Latest / Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD / Autism In The Media (Why I Was KICKED OFF THE CIRCLE😤)

Transcript

Autism In The Media (Why I Was KICKED OFF THE CIRCLE😤) · Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD

• 0:00
  Okay guys, so I don't know. Why do I why do I even start?
• 0:11
  Hello guys, welcome back. What's going on it's been a long
• 0:14
  hard. Yeah I just peed and been
• 0:16
  playing like I'm just playing roughhousing with the dog and
• 0:19
  I'll cover them first. So if anyone thinks like I'm
• 0:21
  gross it's because I was literally just you know messing
• 0:24
  about the dog and that's a good thing actually.
• 0:25
  So if you have a dog play with the dog, it's actually my dog's
• 0:28
  peanut peanut butter. What does he want?
• 0:30
  Let's see what the dog wants. Those around me, what is it?
• 0:34
  What is it? Okay, you want to end your
• 0:35
  blankie. Okay, so you get is down over
• 0:38
  here. Oh, Guys, what is going on?
• 0:43
  Christmas is vastly approaching, ho ho, ho Jingle Bells, and all
• 0:46
  that jazz. Basically, I wanted to this
• 0:49
  video because it's been looming on me for a while, and I forgot
• 0:51
  to to address this and it's been playing my mind more and more
• 0:54
  recently. And what that is, is basically
• 0:56
  how autism in Hollywood in movies and TV in everything is
• 1:00
  represented and how it's never really seen.
• 1:03
  And we know, I did some videos recently about Seer, and the
• 1:06
  whole thing about her movie about an autistic girl.
• 1:10
  My thought on that, if you have actually seen those videos, I'll
• 1:13
  link them down below, but let's just rewind back to 2019.
• 1:17
  So in like May 2019, I was approached by TV company.
• 1:22
  Now if anybody follows me on my social media accounts, FYI, if
• 1:26
  you're not equal, check me out on Instagram and Twitter and
• 1:28
  Facebook and give me a follow on there because that's where I put
• 1:32
  a lot of my kind of like day-to-day stuff.
• 1:34
  And yeah, I was basically has approached by Channel 4 to
• 1:38
  appear on a show, a reality TV show, which I haven't heard of
• 1:41
  at the time. So I went down to London a lot
• 1:44
  and they paid a lot of money for me to go down to London and stay
• 1:46
  in all these hotels and do all the stuff to be on this TV show.
• 1:49
  And basically the gist of it was that they said, hey, would you
• 1:51
  like to take part in this reality TV show where you're
• 1:54
  putting two separate apartments, and then you get to communicate
• 1:57
  through a social media Network to win a competition.
• 2:00
  Now, I was saying to myself, look, I'm not really into like,
• 2:02
  big brother and competitions and all this kind of stuff, because
• 2:05
  I feel like it's a bit mind-numbing to say the least
• 2:08
  sometimes, sometimes not all of them, not insulting.
• 2:10
  I'm just saying sometimes I find it a little bit like but then
• 2:13
  they said, yeah but it gives you a chance to show autism in its
• 2:18
  fullest raw former you know it, you know, you filmed 24/7, it's
• 2:22
  reality TV. So it goes out and everyone gets
• 2:24
  to see you for who you are and you get a chance to educate
• 2:27
  people I suppose and I was like, wow this is like it's kinda like
• 2:30
  my goal. You know what I'm trying to do
• 2:32
  my channel, I thought would be really good thing to do so I
• 2:35
  signed a contract with them which is up and I was on why I'm
• 2:37
  allowed to talk about it. That's actually not hard to talk
• 2:39
  about six months after After nothing happened and so I was so
• 2:46
  I went I did all of the interviews if you like and then
• 2:49
  they put me into the into the mix.
• 2:52
  And then they said, hey you know I got a phone call from and the
• 2:55
  show is called the circle. By the way, if anybody's
• 2:56
  guessing I'll put your images called the circle.
• 2:59
  It's actually on Netflix now in America but it's called the
• 3:02
  circle, and it was season two, that I was supposed to be on.
• 3:06
  And so, I did all the stuff I went through all the rigmarole.
• 3:10
  With them. And then they phoned me up and
• 3:12
  he said, hey, great news production coming, love you we
• 3:15
  you know you're going on the show, you're going to be one of
• 3:18
  the players I said, okay, great but I'm sworn to secrecy and all
• 3:20
  this stuff. So then I spent, I don't know,
• 3:23
  maybe I don't know. A good few hundred quid sorting
• 3:28
  out my team. Getting we're getting old
• 3:31
  contract ready for my team so people could take off my social
• 3:32
  media when I'm in this, in this reality TV show because
• 3:35
  basically, I wouldn't want any outside contact with the world
• 3:39
  and I have to be in this game and Actually, I could have been
• 3:41
  there for two weeks solid, which was fine, but it was just an
• 3:45
  interesting time. So I am, I did all that.
