrontation and that has been a very helpful tool to deal with trauma with or without mushrooms later on: Revisiting my child self during the event of trauma and explained to my child self about the things like a caring figure.
I recommend only try it first time when you have a "trip sitter" a person who had experiences with mushrooms both the highs and lows and is someone you trust, knows you, and knows what to do if an overload or a bad experience is happening. The location and your emotional state also has a lot of impact.
I've had different special interests at different times. At the moment, it's literary science fiction, for a long time it's been Irish mythology and early literature (got a Masters), fire-dancing (with poi, and choreographing). Every now and then, I get madly into learning a language (Welsh, Swahili, Arabic, British Sign Language, Irish Sign Language). The ADHD side of the brain lets me down though! Well, I recognise it's both the Autistic and ADHD sides competing to push me in various directions. I've never been any good at doing one thing at a time - if I'm in a productive phase, I usually have 4 or 5 projects on the go. Then burnout and all my time is watching TH-cam! Thanks for your channel, Meg, really enjoying it!
I completely understand! I have tried learning Latin, Old English, Old Norse, Spanish and Thai (not all at the same time). I am super interested for a while, but then I will have a bump with my mental health and it will fall apart.
Also really well done on the Masters! I know they are really hard work from my own experience. They are difficult for anyone, but adding autism and ADHD I found it really overwhelming. I got a Postgraduate Certificate instead, but I want to go back eventually to finish it.
@@zaraandrews600 Thanks. I got a kind of free pass at uni because I'm also visually impaired, so managed to never hand in an assignment on time and repeatedly deferred exams! I'd love to do a PhD, but I know so many disabled and ND people who got totally burned out trying to do a PhD with no appropriate supports whatsoever. I was really lucky with my Masters, partly because I had a scholarship, but mostly because my department head was amazing and a big supporter.
My head canon is that the devil horns Megan wore for her “evil autism” video rubbed off on her and that’s why she’s more comfortable ranking special interests lower now /J
😈
@@imautisticnowwhat
I got such a special interest in meditation that I found an Tantric Buddhist yogi guru, can discuss Tibetan Buddhist meditation systems in detail and have been keeping up practicing for two decades now.
Some time ago I finally understood that I am likely rather autistic.
Genealogy (family history), collecting 1980's G.I. Joe toys, RPG games, closed adoption trauma.
shoutout to the special interest autistics who love something but dont know many big facts. I love frogs myself and I have a whole collection of frog items and plushies even though all I can tell you about is that frogs are funny and silly and cute :)
I personally usually know big facts but i feel like its not known enough that autistic people can just like something and not know basically everything about it and that's probably because the representation
@@heymoondogs yeah exactly!! sometimes I just really *really* love a thing a lot and I wanna look at it a lot and stuff but sometimes my knowledge is just small! Doesnt mean I don't like it any less
You can like the shape and idea of them but not care about all the facts.
About watching true crime - I get frustrated with people attempting to ascribe an "ethical" dimension to it. I think it is about being able to understand something which otherwise is not possible to see or get close enough to to understand. Why does violent crime happen? What is it "like"? I experienced the same with watching war footage from Ukraine. Not only is it important to be informed and engaged about the genocide being waged on Ukraine in general, but also, this is the first time war has been filmed at such a granular level. In the first year I found myself watching a lot of semi- explicit combat footage in an attempt to understand something that otherwise was to dangerous and shrouded in mystery to understand. After a while I felt I had constructed an honest picture of war, and don't watch many of these now. But it is frustrating at how heavy handed censorship of these materials is, or how judgmental people are about crime shows. They are literally things which are happening in the world, and I have a right to look in their general direction with out being painted as a morbid thrill seeker taking pleasure in other people's pain. That said there definitely are such people, who fetishize dark content to feed something dark in themselves, but I don't think that is the majority of true crime viewers. It sometimes feels like it isn't possible to have any thought with out people clamoring to judge how ethical it is.
I really, really appreciate your perspective and can definitely relate to it some. Thanks so much for your comment!
