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Why I stopped blogging about autism. I did enjoy it when I first started. Over time I started to burn out. This is why I don’t like basing my socials, Youtube, and blog on only one aspect of content.
I originally started blogging about autism in 2017 or 2018. I bought hosting before COVID got bad. I’d say in March of 2020. I wanted to eventually make money on my blog (Adsense, affiliate links) which you can’t do with a wordpress.com blog. I started blogging about autism to showcase how I struggled when I was undiagnosed. I also felt my mom was understanding when I was a kid but became less understanding as I grew up. After I turned 18.
I was tired of my mom dismissing my feelings and calling me a child for it. I felt like she was doing so. I was sick and tired of the expectations I couldn’t meet and her getting mad that I could not make them. I started blogging about autism when I tried a job program that I thought would help me get a job and when I made a video on my old Aaliyah Holt channel entitled “why I hate being autistic” the video did fairly well.
There are a series of events that led me to step down a bit. I thought I’d go over them a bit.
I shared a meme to an autism group talking about how autism doesn’t have a look. One guy took offense to it calling it inspiration porn. I had no clue what that was at the time. Not one person actually reached out to me to rule out a possible misunderstanding. You cannot expect me to keep up with everyone and everything. I am assuming the people were not too fond of the page that wrote the meme.
Maybe the guy made a statement before expressing his annoyance towards those types of posts and I most likely did not see it on my feed.
Whatever controversy the page was in I did not see it. Had someone actually bothered to inform me I would have explained I followed the page and shared the meme at the time I did not know about inspo porn and ableism etc
The URL to the blog used to be called “theloneaspie” before I changed it to gamingwithjazz.
I shared a blog post with a group and someone left a comment saying it’s gross my name had aspie in it. Didn’t even care to explain what’s so bad about the word. Most if not all people who were Dxed in the early 2010s more than likely use Aspergers or aspie. What was so hard about telling me the term is outdated? Nothing. but assuming I did it on purpose from the get-go was easier for that person I guess. Also, there are a few autism bloggers I followed that had Aspie in their name. Aspie World. Aspie Answers.
An autism activist I follow FOLLOWED MY TWITTER when it used to be called the lone aspie. And they are finicky with ableism.
I felt that I had no place in a community that assumes your every move has ill intentions but won’t inform you of outdated terms and such. That expects you to keep up with everything and be aware of every single outdated and updated term. It’s tiring honestly.
I also felt discouraged that I was not being seen. I would post an autism blog and no one notices but when I post a gaming-related post, it got a few likes or a retweet. I also started burning out. I thought this town wasn’t big enough for all autism bloggers oddly. So After New Year, I came to the decision to rebrand to talking about gaming, being a content creator, and so on.
Also, autism affects that, too. When viewers left vague feedback I had no idea what they were trying to tell me. They would tell me editing needs work but won’t point out what mark(s) they saw said problem.
I noticed after I changed to gaming, my Adsense earnings went up a bit, I noticed a lot more views a month, and even clicks on Amazon links. before I was getting nothing. I feel clicks are the next step at most. Its means I’m reeling in the viewer. it’s just you can have 5K followers but only let’s say 200 people buy your new lotion. It’s just how stats work.
Maybe I wasn’t promoting myself enough. When it comes to content you have to keep promoting it.
I just wish people understood it’s impossible to keep up with everything and everyone. Topics die down after a while. Especially with fandoms, you simply weren’t into the TV show/movie/game, etc at the time said person part of that content was in controversy. Even so, people make mistakes, and say things they didn’t know were offensive but cancel culture vultures can’t seem to comprehend that.
I wish people actually would communicate with you instead of assuming you knew a meme or joke was offensive.
It gets tiring having to walk on eggshells because simple communication is so hard to rule out miscommunication.
I got fed up with the impossible expectations. I couldn’t figure out how people did it. If no one in that group cared to inform me of the meme I posted or the page that shared the content. And just assumed I knew and did it to harm people, how do you advocate for any disability, or serious issues? There are things you still may not know and having people expect you to know everything and keep up with every updated and outdated term is beyond exhausting.
I am not perfect. There are plenty of things I still do not know yet. Terms become outdated. Not everyone using the outdated term is trying to be ableist. You will not learn anything just assuming everyone’s intentions are bad.
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