• 3:48
  We did everything and then I went down to the TV studios.
• 3:50
  I filmed all the adverts for channel for like, a watch the
• 3:52
  circle tonight channel for. I did all the Instagram kind of
• 3:57
  like GIF images, you know, for the for that Instagram page and
• 4:02
  I did all her stuff. I did magazine interviews.
• 4:05
  I didn't national press interview and everything was
• 4:08
  going going, fine, nothing's going ahead and I kept You know,
• 4:10
  my I two staff members told me, they feel me, I said, dude, you
• 4:13
  know you going on the show, not a lot of people get that kind of
• 4:16
  privilege to say that they are so early in the game but you
• 4:19
  definitely going on the show because we love you and it's
• 4:20
  great and I was thinking the whole time thing was off while I
• 4:23
  get the opportunity to show the world.
• 4:26
  What it's like to live with autism day and out 24/7.
• 4:28
  You know, because I'm in this apartment on my own and showing
• 4:32
  the struggles would be real, right?
• 4:33
  And regardless of the competition and the game that I
• 4:35
  was playing with the other people but in terms of reality
• 4:38
  that was reality and I felt like this is a great opportunity.
• 4:43
  So then channel for being one of the ones.
• 4:47
  The one of the channels over here that has diverse
• 4:49
  acceptance, you know, they've got the Multicultural, they have
• 4:52
  a different levels of ability of people on there, which is great.
• 4:55
  And I really supported channel for when they did this.
• 4:57
  But then Things start to take a weird turn.
• 5:01
  I did all this stuff and they, you know, they took me down
• 5:04
  there. Any wine and dine me and they
• 5:06
  spent all his money, we did everything.
• 5:07
  I've got my team or contracted up and everything like that and
• 5:09
  we just want to secrecy and everyone was like, wow, you
• 5:11
  know, blown away, and they real have my personality and
• 5:14
  everything was great. And then I go down for my last
• 5:17
  filming with them when I filmed all my intro pieces where you
• 5:19
  know you like you jump out of a circle and then you do all these
• 5:21
  weird thing, dance move so they could lay that over you when you
• 5:23
  do your interviews and and then they kind of turn around.
• 5:28
  That I came home. It was on a Sunday and then I
• 5:31
  was supposed to be going in then on the Thursday.
• 5:34
  So Sunday I came home from the TV studios on the Thursday.
• 5:37
  I've sort of gone on the TV show back there again because I
• 5:40
  packed my bags and everything on the Monday.
• 5:41
  When I got home from like the Sunday when and then that was,
• 5:45
  that was how it was, how it went and then I get a phone call from
• 5:48
  executive casting producer who says got some bad news.
• 5:51
  They're not going to put you on the show now because they pulled
• 5:54
  you from the show, I said why in.
• 5:56
  And so she said, but because I think they're playing it.
• 5:58
  Safe and at first, I was like, okay cool, whatever.
• 6:01
  You know, I hope whatever it's a missed opportunity and I was
• 6:03
  kind of get it because the opportunity to just to do
• 6:06
  something fun. But also to show people about
• 6:09
  autism, right? But then I was thinking myself,
• 6:11
  paying is safe wonder if they mean and then I got really I got
• 6:15
  really down about it and actually sent me into a spiral
• 6:18
  of a mental health downward spiral, right?
• 6:19
  Because I got really depressed for a couple of months because I
• 6:23
  felt like I was worthless because of my disability.
• 6:27
  And, and the reason I say, This is because I said to them before
• 6:30
  the show went up. I said, look, I can guarantee
• 6:31
  you swap me out for either. A girl with a disability, that's
• 6:34
  a visible or a guy with a disability that's visible.
• 6:37
  And they like, I know, it's not like that, it's not like that.
• 6:39
  And it couldn't tell me who was on the show, obviously, because
• 6:41
  it was all kind of like actually had leaked anything, for
• 6:43
  example, and then lo and behold a girl with a disability appears
• 6:48
  on their, a guy with a disability appears on the both
• 6:51
  of them. Go on the show you know one guy
• 6:52
  is super palsy and I'm not sure what the condition of the girl
• 6:55
  had, she had some kind of like I think it could have been like a
• 6:57
  stoma bag. Or some kind of it was some
• 6:59
  other disability, right? And it just kind of hit me, you
• 7:03
  know, I felt like they no one ever wants to show autism or
• 7:09
  ADHD in real life and reality. Having you there on those
• 7:12
  platforms because they're scared, they're scared of the
• 7:16
  backlash or they they don't they don't believe because it's not
• 7:18
  visible. They feel like it's not
• 7:20
  glamorous enough, you know, you don't look disabled enough to be
• 7:23
  a disabled person representing disability on TV and this is the
• 7:25
  current consensus. I can feel.
