Video maker comments

January 26, 2007 5:52 AM

This thread, which starts with a YouTube link to a video made by an autistic woman, was fascinating in it's own right, but now has a long comment added by the maker of the video.
posted by OmieWise to MetaFilter-Related at 5:52 AM (38 comments total)

So far she's made a couple of really fantastic comments. One of my favorite things is when the subject of our discussion joins in it (most famously Steve Wozniak, but there have been many others). If there's ever a librarian posse formed to backtag (?) posts as has been previously discussed, I'd love to see such threads archived with a standard tag. (Responder? Subjectposted? The Woz Effect? Dang, this is why I am not a librarian.)
posted by melissa may at 6:26 AM on January 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Thank you for pointing this out.
posted by safetyfork at 6:35 AM on January 26, 2007

Neat!
posted by cortex at 6:41 AM on January 26, 2007

It's a good job we decided to ban single-link YouTube posts, because clearly they are not the Best of the Web.
posted by chrismear at 6:48 AM on January 26, 2007

To be fair, there was more to the post than just the link, and more explanation inside.
posted by mkb at 6:55 AM on January 26, 2007

Yeah, I wrote Matt and Jess suggesting sidebar status. Definitely Best of MetaFilter.
posted by languagehat at 6:56 AM on January 26, 2007

melissa may: "Responder? Subjectposted? The Woz Effect? Dang, this is why I am not a librarian."

Dewey would probably put it under 110 somewhere.
posted by Plutor at 6:57 AM on January 26, 2007

Seriously best of MeFi - another vote here for sidebar.
posted by allkindsoftime at 7:12 AM on January 26, 2007

I'd love to see such threads archived with a standard tag. (Responder? Subjectposted? The Woz Effect? Dang, this is why I am not a librarian.)

Kind of like we recently discussed.
posted by allkindsoftime at 7:17 AM on January 26, 2007

I'm chuckling, because I just paid a rare visit to MetaTalk to note the same things - that this is sidebar-worthy, and that the thread was interesting and 100% high-road in the content of the comments, and finally, that one of the most magical things about MeFi is the frequency with with a post subject shows up to participate in the conversation. It's a truly amazing forum to be involved in.

allkindsoftime, was there any action taken as a result of that discussion? A MetaTalk thread or two is nice, but a wiki page collecting these threads would be truly excellent.

I never get around to changing my user page, but that too would be a good place for someone to collect these 'Horse's Mouth' links.
posted by Miko at 7:41 AM on January 26, 2007

I agree with the sidebar idea and wanted to thank OmieWise for pointing to this development in the thread. I'd hate to think I would have missed this otherwise.
posted by mmahaffie at 7:44 AM on January 26, 2007

Holy shit, that is an amazing thread.
posted by By The Grace of God at 8:00 AM on January 26, 2007

Holy shit ++
Thanks for pointing this out, I would have missed it.
posted by Skorgu at 8:05 AM on January 26, 2007

Been showing this to the teachers and admins at our school. Keep the thread open.
posted by hal9k at 8:06 AM on January 26, 2007

Quick sidetrack - is there a name for the particular blocks that she is interacting with at 6:15? posted by arcticwoman

I have a set I'm playing with right here. They're my mental blocks.

Points for having the good sense not to post that in the thread?
posted by hal9k at 8:07 AM on January 26, 2007

Amazing thread. Thanks to all involved. Metafilter rocks.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:13 AM on January 26, 2007

That post and the resulting discussion is probably the most interesting thing for me that I have read on Mefi in a long time. It really presented autism to me in a way that grasped my interest, and it helped me appreciate how woefully inadequate my understanding of it is. I've never found the time to consider, read about, or pay much attention to it given the vast amount of things in this world. But that post and thread sparked the interest in me to read more about it. I found all kinds of questions swirling in my head as I watched that and thought about it.

I would have really appreciated and like the post much more if it were with links to different relevant articles about autism and communication or links to her site. But, that is just asking for the cherry on top; I value it above rubies as is. And interesting and fascinating finds like this is why I came to Metafilter.
posted by dios at 8:14 AM on January 26, 2007

I have passed this thread and the one on Autism and surfing on to a colleague who has a daughter with Fragile-X syndrome, which I understand to be similar to autism. She found them to be helpful. I find them fascinating and when I read them I am thankful for whatever web-search back in 2004 led me to MetaFilter in the first place.
posted by mmahaffie at 8:20 AM on January 26, 2007

Points for having the good sense not to post that in the thread?
posted by hal9k at 10:07 AM CST on January 26

Funny you mention that. As I just said, I had all kinds of questions swirling in my mind that I decided not to ask for that reason and didn't want them to seem like snark or jokey comments (or rude) when they are just innocent random thoughts from someone who doesn't know enough about this (e.g., 'To what extent could this be a defect in the articulatory organs since she can obviously understand and communicate in English', 'Does she have garden path sentences in her language?', 'Is there any relation of this to the studies in Great Ape language and communication?').
posted by dios at 8:23 AM on January 26, 2007

That thread kind of swept me up and dropped me off in the middle of nowhere, and now I have to try to hitch-hike my way back to my former state of mind. Thanks for pointing out the new developments, OmieWise, I'm sure I would have missed them.
posted by jamjam at 8:24 AM on January 26, 2007

Holy crap. I really didn't think the thread would take off like that. I posted and was immediately overwhelmed with work, so I've been reading but not participating.