I get what you say. I just ted to write them off because of my hypersensibility; that and the glorification of police...
I have to admit, I checked back I to this comment, which I don't normally do, because I suddenly became afraid I was going to get booed and I realized, I like you guys and don't want to get booed, but instead I found your comment. So I just wanted to say this is a beautiful community we have here, where different points of view are considered:)
@@eliannafreely5725 I'm so glad you were pleasantly surprised! More of that for you~ :)
mine is sea slugs, i highly highly recommend looking up pictures they are so cool looking and so interesting! theyre one of the most biodiverse kinds of animals in terms of body forms, colors, etc. there are kinds of sea slugs that can photosynthesize by stealing chloroplasts (kleptoplasty) from the algae they eat!! some also steal the stinging cells from their food source, theyre like the kirby of the animal kingdom :)
They are beautiful!
Oh my gosh yes! This isn't one of my special interests but I made a clay plate with a sea slug on it and everyone was so confused why I was doing a sea slug but it's because they are amazing!
Kleptoplasty is so cool! It reminds me of the theory that mitochondria and chloroplasts were originally their own organisms before they migrated into cells and were adopted as part of the plant and animal cell.
I like cuttlefish. They're so cool. I want to cuddle a cuttlefish lol
I think allistic people exaggerate how dangerous things are because otherwise they would get no response from other allistic people. Meanwhile, autistic people hear those exaggerations and become ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIED that we are approaching THE MOMENT OF DOOM where we are going to die from this new thing that we as individual autistic people had never considered before. This goes for warnings about disasters, the things doctors say to you, the things parents say to you, et cetera.
I can relate to this. It's only been in the last year or two, since I realized I had ADHD, that it sunk into me that my lifelong persistent fear response/fight or flight/anxiety effectively acted as a moderating factor for my inattentiveness. But while it kept me from losing crucial things, and certainly kept me from being a risk taking ADHDer, keeping an eye on everything also fed my hypervigilant predisposition. The pisser is that I think it takes outright fear to keep me semi attentive. I gather neurotypical people may be able to say to themselves "gee, remember not to lock your keys in your car" without a jot of anxiety to motivate them. I need the fear to keep me alert, but my nervous system has paid a high price. I have MOMENT OF DOOM left and right now.
The weird thing is, my mother (who had anxiety, and probably gave it to me prenatally) trained me to fear what I didn't/couldn't see coming. I realize now she saw my father's inattention in me (he had to have been AuDHD), and was undoubtedly triply terrified of her kid being careless and killing himself by accident. It was an easy skill for her to teach me, as it came naturally to her. I'm not too sure she realized I shared her predisposition, and took the lessons way too much to heart. A few things she said make me think she never realized I did.
one of my special interest is jewelry making. cutting gems is such a satisfying geometric process, and i can spend 12h straight on my workbench hammering copper, polishing stone or nacre, carving wood and bone...i just wish i had more tools and more room
One of the most ethical dilemmery special interests for me is 9/11 and it’s one of those that I just don’t talk about it to anyone because of the ethics around it. Like it’s about the times that everything happened, I don’t want to know the terribly bad stuff, just the times that the main important things happened.
I hate that I have that special interest, but it’s there and I try to be as respectful as possible all of the time.
Amphibians. I keep various frogs and toads as pets all originating from different countries, I go out and rescue toads from being run over during breeding season. Everything is 'frog' in my house. They are so interesting (and some of them are cute as) 😊
Whoever put sorting algorithms in there, you NEEEED this book called Algorithms To Live By. It's got a whole chapter on sorting algorithms and how to use them practically irl. The book's focus is about how computer algorithms and compsci have everyday analogs (explore/exploit: should you go to a known favorite restaurant or try a new one?) and also analogs to other things in science, like crystal annealing and amino acid composition.
