Episode originally aired: February 14, 2023

With the Netflix hit Wednesday returning for Season 2 and currently #1, this episode is more relevant than ever. We're on hiatus, but bringing this powerful conversation back into the feed for anyone snapping to the beat of Wednesday Addams.

Matt and Angela weigh in on Netflix’s smash hit Wednesday and the heated discussion around whether the titular character is authentically autistic-coded or just another case of “autistic face.” From flat affect and touch aversion to social outsider status, we dig into what’s real, what’s trope, and why representation matters.

🎧 What You’ll Learn

• Autistic traits in Wednesday Addams – Flat affect, sensory boundaries, focused interests, and rejection of social norms.
• Authenticity vs. performance – Why casting non-autistic actors in autistic-coded roles leads to caricature, and how Wednesday mirrors portrayals like Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory.
• The “fixing” narrative – How the show frames Wednesday’s arc around becoming more socially acceptable, softening her edges for mass appeal.
• Pretty privilege & palatability – How conventional attractiveness and familiar story arcs make autistic-coded characters more acceptable to allistic audiences.
• Media responsibility – Why we need autistic actors in autistic roles and better representation that isn’t filtered through an allistic lens.

Resources:

HERE WE WOE – “I’m neurodivergent and here’s my issue with Netflix’s Wednesday” 🔗 Read here

15 Ways Wednesday Addams is Cool and Autistic 🔗 Read here

Wednesday’s neurodivergent coding is both good and bad 🔗 Read here

Why neurodivergent characters like Wednesday Addams are so important 🔗 Read here

Related Episodes:

Episode 11: Sherlock is Autistic

Episode 30: Doctor Who is Autistic

Episode 41: Tim Burton is Autistic

🌟 Connect With Us

📱 Follow us on Instagram

🎧 Find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

🛍️Our Autism-affirming merch shop

🌐 Learn more at www.autisticculturepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode originally aired: April 9 2024

With the announcement of TS12, Taylor Swifts new album 'The Life of a Showgirl', this episode is more relevant than ever. We're on hiatus, but bringing this powerful conversation back into the feed for any Autistic Swiftie listeners.

💡 What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Autistic-coded traits in Taylor Swift – From encyclopaedic cat knowledge to embedding riddles, puzzles, and Easter eggs into her music.
• Outsider perspective in her lyrics – How her songs describe masking, outsider feelings, and belonging in ways deeply resonant with autistic experience.
• Justice sensitivity – Exploring the intersection of fairness, expectation sensitivity, and creative expression.
• Family tree and neurodivergence – Why Swift’s relatives may offer hints of autism’s genetic component.
• The role of privilege – How capitalism, public image, and access shape her career and influence.
• Cultural anthems – Why “Shake It Off” feels like a rallying cry for many autistic individuals.

🌟 Connect With Us

📱 Follow us on Instagram

🎧 Find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

🛍️Our Autism-affirming merch shop

🌐 Learn more at www.autisticculturepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Autistic Culture Podcast, Dr. Angela Kingdon explores Pillar 10 of Autistic Culture: Passionate Superfanning with producer and fellow podcaster Simon Scott. Whether it’s Doctor Who, My Chemical Romance, Star Trek, or Renaissance fairs—superfanning isn’t a phase. It’s a core cultural trait of autistic identity.

We break down how special interests (SPINs), emotional intensity, and parasocial bonding create a uniquely autistic form of connection with fictional universes and fan communities.

🎧 What You’ll Learn

• Why superfanning is a form of emotional regulation, community-building, and cultural expression in autistic lives
• The role of SPINs in forming deep, long-term relationships with fictional characters and stories
• How fan spaces, cosplay, scripting, and world-building support autistic identity, routine, and joy
• The difference between leaning in to fandom as an autistic form of self-care vs. masking it to appear neurotypical
• How conventions and fandom aesthetics offer accessible social connection where autistic people can thrive

💡 Key Concepts from This Episode

• SPINs are not fleeting hobbies—they’re lifelines.
• Superfanning includes collecting, scripting, deep lore analysis, and wearing fandom as identity.
• Fictional friends offer emotional fluency, comfort, and companionship.
• Autistic fans often mask their enthusiasm due to stigma—this episode invites you to unmask with pride.

🎤 Featured Guest

• Simon Scott – The Neurodivergent Experience Podcast

🎙️ Related Episodes:

• Hans Christian Andersen (Ep 9): Fairy tales as emotional mirrors for autistic readers
• Star Trek (Ep 10): Logic, lore, and moral storytelling for the autistic brain
• My Little Pony (Ep 18): Friendship, emotional growth, and gender exploration
• Doctor Who (Ep 30): Regeneration, scripting, and narrative flexibility
• Christmas (Ep 49): Ritual and sensory joy as autistic cultural tradition
• The Orville (Ep 103): Speculative ethics and social fluency in fandom
• My Chemical Romance (Ep 121): Identity and emotional depth through music
• Cults (Ep 129): When shared purpose turns toxic—superfanning vs. coercion

🌟 Connect With Us

📱 Follow us on Instagram

🎧 Find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

🛍️Our Autism-affirming merch shop

🌐 Learn more at www.autisticculturepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Part of our 12-Week Writing Series for autistic creatives and late-diagnosed adults.

