jvenus-07339

I understand they got actors that relate to "being on the spectrum" and had one supposed autistic writer on staff; but it seems they got people with lots of internalized ableism to participate in this series. I say that as compassionately as possible as someone that wasn't diagnosed until age 39 and is still sorting through my own internalized ableism 3 years later.

The infantilism in the first 2 minutes of episode one was just gross. How it's basically the perspective of caretakers that's really "how THEY see US. From the perspective of carers and the Austic people are basically tropes.

Exposure therapy is a huge "NO!" to portray like that. Many of our sensory issues, literally cause us physical pain/distress! Like beyond what most Allistic (or others use the term Neurotypical) people call severe pain. It often isn't actually fear (which is all that's seen on the outside and we often can't even communicate to explain ourselves since we're often not believed anyway) that makes us afraid to do certain things. It's often fear of the extreme pain it causes to do such things. Or that we fear literal violence when communicating with most people because of how they act towards us being different. That's also why many of us fear socializing. Being mocked, abused, bullied, or exploited.

I just really wish these shows would be written, directed, acted, everything by everyone being autistic/ND and I bet they'd be written entirely different.

I also read they consulted Autism Speaks for this which made me turn it off immediately when I found out. For anyone that doesn't know, many actually Autistic folk agree that Autism Speaks is a literal hate group for autistic people. They make millions, if not billons off exploiting us, trying to "cure" us (which is Eugenics), promote ABA (which is basically conversion therapy to training an autistic child similar to an animal to not be autistic but be non Autistic. Which many that had this therapy that are now adults have severe PTSD from), they also promote electro shock therapy on autistic folk. They also are mainly run by non autistic folk. Just watch their promotional video from about ten ? Years ago that nothing short of labeled autistics as monsters that ruin families and destroy parents lives. There are tons of other autistic advocacy groups they could have consulted but choose such a problematic group instead.

Shame on this series and anyone that thinks it's anything but ableist garbage.

I used to have this friend. She seemed so self aware and like an open minded skeptic when we'd discuss anything supernatural because she knew I was a skeptic that wanted to be open minded. But she was actually the least self aware person I knew (I realized eventually) and very much naively believed very common things were supernatural, synchronicity, etc. One instance (of numerous things like this with her) was we were at this park and it had a like 18th century house with furniture that was open to the public. We go in and she's discussing all the negative "energy" she felt. Claiming she sensee spirit energy, like it was ghosts. I felt the exact same tension/"energy" .... But I knew it was my mold allergy. I could smell the mold and literally felt my body tense up from breathing it in... I felt anxious all the sudden and like there was a danger in there that I needed to run from. I totally go into fight or flight with certain allergies. It sucks but is a very common and normal reaction to warn the body of potential danger! Exactly what she described before I said a word. This happens every time I get around mold and I've heard numerous others explain exactly the same issues when their known mold allergy kicks in... She has lots of allergies too. She was indeed hyper aware that her body felt tense, that she found it hard to breath, and that her fight or flight kicked in... But she prescribed supernatural forces to cause this instead of logical scientific ones, like understanding her own allergies better.

I give this personal story to emphasize the people in this documentary remind me so much of her. They claim to keep a logical skepticism, but really don't. They have so much cognitive dissonance, I can feel it through the TV as I watch. They don't see that a majority of their claimed "synchronicities" (they don't go 5 minutes without mentioning them also) are them looking for something in nothing. I'm not trying to belittle these people. Humans, in general, have large amounts of cognitive dissonance. II used to natively believe similar things like this, that I now realize have logical explanation I just didn't educate myself properly like I insisted I had. They actually seem like people I'd love to have respectful debates about such things with.

I live in West Virginia, which is Mothman territory. I know a lot of the lore and the people here decently well. Some are very kind and will totally be helpful to strangers. But many are not too fond of outsiders. Very territorial. They will either give you cold stares and vague replies to make you go away (even threaten you as they have "pack" mentality) or they will totally mess with you once they know how to target your weaknesses to their advantage. These people have been so badly abused and mistreated by the coal industry, they know no better or some even find humor in it. When they visited Hellier and claimed the people acted weird towards them, that seemed "normal" to me from what I know of Appalachia. Yet it spooked them big time. I couldn't help but chuckle and think how where I grew up I was treated like that my whole life because I was transplanted from North East at a young age and my family was non religious. So they acted just like that to me/my family too, in WV!

Now, I say all this to follow up and say, despite feeling they are all very naive, I do believe there's "something" to the lore in these parts. I don't know what exactly. Other worldly or just answers in psychology/science, I don't know. So this interested me enough to keep watching to see what they dug up. But it seems overly drug out to telling the story, because they get so caught up in too many "synchronicities" that really aren't but they do badly need to believe it. (Also note I totally believe in real, legit synchronicities! I've had really real stuff line up that turned my atheist self into a believer in something more for certain!)

I also found the music to be distracting as another review stated. I have to constantly read the captioning because the music they picked for suspense is louder than the people talking. But it isn't so bad that it made me turn it off.

Also to the other review that claims this is supposed to be a mockumentary, from everything I found online that's false. Even looking at Twitter, it was tweeted by the one main person in this that it is indeed a documentary.

I understand real humans create movies and as a fellow creative (visual arts) I am trying to be more mindful of how I negatively review such things because these are real humans with real feelings that create such things.

With that said, I couldn't get through yet another Blumhouse production film because it was that bad. It seems movies under that label are very predictable, shallow, entitled, and badly written and acted. Is this on purpose, and am I missing some reason these are written in such ways? These are about on par with films from the 1970s, but set in modern times with better visuals and that's it. I feel like in 2022 we could collectively do much much better.

There are much scarier things to write about and better ways to portray it than this. I find it odd what the masses find frightening when reality is so much darker and scarier than the stuff people whom seem totally detached from such real life horrors try to write about. I guess it scares them because they've never had to experience real trauma and terror? Or maybe that's why these things get created? To deflect from facing the real life terrors, to turning everything into unrealistic horror stories so that y'all don't have to admit what's really going on? I think it is often a combination of both.

Also there were small levels of ableism when the character used the phrase "mouth breathers" that I'm no longer ok hearing used as derogatory slurs. There may have been more but this movie couldn't hold my focus. Intersection is important, yet it feels like ableism is often ignored still.