I get way too excited about this book and also I think it's very funny in an extremely nerdy way-I love that the premise seems so intensely silly and yet I, personally, find the advice useful, because I too am nerdy and silly 😂
I think and problem solve in metaphors and analogies a lot. I love finding the similarities in structure between different systems and pieces of information. It's a little like tangible math. Or from one of the other special interests videos, the thing about collectibles being the "same item but a different color"-reading about someone's planning the seating chart at their wedding being analogous to their thesis work on amino acids and borrowing the algorithm real quick to solve the seating chart thing is like "same problem different color" to me and it delights me 😂❤
(I also love parallel structure in character arcs in literature, or exploration of themes through character foils and contrasting examples, and the use of callbacks or repeated phrases in fiction, and okay so maybe analogies are my special interest a little bit lololol)
I like martial arts.
One day after college it was useful to dodge someone who was trying to like tackle me in a subtle way (crazy people at street, idk).
Then a couple of years ago in a bar there was a guy trying to taunt me and I just ignored him for 30 minutes, maybe more. Then he got mad and came to me, kicked my chair, I grabbed his leg at the place and yelled at security (again, crazy people. I hate Mexico...)
I wasn't violent in both cases, and it helped me to react in a subtle but effective way.
Bonus, martial arts come with philosophy. So the mind is as important as the body.
Love this!! It's certainly a handy skill to have. Wish you hadn't had to fight off so many crazy people though 😩
@@imautisticnowwhat I didn't have to fight. That is also key. You can choose your battles (I didn't have to fight so I just used a fraction of the skill to avoid conflict). Actually I feel good because I was able to avoid violence.
@@RIFADOR001sorry - my reply was badly worded 😂 I’m glad you have a non-violent way to protect yourself 💛
my special interest is textiles and fiber arts. like as a whole. it started with crochet and the rabbit hole is extremely deep.
My special interest is the English language. I don't speak it natively, but I try to keep learning new words and getting better at understanding spoken English.
The really nice thing about having a language as a special interest is that it can be engaged with passively - all I have to do is set my devices' UI to English, read books in English, watch videos in English, play games in English, or listen to music with English lyrics. All of these are nice activities on their own, but adding the English component to them just makes them extra nice to me.
You're English is probably better than mine...and that's pretty much all I speak apart from a little Indonesian.
@@aaausername It probably is, but that's what 30 years of genuine interest in something does - you get good at it. It took a long time to suppress my instinct to correct other people's grammar and spelling, as I learned they're usually not receptive to it :)
I have rather obscure special interests in colour and form, the two subjects being inextricably linked.
In particular, my interest is mainly focused on the causes of colour in biological and mineralogical substances but also including manufactured media.
It goes hand in hand with a special interest in optical phenomena, specifically optical phenomena associated with gem materials like sapphires, opals, pearls and even butterfly wings.
It's one of those things that most people wouldn't give much thought to, yet, I find that it's a very interesting subject with lots of info to acquire to satisfy my curiosity.
I had a sorting algorithm phase and I can see how reading about what it is can make it seem INCREDIBLY boring. Trust me, you need to watch a sorting algorithm video to understand, it's so much fun. However, BE WARNED that they can be a bit of an eyestrain so DO NOT watch them if you have photosensitive epilepsy or are otherwise sensitive to flashing lights or stripes/high contrasting patterns.
Spinning and weaving is my special interest! Spinning handspun yarn is SUCH a wonderful textural experience. Merino wool has such a lovely texture, but it's a little harder to spin unlike a more crimpy fiber like corriedale or blue faced Leicester! Flax is also a joy to spin, which I know is kind of a controversial opinion in spinning circles, but I don't really have much trouble with it. It spins up quite nicely for me. If I spin with a drop spindle, it's like stimming (constantly twirling and spinning the spindle in my hand and twiddling it) but I'm making something at the same time.
Weaving is really nice too... once I get past all the steps involved in preparing to weave, like winding the warp, sleying the reed, threading the heddles, lashing on, winding a bobbin to put in the shuttle... Well, all those parts aren't my favorite, but once I'm on the loom? It's such a meditative, repetitive action, I love it once I get past the preparations! When you beat the reed back and see the cloth you're making, it's such a satisfying experience.