In this episode of The Autistic Culture Podcast, guest host and producer Simon Scott spotlights top submissions from Week 10 of our Neurodivergent Narratives Series. From self-acceptance to unmasking, these powerful micro-narratives highlight how advice functions as a cultural transmission tool in the autistic community. Because when we tell our truths, we help others find theirs.

🎧 What You’ll Hear

• Our top two listener-submitted advice pieces from Week 10
• Reflections on how storytelling builds shared identity and emotional fluency
• How autistic writers use short-form storytelling for healing, voice reclamation, and radical self-acceptance
• Why advice-giving is not about fixing—but about cultural resonance

🏆 Week 10 Winners

🥇 First Place:

“Oh, Darling One. This is Big. But Here's What You Need to Do”

by Cat Blyth

🥈 Runner-Up:

“Perfectly Imperfect”

by Emily Burgess

Congratulations to our featured writers, and thank you to everyone who submitted! Want to see their full entries? Read them here.

This isn’t therapy. This is voice reclamation.

Submit entry. Let Your Voice Be Heard.

💌 Good luck, writers. We’re saving you a seat.

🎙️ Related Episodes:

Autism And The Myth of Success (Episode 146) - Writing Prompt #34

Advice for Autistics (Episode 148) - Writing Prompt #35

🌟 Connect With Us

📱 Follow us on Instagram

🎧 Find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

🛍️Our Autism-affirming merch shop

🌐 Learn more at www.autisticculturepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Autistic Culture Podcast, Dr. Angela Kingdon is joined by Clare Kumar, productivity speaker and host of the Happy Space Podcast, to explore Pillar 9: Justice-Seeking in autistic culture.

Clare, a late-diagnosed autistic woman and workplace inclusion advocate, shares how her values-driven mindset and sensitivity to fairness shaped her work, her diagnosis journey, and her unmasking process. If you’ve ever been told you’re "too intense," "too rigid," or "black-and-white," this episode offers a radical reframing of those traits as powerful autistic strengths.

🎧 What You’ll Learn

• How moral clarity, justice sensitivity, and literal honesty are central to autistic identity
• Why autistic people often challenge unjust systems, even when it’s uncomfortable or costly
• The role of black-and-white thinking in identifying harm — not as immaturity, but as clarity
• How meltdowns can be valid emotional responses to systemic injustice, not just overstimulation
• Strategies for embracing truth, consistency, and fairness in personal and professional spaces

For so many of us, justice-seeking has been used against us. We were called “too much” or “overreactive.” But in autistic culture, these traits are not flaws — they’re cultural strengths. What happens when we stop apologizing for caring so deeply?

👤 Featured Guest: Clare Kumar

• 🎧 Happy Space Podcast – Episode 45 – Clare shares her late-diagnosis journey and explores justice sensitivity with guest Melanie Deziel
• 👕 InclusiviTees Apparel – Neurodivergent-affirming, ethically made designs that promote conversation and inclusion
• 🌐 ClareKumar.com – Learn more about Clare’s work in productivity, sensory-friendly design, and neuroinclusion
• 🧠 Stanford Neurodiversity Summit – Angela & Clare’s presentation on late-diagnosed autistic women

🎙️ Related Episodes:

Greta Thunberg (Ep 15)

John McEnroe (Ep 42)

Lena Dunham (Ep 113)

🌟 Connect With Us

📱 Follow us on Instagram

🎧 Find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

🛍️Our Autism-affirming merch shop

🌐 Learn more at www.autisticculturepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of The Autistic Culture Podcast, Dr. Angela Kingdon explores Pillar 8: Predictably Comforting with special guest Daria Brown, author of We Chose Play: Raising an Autistic Child to Thrive and Feel Understood. Together, they unpack how predictability, routine, and familiarity are not about rigidity—they’re about emotional safety, sensory regulation, and identity coherence.

This conversation is essential for autistic adults, parents, and advocates who want to better understand the soothing power of sameness in autistic lives.

🎧 What You’ll Learn

• Why routine and repetition are cultural strengths in autistic communities
• How sensory regulation and emotional grounding depend on predictability
• The difference between rigidity vs. self-protection
• How repetition (like rewatching shows or eating the same foods) supports well-being
• Cultural icons—from Thomas the Tank Engine to Andy Warhol—who exemplify this trait
• Tools for supporting autistic children and adults through comfort-based design

👤 Featured Guest: Daria Brown

Daria holds a Master’s in Personality and Social Psychology and brings over 30 years of experience in research, education, and neurodiversity advocacy.

• 🌐 Affect Autism Website
• 📖 We Chose Play – Buy the Book
• 🎧 Affect Autism Podcast
• 📺 Affect Autism YouTube Channel
• 📸 Instagram: @affectautism
• 📘 Facebook
• 🐦 Twitter/X: @affectautism

Related Episodes:

Andy Warhol (Ep 33) - Repetition as art, ritual, and grounding

The Law (Ep 115) - Predictability through rules, order, and structure

🌟 Connect With Us

📱 Follow us on Instagram

🎧 Find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify

🛍️Our Autism-affirming merch shop

🌐 Learn more at www.autisticculturepodcast.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.