Hi, all! My name is Joe Harman, and for some reason, I am considered a public advocate for the autism community. I help run Neuro Diverse City, a social recreation center with a focus on welcoming neurodivergent and disabled folk located right here in Platte County. While I am very proud of my autism and general neurodivergence, I’m not exactly a trained academic (community college dropout) and my personal life choices tend to disqualify me as a role model (you should pick a role model who doesn’t regularly eat gas station food). And yet, here I am, being asked to write something to recognize Autism Awareness/Acceptance/Appreciation Month and explain what the autism experience is like. I’ve always liked that term, “The Autism Experience”; it sounds like an amusement park ride where everyone gets noise-canceling headphones, a fidget toy, and five quiet minutes in a room set to their preferred temperature.
But what is “the autism experience”? I’m so glad I pretended you asked! The truth is that there isn’t one. Or rather, there isn’t JUST one. While there are definitely tropes and commonalities that unite us as a community, the shared experience that does so most is the fact that we are known for being unique, even from each other. We might not always understand each other but we understand what it feels like to be misunderstood. So, how DO autistics bond with each other? The same way we bond with anybody else; get extremely hyper-focused on a niche special interest and hope they appreciate our passion. Special interests can cover a broad range of topics, but it’s that level of passion that makes them one of the most common neurodivergent tropes. But as with physics: “for every special interest, there is an equal and opposite special interest/avoidance” and vice versa. The only way to really explore how special interests affect us on a base universal level is to take one example and break it down to its core components that everyone can appreciate. I hope y’all like Muppets trivia because I’m about to info-dump all over this essay.
The Muppets are a perfect example of a common special interest: they’re bright, they’re silly, and considered perfectly acceptable to enjoy as an adult (or at least that’s what I tell the haters with increasing conviction). For me, my love for the Muppets was both learned and instilled from an early age. On the friday nights my dad was in charge while my mom was working, he would treat us to “living room picnics” where we would eat frozen pizza on a blanket on the floor in front of the TV playing whatever family movie we rented while he copied it to a blank VHS using two VCRs. Sure, it was technically stealing (according to the multiple FBI warnings we would fast forward through), but how else are you supposed to edit the nudity out of Total Recall so you can watch it with your kids? For the record, my dad only edited out the nudity; all of the rampant body horror remained intact. But Schwarzenegger classics aside, the best nights were when we would rent some sort of Muppets video. The Muppets have always been, by design, a family friendly crowd-pleaser which by extension means that you can never outgrow them. But the question here isn’t “why do I like the Muppets” (the answer there is that they’re hilarious), it’s “why are the Muppets my special interest?”
I can’t tell you the exact time or date (I’m not that kind of autistic), but I do remember when I realized that the Muppets are more than just a franchise I like. There are two parts in the original The Muppet Movie that really stuck with me after a rewatch in middle school, when I was both realizing how different I was from my peers and how proud I was to be different. In the opening scene after Kermit sings Rainbow Connection (a perfect song, don’t argue with me on that– you’ll lose), Dom Deluise’s Bernie the Agent tries to convince him to go to Hollywood to become rich and famous. Kermit is, of course, initially resistant; he’s not looking to be rich or famous, he’s just a frog singing in the swamp. But then Bernie says the one thing that ends up defining both Kermit’s personality and the movie as a whole– “you could make millions of people happy.” And with that, Kermit is sold. For the rest of the movie, he endures obstacles like a murderous frog leg restaurateur, high-speed collisions with plumbing arts trucks, and Mel Brooks as a WWII-era evil scientist for no reason (I cannot stress enough how much you should watch this ridiculous movie). And when things finally come to a head with the frog leg tycoon, Kermit explains exactly why he’s put up with all of this– “Well, I’ve got a dream too, but it’s about singing and dancing and making people happy. It’s the kind of dream that gets better the more people you share it with.” At no point does he mention money or glory, and in fact he’s given up money and glory to instead share his dream with others and he’s all the happier for it. And with that I knew I wanted to live my life in a Kermit the Frog way, and I’ve been all the happier for it.
A lot of people make the mistake of assuming that because I love the Muppets so much that I must have consumed every piece of Muppet media there is. Autism hyper-focus can accomplish a lot, but not when there’s ADHD and 70 years worth of every type of media including some that don’t exist anymore (looking at you Muppet Madness on Viewmaster Interactive Vision). There is no obligation for an autistic to be an expert in their special interest, we just often choose to do that anyway. I’m actually very happy to not know everything about the Muppets. it makes it that much more delightful when I accidentally discover something I’ve never seen before, like the Muppets playing Family Feud against Keith Urban and The Chicks (still Dixie at the time), a lost puppet-focused terrifying live-action Little Mermaid pilot from 1990, or the pilot for The Fabulous Miss Piggy Show, which never got picked up—possibly because it featured John Ritter flirting with Miss Piggy while she openly thirsted after George Hamilton. It’s got the exact energy of a 1980s perfume ad, but with puppets. (Ask your grandparents. Then watch them Google it.) As much as I love to consume Muppet media, I don’t have the patience to spend disproportionately more time researching lost media than watching it. But when I do find those muppet treasures, it’s like a reaffirmation of who I am and what I like about myself as proven by my love for this ridiculous little thing I found.