So for awhile I thought I didn't have a special interest because I enjoy so many things. But then I realized when talking to some people from school... (while we were out to eat as a group) that I talked for over an hour about 1 topic without letting them say anything... so I've realized that my special topic is "Paranomal hunting" this includes histories of super haunted locations and the most interesting stories of what people come across when they visit the haunted locations. I even know all about the tools and the best methods to talk to the other side. I am obsessed!!! I even watch ghost stories before bed every night.
My interests are definitely running and any thrilling activity in nature (woods, mountains, oceans), film, psychedelics, and comedy (writing). But I also love medical mysteries and solving puzzles involving pathology. We’d be great detectives. 😊
The ocean and just being in water is something I enjoy. It’s meditative and relaxing. I also hate heat so cooling off after a run by jumping in the ocean is amazing. Many autistic people definitely seek out thrills like skydiving and rollercoasters. I love those types of things.
I have multiple special interests including:
Art/drawing, Webcomics, Shera and the princesses of power (Netflix reboot), Dylan(the singer) and reading
RESEARCH!! I love the puzzle of it and gathering all the information in order to find the potential answers.
It took me a while to figure out what my special interest was, because it's so broad lol, but I think the best way to put it is The Grand Scheme of Things✨, which is ironic seeing how Autistics are supposedly detail oriented. To me, the most intriguing topics are those that transcend my personal experience and reveal the larger patterns and meanings of the universe. My mind tends to lose interest in anything that it perceives as ‘insignificant’ or irrelevant to this big picture.
One of my interests is the world and how it works. This includes almost anything. Also broad for autism.
Homesteading is my special interest. But I hope I don't lose interest in it anytime soon, I bought property and live in a tiny house. I have chickens, ducks and turkeys and a big garden. So I'm deep into it lol. I have not met any other autistic people with this interest. It's such a big category with so many aspects to try out.
I haven't exactly pulled it off fully, but when you wrote this I immediately recognized the impulse, which I've had since I was a child. Living directly grounds me, where the complexities of modern life do the opposite, and I always speculated if I would have been happier in an earlier, more agrarian time. When we bought our first house, I spent an incredible amount of time working on it. Before I took my current job, we were trying to come as close to growing all our own food as we could.
I want to let you know that I think you are adorable and I really appreciate that you allow people to be themselves and info dump. You often hit home with my household and I and make me think without feeling horrible.
Fancy dresses and sewing are another special interest for me. I love making formal dresses. I just wish I had somewhere to wear them to.
My current special interest is knitting. Specifically designing hand knitted garments. I've been doing lots of research on designing and pattern writing and I have four knitting projects on my needles at the moment. I love it.
This was over too quickly! I love hearing about these.
I got the opportunity to info dump a little bit on someone a few days ago. He said that he wondered where the days of the week came from and how we ended up with a seven-day week, and so I told him everything I know about the names of the days and months and how we got them. (I don't know nearly enough. There are still lots of gaps in my knowledge.) He actually seemed really interested, so that was fun! Im interested in this, though, primarily because of my overarching interest in words and etymologies. The history and evolution of languages and how they relate to one another really gets my brain firing!
I heard that the Aztecs had 13 day "weeks"
So glad they enjoyed the learning about the days! Yay!
I learned a little bit about the naming of the days and months from a funny Ted talk, I think. What struck me was this guy's proposal for four-week months. Keep the seven-day weeks, but none of the 28-31 days per month nonsense.
I CRAVE consistency in scheduling. So when he shared the idea for months that make for tidier holidays and like each date would fall on the same weekday each month and many other perks... 🤯 🥰 I've been wishing we could switch over to that system ever since. 🤭
Oh, so interesting to hear about how you learning about stuff can affect you. I did the same getting interested in Spanish Flu years back, and it really came back to bite me when Covid started.
oh my gosh, I have a massive fear of fire from a fire safety video shown in school too!! But the one I watched was about a firefly who played with matches and burnt off his wings and destroyed his village... subsequently have never touched a match in my life!