• 7:27
  I feel it. The Vibes are It from these
• 7:29
  people and I knew it, you know, and it sucks so bad and and I
• 7:33
  wanted to tell my story, you know I even filmed a video
• 7:36
  before going in to say like hey guys, I'm in the circle.
• 7:38
  Going vote for me, I did all those things.
• 7:39
  I've got them all lined up. I still have those videos, which
• 7:42
  is just absolutely. Just, just, just intense, you
• 7:46
  know, thinking about all those things and it really, it was
• 7:51
  really upsetting because it's not like so Google's on the
• 7:54
  show. I don't really care about that.
• 7:55
  You know, I've been in loads of TV shows and I've got loads more
• 7:57
  on the, in the works on. Working with different TV
• 7:59
  companies. But the biggest thing for me I
• 8:01
  think was that the reason it got me.
• 8:03
  So down is because nobody and nobody wanted to have an
• 8:07
  autistic guy on TV. They don't want it, they don't
• 8:10
  want they don't. And I'm here I'm going to break
• 8:12
  that mold and I'm going to smash it open and you know how we're
• 8:15
  going to do it? There's two ways writing to find
• 8:17
  a production company, who will let us on two shows so we can do
• 8:19
  it and we'll be there and we'll drive it to the end because we
• 8:22
  want relatability, we want to be able to turn on TV and say, wow,
• 8:25
  this person autistic and I relate to those and they're
• 8:28
  doing those. It's just like anybody else is
• 8:30
  in this in this industry or you know, I want kids to be able to
• 8:33
  look up and said I can do those things down is able to do it.
• 8:37
  You know what I mean? And I'm not going to let you
• 8:38
  guys down and not going to let those kids down because we need
• 8:42
  positive role models, and you people are going to break that
• 8:44
  mold. And so the other option we've
• 8:45
  got it to make our own TV show and smash it on to actual TV
• 8:49
  networks. And it's something we can do.
• 8:51
  It's something I have contacts to do but I'm not sure how we're
• 8:54
  going to do it yet but we will do it.
• 8:55
  You know, it's going to be, it's going to be epic and And it
• 8:59
  just, it pains me, dude. Like, I don't know what to do
• 9:01
  about and channel for really just dropped it.
• 9:04
  You know, it was horrible like a I felt like Channel 4, hype me
• 9:09
  up, and it was really understanding and caring about
• 9:12
  something but they ultimately lied about that.
• 9:14
  Because then they realized I was a, there was a more fitting
• 9:16
  disability that would fit this criteria and it's sad that show
• 9:20
  business. That's the current state of
• 9:21
  entertainment, that's kind of state, your business, it sucks.
• 9:24
  It's not, it's not on, it's not fair.
• 9:28
  And Was still left in the dark once again.
• 9:30
  Neurodiversity autism ADHD with thrown aside because the gather
• 9:35
  with a physical disability, a visible disability wins the
• 9:39
  round and everybody kind of wants to go o physical
• 9:42
  disability. I can see that you don't want in
• 9:44
  60. People in the US has an autism
• 9:46
  spectrum disorder and one in 100, people in the UK, have an
• 9:48
  Autism Spectrum Disorder, if you're getting our people are
• 9:50
  impacted by autism that surround us every day and we would value
• 9:54
  that valuable input to see how it works.
• 9:57
  You know what? Not, we're not doing anything
• 10:00
  but educating moving a movement forward on this channel.
• 10:03
  And I'm so blessed to have all of you here with me along this
• 10:05
  journey and we're going to do it.
• 10:07
  I mean I'd love to know your thoughts on it.
• 10:09
  So like, you know, drop me a comment.
• 10:11
  Send me a tweet set me down on Instagram, whatever you want.
• 10:14
  I'd love to talk to you about that.
• 10:17
  Just yeah, I'm just, you know, I'm just looks like it still
• 10:19
  sucks to this day. It still sucks today.
• 10:21
  So I will catch you guys on the flip side and yeah, just wow.
• 10:27
  The circle here. But in there you go, that's the
• 10:29
  circle our channel for not what sort of cracked up to be and
• 10:32
  yeah, I don't care. You know, I don't care talking
• 10:35
  about it. I'm not in the contract anymore
• 10:36
  with them. I wasn't allowed to offer of 6
• 10:38
  months. It was Aid and of Tobar 2019 and
• 10:42
  now it's December 2020. So yeah, it's time for the truth
• 10:45
  to come out. I mean yeah, Channel 4.