If you also love finding ridiculous things on the internet, then you’ve got to check out my next special interest, Taskmaster. (Flawless transition if I do say so myself). Taskmaster is a revolutionary UK comedy panel game show that took off as a global phenomenon that comments on the joy and absurdity of following rules and has helped redefine modern unscripted comedy. That’s all just a fancy way of saying it’s a show where five comedians complete arbitrary tasks with frustrating rules while a charming but bitter former teacher lovingly (and facetiously) berates them and awards them points. IT’S FANTASTIC! I have watched the entire franchise all the way through at least 10 times and am currently doing another full rewatch in reverse series order (I am THAT kind of autistic). I have done similar multiple franchise binges of the other English-speaking international versions such as New Zealand and Australia. (There is technically a single season of a US version featuring Reggie Watts as the Taskmaster, but it’s considered taboo to mention in the fan community and I could be possibly excommunicated for telling you about it.) Every version of the show has a fantastic record of meaningful inclusion of all groups, with multiple autistic contestants across all versions. The autistics don’t always win a lot of points, but they are often the people’s champion (which is something, I guess.).
There are many reasons for why anyone, not just autistics, might have an intense interest in Taskmaster. Again, the simplest answer for its popularity is that it’s just hilarious, but I would be betraying my identity as both an autistic and a Taskmaster fan if I didn’t engage in pedantic explanations. While stereotypes are often used to generalize and belittle minority groups, they can also give us a starting point to discover what inspired them in the first place (the answer is usually bigotry, but not completely). 1) Many autistics appreciate rules to give them structure and guidance in a world not built for their unorthodox problem solving; Taskmaster is literally a world built for exercising unorthodox problem solving and gives rules to guide it. 2) Many autistics love obscure stats and trivia; the show itself likes to highlight units of measurements like “1/20th a Danny Devito” or “Shaq-in-a-hat” and tracks how many times Mel Giedroyc reacted with visibly notable emotions (very autistic, very demure). 3) Many autistics prefer to communicate with direct or literal language to avoid ambiguity and embrace authenticity: the whole point of taskmaster is to force people into challenges where they have no choice but to be their honest authentic selves while caught on camera and then defend their behavior to a bitter education professional. And there you have it: structure, trivia, and personal authenticity. Three tropes that are positively represented by both the autistic community and Taskmaster!
I know what you’re thinking: “but, Joe! These are all general special interests shared by large subsets of the autism community; weren’t you going to mention something more personal to highlight the individuality of autistics?” To which I say, “That’s not fair. Muppets and Taskmaster are very personal to me even if they’re shared interests! I’m starting to regret pretending you asked me questions.” But I do (pretend to) hear you. That’s why I saved “90s misfit kids sports/camp movies” for last. You see, there was a weird boom of “scrappy kids take on grown-up systems” movies in the 90s, and while I don’t have a dissertation handy, I do have a gut feeling that two unlikely sources helped set the stage: Home Alone and Do the Right Thing (ask your grandparents to google that too). One gave us the blueprint for a kid holding his own against terrifying adults using nothing but toys and trauma-induced ingenuity. The other reminded Hollywood that maybe casting people of color — and letting them be funny, complex, or even the lead — might be both socially relevant and good business. Together, they seemed to unlock a template: childlike chaotic defiance meets cultural acceptance, ideally introduced with aggressively colorful fonts. And with that, a trend of empowering marginalized groups to fight back against “normalcy” was born.
While the “90’s misfit kids” subgenre might have originated from a desire for money (as many popular movie genres do), it helped set the stage for the wider neurodiversity movement that still goes strong today. While racial tokenism is definitely a problem in those movies, it is what led to “weird misfit kids” being relabeled as neurodivergent. Movies like Rain Man and Forrest Gump are beautiful stories about capable talented intellectually disabled men being themselves and being appreciated for being themselves (eventually), but I didn’t really connect with them. But Heavyweights– Judd Apatow’s light family comedy about Ben Stiller bullying kids at a fat camp until they violently revolt against him– changed my flipping life! Because one of those bullied fat kids, Michael Simms, happens to also be limitedly verbal, hyper-emotional, and socially confused. And not only do they have a character with all those autism tropes, but he is frequently shown being heroic, celebrated, and loyal. Before autism was recategorized as Autism Spectrum Disorder, all of us yet-undiagnosed autistics were already being represented as the “weird kids”, but movies like Heavyweight, Mighty Ducks, and The Sandlot show us that weird kids are just as capable and appreciated as any “normal” person. Normality is a construct that should be resisted, and these movies taught me that!
What have we learned here today (other than the fact that I use parenthetical asides as a writing crutch)? …Oops! I forgot that question is supposed to be rhetorical and was waiting for you to answer. Well, I would assume that you as the reader learned some facts about me and my interests, and I hope you’ve gained some understanding about why special interests are important to the people who have them. Special interests are how we connect with the world, find peace in ourselves, and find peace with those who don’t otherwise get us. Your autistic friend or family member might not want to go to a ball game or concert or other common social outings, but maybe you can meet them half-way and connect with them at a puppet museum, playing Taskmaster home games, or violently rising against a corrupt fitness-addicted camp director. Whichever is most easily available. Thanks for listening to me ramble here folks! If anything I’ve said here makes you uncomfortable or offended, I just ask you to remember two things: 1) I am just one autistic voice making jokes for a partially comedic essay. 2) I was asked for my opinions — blame whoever thought you needed to hear them. Thanks for reading!
