Yes, Nathan Fielder

You Are (Probably) Autistic.

I’m making this free because it might be completely indecipherable if you have not followed Nathan Fielder’s career for fully ten years. Please catch up on absolutely everything before continuing.

Dear Nathan Fielder,

Yes, you are (probably) autistic. Thank you for finally bringing it up.

We’ve been talking about it a long time, on the internet. We deserve this, and you. A lot of us got really good grades.

Here’s how I (think) I know you’re autistic:

It’s not just the “rehearsing” (read: social scripting).

It’s not just your monotone (read: atypical vocal prosody) or even your impenetrable facial expressions (read: naturally flat facial affect), and propensity for melancholy.

It’s not just the awkwardness (read: autism-specific social anxiety and intolerance of uncertainty).

It’s not just the social avoidance (by the way, it’s fine if you don’t really like giving out selfies and interacting with fans in person; it’s called scopophobia ).

It’s not just the trouble with romance, nor the special interest in air travel and safety.

No, sir, it’s not even your inability to distinguish facial expressions.

It’s not the incredible connectivity between your episodes, your ideas, and your artforms.

Honestly, it’s foremost your willingness to be a whistleblower (read: low bystander effect), which extends all the way to how you conduct yourselves in interviews. Behold: you, pushing on the point that a female junior reporter is bound to be intimidated by Wolf Blitzer, whether he bothers to acknowledge that power (and thus make room for her to do do so), or not.

That’s when I was sure you were one of us. But for others, it might have been something else, like a few moments before when Blitzer read you a formal FAA statement, and you responded, “That’s dumb. They’re dumb.”

Dude, that’s just good journalism. You’re just doing a better job than the two people next to you, and I ought to know: I WENT TO JOURNALISM SCHOOL AND GOT REALLY GOOD GRADES.

It’s also just your damn uniqueness. It’s that there’s nobody like you, kid. No one making recursive, navel-gazing art without apology. Because one life really is worth that type of reckoning. It teaches the rest of us to do it, too.

Plus, autistic people are autodidacts; teaching ourselves things til they are perfected by our own standards, not anybody else’s. That’s how you end up making art about an adult baby getting sucked up to the ceiling because his rich wife simply can’t stop masking.

But the truth is, it’s also vibes that tell us you’re one of us.

Autistic people (and people “on the spectrum”) are happiest around each other; we seek each other out, love each other’s creations, and even are more likely to marry one another without even realizing we are genetically similar (a phenomenon called assortative mating). There’s just something we see in one another. And for what it’s worth, yeah, people see it in you. So it was exciting to learn you actually might know about it; a lot of autistic people are afraid of their autism, especially if they are successful. They fear being seen for the struggles they hide. When we show our warts, we model a better path forward.

[[But btw you can’t diagnose autism by a brain scan alone (not yet anyway). I recommend UCLA’s Semel Institute for a proper assessment. I know them and can introduce you if you like. Or just self-diagnose; until diagnosis is free, self-diagnosis must be respected. The Autism Quotient test is a good place to start, and I can also introduce you to its creator.]]

We love your art, Nathan.

Maybe we even love you, but who can say.

Most of us have never met you. Maybe you suck ass!

OK, bye!

Your autistic fan,

Carrie Poppy