Blending Fascinations of Sociology and My Autism in the Creator Industry

Hi. My name is Rytchiee. For those who don't know, I am an independent freelance animator/editor who has worked for several creators on YouTube and TikTok, as well as many creators associated with Disney, Nickelodeon, Paramount, Fox and many others. Being someone who is on the autism spectrum, I tend to lack social cues, which could be very detrimental within my industry. In a community and network centralized around standing your ground and communicating, it has been almost impossible to be able to properly execute what I try to say. Because of this, I have also delved into another fascination besides drawing and animating: Sociology.

Sociology, in my opinion, is the study of how society works and its functions within it. It justifies how things can't be explainable. Some things can't be identifiable based on what is laid out in psychology or philosophy textbooks. No matter how much information one can get from philosophers such as Socrates, Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes, Nietzsche, or Confucius, nothing will be able to be documented quite well like the human condition. Since there’s way too many variables to properly execute the right terminology, it's been better for me to be able to understand society within my own circle and peers. From my friends, from my family, to my fiance, to the workers that I work with; sociology has been very beneficial for me being able to better understand as an autistic individual. Understanding the sociological impacts of possibilities within my environment has me better equipped to help me prepare for what could possibly be said, not in the sense of assumptions, but of the possibilities and variables that are established. I want to briefly discuss, based on my own personal experiences without using any sources, as to why I believe this skill of knowing sociology has been really helpful in understanding my autism and materializing it to be a better candidate in the entertainment industry and in creating a landscape.

To get something quickly out of the way, all I have pertaining to sociology is an associates of arts degree in social and behavioral science. Most of my formal education comes from my bachelor's degree in film with an emphasis in creative producing that I have attained from Woodbury University. I have researched through articles and books, taken Sociology classes, watched YouTube crash course videos, and talked to many professionals that I feel confident to be able to give my own accounts, rather than speaking for on behalf of everyone else. When it comes to the entertainment industry, I have learned that communication is the most vital component in any aspect within. Without communication, nothing will be able to get done. I am aware that absolutes are not properly conveyed in verbal communication, but I believe the term “nothing” suits best, because it only emphasizes how binary this component is.

Because humanity is so vast and extremely different, and not one person is exactly the same compared to another person, that gives the realm of possibilities to be able to say anything being true about a character or false about a character. For example, let's say I wanted to write a character on the LGBT spectrum. A lot of individuals within the media like to portray LGBT individuals as being binary. For example, one would have the main character - who identifies as gay - go on their own self-discovery, possibly falling in love with another individual of the same sex. This, however, defines the stereotypical blanket statement of how the LGBT community works. Sociology tells me that because I don't know everyone as a whole, anything could be a possibility as to how a person would act. I could potentially write a lesbian character who just so happens to also like a guy, because while statistically this doesn't usually happen, because I don't know every single lesbian character, I can only go on my own personal accounts. My personal accounts tell me, from my peers, that a woman could be sexually attracted to other women but be romantically attracted to a male or anyone else of the other genders. To counteract this, it's also entirely possible for a lesbian character to not want to be in a relationship at all, valuing the more independent lifestyle. Both of these notions do not devaluate a person from being under the umbrella. They only highlight the complexities of the human condition by stating that people are not delegated to specific attributes or archetypes solely based on the label that is placed upon them.

Recently, I read a book by Rhonda Byrne titled “The Secret”, detailing on the Law of Attraction being the secret of personal growth and bettering yourself and the world around you. Below, I've attached my personal review on the book judged in a vacuum based on my own personal experiences and philosophy, but in the context of this article, I wanted to use my review and the book was a whole to justify the differences in how humanity can be portrayed in the industry.

https://youtu.be/mJjRKIfJYKs

This book is a prime example on the differences on how society is by showcasing the narrator’s observations and examinations on their personal life. I've mentioned inside of this review that while I'm not a fan of how this book portrays the worldview, I am a fan of how it brings up and enlightens the individual on a more spiritual level; however, the reason why I bring this book up is to only highlight that this is one account that a lot of individuals who read this book can resonate with. The law of attraction has been able to benefit people by looking into their own lives and establish affirmative words to better examine the past, present, and future. In other words, this person looks at the world and the human condition very differently from how I look at it, but we’re both not wrong, when it comes to defining the terminology. We both have our own interpretations and because of that, we are able to live our lives through the highest degree based on set accounts that feel great within ourselves.

This could apply with religion as well.

In my personal and transparent view, I am what my friends and family would consider as agnostic. It's not the fact that I do not believe in a God, more so that I can't say nothing or something exists out there. A lot of my atheist peers like to say because they've never seen a God, they can't prove that one exists; however, the inverse also works in this case. Because I have not seen a god, I also can't say that a god doesn't exist. The reason why I bring this up is because religion is a prime example of people looking at their worldviews and attributing it to their own daily lives. While I am agnostic, I applaud the many individuals out there who fall under Christianity, Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, and many other religions, because in their eyes, they have found the meaning of life and used their preferred religion as a great justification. The meaning of life is something that people look for their entire lives over, so I can say with such certainty that I am extremely proud of my Christian friends and family who are able to look at the religion and live their life vicariously through it.