One of my special interests is pens. I love writing, and I can't use pens that feel wrong when I'm writing with them. Those blue and black Bic pens that every bank has are the bane of my existence. I love writing with glass dip pens, and my favorite to write with is a fountain pen I've got from 1944 Germany, I found it in a house I was cleaning out and it still worked, and now it's got a special display in my art case. My most prominent special interest though has definitely lost me many friends. I love learning about dead bodies and the process of decay on a human body. Turns out a lot of people conflate that with being dangerously weird somehow. I'm in school for anthropology, and have finally found people that get it.
That's a really cool special interest.
Oooh pens that's so cool. Do you do much calligraphy or anything?
@aaaaa-rz4lb I have dabbled with it a bit, but my hands are nowhere near steady enough to make it look very good. It always comes out very messy! I just really love the feel of writing with them, I still send letters just for the excuse to use my pens on stationery.
When you said stationary, I wasn't looking at the screen and immediately thought, There's no way I could stay stationary for long enough to consider it an interest. It's only necessary as a survival skill to either avoid danger or to ambush prey.
But I guess the other kind of stationary qualifies. I like to have multiple types of writing, measuring, sorting, and bonding impliments handy just incase i need to document something quickly. And if I see something unique in a store I'll occasionally add it to my Box O Stationary in the back of my truck.
the section on stationary - my grandpa loved to label everything he owned with a dymo label printer, even down to putting instructions on the shower (turn hot tap all the way, adjust with cold tap ONLY). And my mum tears up envelopes and scrap paper and collates them with a big paper clip to make her notepads. She gets the same brand of diary every year and writes down the weather and what she ate (plus some reminders), which is the only non-scrap thing she'll write on. No wonder my autism went unnoticed.
I'm so happy to know that I'm not the only one who had/has extreme fear about random things like fire, carbon monoxide poisoning. Mine was TV satellite dishes. I would have a panic attack every time we were playing outside and my dad would change the channel because the satellite would move 😭😂😂
I'm AuDHD, and I can go absolutely feral about mushrooms, moss, lichen and more recently algae! I've always loved nature but these do something special to my brain. I can't retain infos that well but looking at them? UGH
I have life long SpIn in arts and witchcraft too. Pretty much the most consistent things in my life single childhood.
And I've been really into Monster High for a couple of years, both collecting dolls and loving the series 😊
Of course, neurodivergence is also a special interest since I have to know about it to explain how it works to ignorant people around me 🤓
The thing about sorting algorithms is that you get into it thinking "ah, this should be pretty simple" and then there are thousands of different ways of sorting a list of scrambled numbers and each one has their pros and cons and so the rabbit hole begins 😂
New special interest unlocked: stock images and videos.
I am not autistic, but I am ADHD and other neurodivergent things, plus my husband and kids are all autistic. I have found crochet is a big special interest. My husband likes to play computer games like RuneScape and watching videos about autism, like your videos and my son is also on video games. My daughter is 8 and likes to swing.
I’m also terrified of fire, it might be a phobia but I’m not sure if I can use that term without knowing for sure whether or not I have it. I remember being taken to a fire safety presentation when I was like 4, and the images of the burnt stuff they showed me are burned (pun not intended) into my head despite it being so long ago. They had a few burnt objects like frying pans but the one I remember the most is a toy school bus. There were little human figures in the bus that were supposed to be removable, but they had melted into the bus and the faces of the figures were distorted. The wheels no longer rotated either. At first I was like “I don’t want that happening to my favourite toys :(“ and then I started thinking about what could happen to me. I literally had nightly nightmares about house fires for ten years straight after that. I still get panicky around fire of any sort, even if it’s just a little candle.
It’s called pyrophobia. I had it too until I successfully conquered it in fall 2021, with nightmares and everything.
I found it a nightmare when I had to work with bunsen burners at school. I nearly accidentally set fire to a bin in class because I freaked out holding a splint with fire on.
