Comment by parpfish
5 hours ago
> For months, I was puzzled as to why a great number of listeners wholly ignorant of the autistic experience were so enamoured by The Telepathy Tapes. ... I feel I’m finally starting to understand. Moving forward, the series has expressed a desire to explore the wider nature of consciousness and explore topics outside of the autistic community.
It's right there in the name -- Telepathy. It's not a show about autism, that's just a means to the end. It's a show about the paranormal and it appeals to people that want to learn about the paranormal.
The fact the the author has this 'revelation' about the true appeal at the end is strange. it'd be like having a big breakthrough that "i though people were watching The X-Files because they were all interested in learning about FBI bureaucracy, but it turns out people are interested in aliens!"
> It's right there in the name -- Telepathy. It's not a show about autism, that's just a means to the end.
It has to be both. If it was just about "hey, look random fortune tellers are telepathic, let's watch 500 hours of video about it" that won't go anywhere. It would be dismissed right off the bat. But it has to be something like autism. Everyone has someone in their family or acquaintance circle who has autism nowadays. Some are non-verbal and it's sad and frustrating not being able to talk with them. Aha, but what if there was a way? - Telepathy to the rescue. So it's like a necessary two part thing.
What I don't like is that these things ignore the individual. Rather than dealing with "this is a nonverbal person, they likely have limited understanding" people that believe this garbage think "oh, this is a magic guru with super powers and wisdom beyond comprehension".
That becomes dangerous when it comes to watching these individuals. No, they really don't know to not play in the street. They don't know not to eat the berries. They aren't connected with animals and don't know some can hurt them.