Now you may be wondering, why did I bring up the LGBT community? Why did I bring up religion? Why would I bring up the law of attraction? The reason why I bring everything up is because these are all many different characteristics that we live our lives through, these characteristics have personally worked for us, and these characteristics define who we are based on the human condition. The fascinating thing about this however, is that this outlook is extremely different from the person next to you. This outlook you have is completely different from your fiance or significant other. This outlook you have is completely different from your family or your closest friends or your chosen family. The reason why I bring all this up to tie in with my feelings on the entertainment industry is because I feel like, in recent times, the industry is defined by a narrow-minded approach to the human condition. As I have listed earlier, there are way too many variables in just one's personal life that can't be defined within one character archetype.

I believe that this ideal approach that I present is what's missing in character driven or plot driven stories. A lot of stories tend to go safe. They tend to go along the realm of relatability. They tend to go along the realm of the absolute. They tend to go on the realm of what is convenient and what is already laid out, making modern stories and characters within said stories unoriginal because of that.

I have autism, but autism is a spectrum. Just because I have autism, does not mean that the next person next to me who has autism is going to act the same way as me. For me personally, I do not need a visual or hearing aid to engage in everyday conversation, however, there are a handful of autistic people who do. Within those autistic people who do, there are a lot of people who either need these aids a lot, very little, somewhere in between, or some other fourth thing that we are unaware of. My overall message with this article is to explain that when it comes to writing stories, characters or plots, going for what is conventionally and societally acceptable in your eyes is not necessarily the ideal approach, when society is too different to be able to pinpoint as one consecutive trait.

I would imagine your next question is, “what is your call to action?” I would also imagine that you, if especially or very endowed with the industry, are wondering " why fix what's not broken? " I find these questions valid. People have looked into the industry and see the next Inside Out or the next Lion King remake or the next Avengers movie and find a sense of comfort and familiarity. I feel like this is a double-edged sword. I understand the industry is a business first and foremost, but from my peers within my school and within my circle, the industry has now gone boring. Yes, you will make millions and billions of dollars for making that next sequel, but you lose the individuality and the uniqueness that is tailored, when you do so, and because of that, you end up losing your morality and any semblance of innovation. People crave new stories. People crave unique takes. People crave a character doing deplorable acts, but you understanding why they did said acts. These people also crave the desire to make their own executive decision that even though this character did deplorable acts, and that their backstory is justified; they still feel the character demands comeuppance.

My biggest issue with the industry at this moment is that we don't know that we don't know the human condition. We like to make our movies, our TV shows, our animated series, our music, and our films to be what we think the audience may want; however, my biggest takeaway with using sociology and my autism in the industry is that we need to be okay that we don't know. We need to accept the fact that it is okay that our movies and our stories will not appeal to everyone. We need to be okay with the fact that because they don't appeal to everyone, they won't make sense to everyone.

The everyday consumer values way too many different aspects of a film or movie that it is physically impossible to try to pander to even most of the audience. It's cliche for me to say to just make movies that satisfy you as a storyteller, but that's the biggest takeaway around this. If you have an idea and a story to tell, jot that idea down, do research to emphasize and strengthen your idea, establish a well concise plot around it, and get your audience to think.

There are a lot of people who watch a movie to turn off their brains, and not have to think about what's happening in the real world. Those people can find enjoyment in a movie the same way they can find enjoyment in a video game, the same way they can find enjoyment in a song or in a book. What that means is that it doesn't matter if that demographic even watches the movie, so instead of trying to pander to the people who do not care, pander to the people who do.

When movies break the mold and try something new, more people will be craving to see movies more often. There maybe no such thing as an original idea, but there will forever be original ways of addressing an idea already done. You don't know if an idea will or won't work, so there's only one way to find out.

I am autistic. I have been vocal about my mental health to my audience, because I believe having a strong mental health and being transparent about it will help bring other people out and speak up on their mental health. If I do it myself, I can possibly help other people do the same in a smaller scale, such as with their therapist, their parents or their other support groups. Sociology has helped me understand my autism better and bring a kind of unique and different approach to my directorial input, when it comes to making projects for these YouTube creators and influencers. The reason why I get called back to work on another project for a creator is because I don't settle for what is the bare minimum, nor would I find a typical premise as laid out in a vacuum suffice. Ask anyone of my mutual connections on LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, or Instagram, and a majority will say that I am incredibly ambitious, and my brain is wired in a way if I want to execute an idea of theirs that they don't think is possible, I will spend the next couple of hours, to days, to weeks, to months, to years learning how to do it, so I can execute what my client wants better to the best of their ability. The reason why I get called back is because I know that I don't know what my client wants, and because of that, it gives me room to throw out as many ideas at a wall as possible until one sticks. If only one sticks and not any of the others, I now have many other ideas that I can use either for the same client or for other clients.

Because I know that society and people are vastly different and there are too many variables to pinpoint one specific niche, I have the ability to pinpoint however much I want, and because of that, the industry in my eyes will never be boring.

I am aware that absolutes are not properly conveyed in verbal communication, but I believe the term “never” suits best, because it only emphasizes how binary this component is. The binary component is that there is no binary component. Now you know that you don’t know.