Growing mushrooms, they're super fascinating creatures to me
How so?
i always had wierd feelings for them since childhood
i would like to know your reason
I had a special interest in the Monkees about a year ago. I even got to interview Micky Dolenez when I was 16. At the moment I don't really have any (except kinda fairies and kinda autism and the crazy connections between them that I am currently activly chosing to not info dump about.
My special interest is drawing and painting. And my current hyperfixation is crocheting. I think i might be dispraxic so i struggle a lot with crocheting. I've been working on a pencil case since last tuesday and it's still not done. It frustrates me but i can't stop help.
I like crime dramas, but I'd like a happy ending to eventually happen. I like resolutions. You know the kind of resolutions I like? Resolutions that match my morality.
I'm currently really interested in The Habsburg Empire, particularly from Holy Roman Emperor Charles V onwards. They were crazily inbred and examining the family tree is absolutely fascinating. I can't find many people with whom to discuss this interest, however.
Other long term interests include: singing, cats, comedy (usually have a specific programme as an obsession), Myers-Briggs, string quartets, finding connects between languages, maps, the composer Dmitry Shostakovich. Oh, and autism, of course.
I am more into English history, but I listen to TH-cam videos on historical figures from time to time and it is super interesting to learn about the Habsburgs. I know there are two Habsburg lines and I found the story of Isabella of Aragon very interesting. She was declared mad so that her husband and father could control the Crown of Castille. Also she was the older sister of Catherine of Aragon, first wife of Henry VIII of England.
@@zaraandrews600 Isabella's sister, Joanna, was the famously mad one, but Isabella had a pretty bad time, too.
I'm also interested in the offshoots of the two Habsburg lines, particularly after the death of Charles II of Spain (the most famous Habsburg of all). The houses of Two-Sicilies and Bourbon came from the Habsburgs and were also crazily inbred. Isabella II of Spain's family tree is unbelievable!
I am autistic and my special interest is Myers Briggs personality types.
i like the Mr Ballen channel for true crime, he actually has a charity that helps victims and he focuses more on them and who they were/are. for me, i think of it as a way to honour the victims, a way for them to be heard and their pain to be witnessed. As someone who's spent most of their life in a bad situation (still in one) having someone acknowledge it and also seeing that validation the other way around of "that's not ok, you shouldn't have to go through that" can be a bit therapeutic.
honestly it was funny with the juggling i was like "learning about or doing?" and then you asked on the violent crime one XD
generally, some of my special interests have been (in no order because of ADHD):
Nature/animals
campng
book/animated series (occasionally live-action series)/games
visual and literary art (because it's all art but people don't always include writing as art)
martial arts and some related things like swords
supernatural/paranormal
Religions/myth
Languages/culture/history
a little bit of space
cooking
psychology
autism of course/disability stuff in general
queer facts especially like how being trans works because i am and people don't understand it so i gotta explain somehow
occasionally people
sometimes music maybe, i'm not as big on the details of music as much as "i love this"
with alot of things there will be a specific part of it i focus on like with space i might hyperfocus on just Saturn or with music i might play a set of songs over and over to learn all the words or even watch a music video, which is unusual, but probably won't learn the names of the band members. same with reading, i might hyperfocus on a book but it's rare i'll know any details of the author's life.
I feel I must defend myself by saying fires and building collapses are a TOP TIER special interest. Beyond that I love engineering/industrial disasters in general e.g plane crashes, train wrecks, bridge collapses, dam faliures, nuclear accidents, chemical spills, shipwrecks and a variety of other wholesome kid friendly topics.
One of my more morbid fascinations:
When the Germanwings pilot intentionally flew a plane into the side of a mountain in 2016 I became obsessed with plane crashes and near accidents as well as the physics of how planes fly, a planes instruments and the procedure during instrument failure. It lasted for about 2 years (AuDHD here) and I learnt so many interesting things
Lately, I've found stock sound effects as a special interest, and honestly speaking it's more of a funny curse. I could be enjoying a film quite nicely, then they use a sound effect I've heard in a few other things and I always pick up on it. Every. Time.