I'll add a "subjectreplied" tag for now, which can be changed if an official designation is created.
posted by maudlin at 8:31 AM on January 26, 2007

Amazing - that thread has prompted me to do something I've never done in 6 years: Print off a hard copy to read later.
posted by Jofus at 8:46 AM on January 26, 2007

I would have really appreciated and like the post much more if it were with links to different relevant articles about autism and communication or links to her site.

I'd have liked it more, too. :-) But as I said, it was a quick post that was designed to hit the high points. The [more inside] section did include links to her YouTube index and personal site, but no sources beyond it. However, as the thread took off, people added those sources, so in this case, the MeFi population and Amanda provided the cherry on top.
posted by maudlin at 8:56 AM on January 26, 2007

What an amazing thread! for those of us living with people on the spectrum, your responses, Dios in particular, give me an incredibly bittersweet feeling.
Many of us NTs ( Neurologically Typical) speand a lot of time "interpreting" our loved ones to the world, and deal with the frustration of knowing how much they can and do contribute and how very different their way of perceiving is.
There are increasing cases of Autistics representing themselves now, as with Silentmiaow, which is clearly by order of magnitude better then being interepreted by others, no matter how well-meaning.

Very often we, well-meaning NTs, can contribute to the further perceptual incarceration of our autistic loved-ones mainly through an almost paternalistic desire to improve things for them which for the most cases will back-fire.

Again, as many others have said, one of the reasons I joined Metafilter!
posted by Wilder at 9:03 AM on January 26, 2007

Wilder - I actually only joined for the fighting, but when people ask me, I tell them it's because of threads like this.
posted by Jofus at 9:08 AM on January 26, 2007

allkindsoftime, was there any action taken as a result of that discussion? A MetaTalk thread or two is nice, but a wiki page collecting these threads would be truly excellent.

Not that I'm aware of, frustratingly. I'm not the person to ask about it either, although I'd love access to this kind of functionality.

We should all pitch in and buy mathowie some kind of design / development monkey to institute these changes under the auspices of his wise guidance.
posted by allkindsoftime at 9:16 AM on January 26, 2007

I added it to the sidebar. It took a while for me to set aside time to watch the whole video and read the whole thread, but it's really worth it and amazing.

Completely odd tidbit: I saw "Simon Baron-Cohen, the best-known British autism researcher today" mentioned in thread and that is indeed Sascha's brother.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:03 AM on January 26, 2007

Very cool.

And what that jerkface Jofus said.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:06 AM on January 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

"I saw 'Simon Baron-Cohen, the best-known British autism researcher today' mentioned in thread and that is indeed Sascha's brother."

I know there's a joke in there somewhere, dammit.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 10:59 AM on January 26, 2007

I saw 'Simon Baron-Cohen, the best-known British autism researcher today' mentioned in thread and that is indeed Sascha's brother.

I'm pretty sure everything I've read said cousin.

Awesome thread.
posted by goo at 11:10 AM on January 26, 2007

Thanks for pointing this out, OmieWise. (And I just started taking a psychopathology course, so now I feel all armed and dangerous. Professors, beware!)
posted by occhiblu at 11:33 AM on January 26, 2007

I'd have liked it more, too. :-) But as I said, it was a quick post that was designed to hit the high points. [...] [I]n this case, the MeFi population and Amanda provided the cherry on top.

Meh. There will always be people complaining about lack of links. As usual, the thread provides. Don't sweat it, maudlin, excellent post.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 11:34 AM on January 26, 2007

Extraordinary and fantastic! What an amazing, thought-provoking thread.
posted by scody at 11:56 AM on January 26, 2007

i am not a fan of 'supplementary links' in general, unless the subject is obscure and the point of the fpp is to round up the best links and recent news on the subject.

If you're making a FPP because of one link, just post one link and the discussion will usually generate necessary supplementary links if people are confused or are enthusiastic about teh subject.

All of which is to say, this was a perfect metafilter post.
posted by empath at 1:23 PM on January 26, 2007

Regarding the person who asked about Great Apes, you might be interested in Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism. I have met the author, who is autistic and learned many of her communication skills from gorillas. Her body language reflects this, and one bonobo (I think he was a bonobo, maybe a chimp) always called her (and not other humans) "gorilla" in sign language. The same author wrote Gorillas Among Us: A Primate Ethnographer's Book of Days, which is not about autism but entirely about gorillas she has met.
posted by silentmiaow at 2:17 PM on January 26, 2007

Not in response to any particular comment in either thread but "Whoa", this is just fantastic..
posted by Carbolic at 3:39 PM on January 26, 2007

i just saw this reply by silentmiaow in the original youtube posting:
"I don't have the resources to make a genuine documentary (I've got a digital camera that only takes 1.5 minute clips), but if I did (which I'd enjoy doing), I'd probably want to include a lot of other autistic people in it besides me."

erm... is there any standard etiquette for a call for contributions to outift her with the means to do this? (could you imagine: "metafilter productions presents..." kinda?)

or is this not the done thing?
posted by progosk at 1:30 PM on January 27, 2007

I believe it's Sacha Baron-Cohen. And according to Wikipedia he's Simon's second cousin. I love the tubes in the Interwebs.
posted by Mental Wimp at 4:16 PM on January 27, 2007