Oh nooo 😂😂
My special interests are usually characters. Once I find one I like it’s over for me, they’re in my brain forever. My hyper fixation with Grell from black butler went at its peak for like three years and they are still a beloved character in my mind forever to be honest, so many of my favourite characters now are just ones that remind me of her a little.
I have a few that are general though like: dog food (don’t ask I don’t have a dog I just love them and work in a pet store so I became hyper focused on learning all about them bc it’s so interesting to me), hamsters, bats, horror movies, Halloween, the color purple and cruptids.
Purple is my favourite hyper fixation but it’s the one that annoys people about me the most. I’ve had people say shit to me like “I like purple too I’m just normal about it” and it hurts my soul. Idk why I like it, there’s nothing to research on it so it’s not interesting but I guess my interest is actually collecting purple things and being surrounded by them. Specifically a blue toned lavender purple. Whenever I am holding something of that color my entire mood is better which is fun for me because I can easily surround myself with joy. There’s nothing wrong with loving something wholeheartedly and shamelessly even if it’s just something small like a color 💜💜💜
Adding "committing juggling" to my vocabulary immediately
I'm really interested in behind-the-scenes stuff, such as outtakes from movies and TV shows, seeing how things were programmed in games, seeing what parts of live-action media were added in post, that sort of thing. It adds to the magic for me, rather than taking away from it, as it does for many people.
I feel the same way when they explain how they do special effects in films. Especially before computers!
Stationary! I used to buy so many notebooks, sketchbooks, different formatted paper, (i write and draw and I want go scrapbook and journal too). So many pens.
I was not be able to walk through the office section without buying pens, pencils when I started having my own money.
Its died down bc I noticed that I have enough, but collecting is fun.
I also collect dice, card decks (52 and tarot decks), minuture things.
The juggling stuff is giving me war flashbacks lol. In middle school one of our teachers created a "circus club" for some of the students. The first thing he tried to do was to teach us how to juggle with two balls. Most of the students got it after the second session, maybe third if they really struggled, and then they went on to learn with 3 or 4 balls. What about me? Well... after training every week for nearly a year, i kept being unable to do it with 2 balls, constantly dropping it on the ground. The teachers and students were puzzled. After a while they thought I was doing it on purpose lol. I say that laughing now but omg i was so badly embarrassed at the time. 😂
ICT which is word document, PowerPoint presentations, excel spreadsheets, making websites, blender where you make your 3d animation and stuff like that is my favourite
Meditation whilst ON mushrooms lol... Thats a special interest I can get behind
My special interest in high school was Jack the Ripper. I took a forensic science class and we had to profile him. Mine matched the one from the FBI. For the longest time I wanted to study serial killers in college & grad school. Still kinda do. Have a friend who studies historical crimes.
I think one of my first special interests was crime, but only fictional stuff. I am super into Nancy Drew. I also get hyperfixated into games with that same thing. For example I have played nearly all of the free games from Hiku Games, which are Adventure Escape Mysteries.
OMG! I've thought Im Autistic, and I LOVE the stationary! I have a billion notebooks, pens, folders, some binders... Do it all day!
I love and collect plushies to this day. An exploding teddy bear would've scarred me for life!
One of my special interests has been interior design and interior decorating since I was young to now. “A fun time!”
I'm here to defend the mushrooms! you'd be amazed how crazy and mindblowing mycology is, you'd get it and rank it higher for sure if you knew all the cool facts I know 🤣 now I'm heading back to the video!
Me: "hey juggling looks fun"
*Proprioception intensifies*
me: "guess I'm never doing this again"
Creeks (obv), art, painting, books, reading, camping, hiking, gardening, mushrooms, calisthenics, writing 🤷♂️
Chemistry was my first interest, and then math, and now philosophy... I realize the 'other minds' problem, and the circular nature of language association. Making the epistemology of meta cognition, experience of phenomenology, and the conventions inherent to pragmatism the only real way to keep language use rich enough, through rigorous definitions, to be meaningfully shareable.
Video games, Hand Helds, and Consoles are my special interests.