Double Bill – The ADog Blog

The Aspie #14 – Being Thankful for… Student Radio

It brought out my confidence and was a joy to volunteer for. Which is why I’m glad I did it!

I didn’t generally enjoy my student experience in college, a post for another time. But there was one bright spot that came in the second part of my final year, and that’s an unconventional interest in Radio thanks to Wired 99.9 FM. In the first part of this Easter Weekend’s Double Bill, I want to explain how the experience went and why I call it an unconventional bright spot in my first college experience.

Now one thing I’m interested in that some would call unconventional is reading the news. A lot of people, especially in today’s Socio-Economic Environment, would consider reading the news a complete waste of time because of how depressing most of it looks. I share that sentiment to a degree, but I overcome it by ignoring most blatant rage-bait and right-wing brain rot, as well as filtering what I read and where I read it. When I first went to college, I spotted the Student Radio station and was keen to do something there, although not entirely sure what at first. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bring myself to volunteer for the first three years because my college timetables were constantly packed with lectures and tutorials and limited windows to study in the library, which made it impossible to achieve anything there.

That is until my final year, which was split into two thanks mostly to COVID-19. I was a frequent visitor to the Student Union building which I eventually just used to have lunch, listen to music via YouTube on my phone and start drafting the first wave of posts for this site, even if I sometimes hated the noise at peak times. I then started noticing a very handsome guy who dressed very casually walking in and out of the studio, which my eyes were drawn to every time he passed me by. That turned out to be Daragh, who, one Wednesday in January 2022, approached me and said the station was looking for volunteers and asked if I would be interested. And I said yes because I’d always wanted to do it, plus the fact it was my final few months, and I wanted to do something that would finish my time in college on a high note.

I showed him the outline of this Blog and he said it was a really great idea. Then one month later, he came back to me again to follow up on my initial interest. I said I was keen on doing something in Current Affairs such as reading the news or something and he put me on the spot by asking if I was prepared to record a brief news bulletin for that afternoon’s edition of Wired In. It literally was on the spot, but I said sure, why not? My first bulletin was three national and three international news stories that caught my eye and a lead into the Sports News being read by someone else. I recorded it all in about 15 minutes and still made it to my lecture that afternoon on time. And that’s how it started!

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The Aspie #15 – Being Thankful for… Toastmasters

Having gained confidence in Student Radio, this Worldwide Organisation seemed to be the place to build it up some more.

Between 2022 and 2023, I enjoyed a spell on Student Radio. And in between, I discovered something that allowed me to build on the confidence gained from doing it and a whole lot more besides. In the second part of this Easter’s Double Bill, I’m going to talk about my journey so far in the international organisation known as Toastmasters. From how a typical night goes, to what I’ve accomplished so far and most importantly, why I’ve kept doing it for over two years with many more years to come, I hope.

So, Toastmasters is an international organisation specialising in the development of two things: Leadership and Communication. It’s been in existence for 100 Years and yet I only heard about it in January 2023, let alone the existence of a club here in Limerick City. Now, your mileage may vary in how a club meeting is run but generally, a typical night at Limerick Toastmasters has a more relaxed tone and attire but still has the three fundamental parts of one: Three Prepared Speeches by club members engaging in a Path (more on that shortly); Evaluations of those speeches; and Table Topics which practice the skill of Impromptu Speaking. There are also five roles that are mostly filled for every meeting:

Toastmaster of the Evening, who chairs the meeting, introduces Speakers and the other roles and transitions from role to role.
Speech Timer, who times Speeches and Evaluations using a Tower of Lights.
The General Evaluator, who manages the Evaluations and gives feedback on the meeting as a whole.
The Topics Master, who prepares and asks questions for Table Topics.
And the Grammarian who monitors the use of Crutch Words and picks a Word of the Day that everyone is encouraged to use wherever they can.

On the point of Paths… Every member delivering a Speech does so by way of Pathways by Toastmasters. There are six different paths to pick from (it was about 12 but cut in half last year by Toastmasters International after a system wide review and feedback from members across the world). The one I’m currently engaged in is Presentation Mastery, because I treat it as learning the fundamentals of Public Speaking and then some. Each path has five levels, which each require a series of Speeches to be delivered at club meetings. A speech can be about anything you want but… It must incorporate the objectives of each speech project. The first two levels have projects that are all compulsory. From Level 3 (which is where I am right now) onwards, you have one compulsory project to be done and then a minimum number of electives to be completed on top. In my current level, I need to accomplish two out of a total list of 14. And call me crazy… But I’ve got a vision to do ten of them! And that’s because a lot of the projects appeal to me and I want to expose myself to a variety of speech types since you never know when you might need some of them in life.

Besides Speeches and Meeting Workshops, all Toastmaster Clubs have Officer Roles that need to be filled year after year. For the last two full seasons (I joined in the middle of season 2022 / 23. A full season, at least in my club, is from September to May / June, which marks season 2024 / 25 my second full season), I’ve been in the role of Treasurer, basically the manager of money coming in and money going out. The other Officer Roles are the following:

Membership Officer, who is responsible for setting up people on TMI and keeping the list of members of our club current.
Education Officer, who is responsible for ensuring roles get filled for each meeting and people complete their speeches and paths in a timely manner.
Sargent-at-Arms, who is responsible for setting up the Meeting Room and meeting and greeting all members and guests.
Public Relations Officer, who is responsible for promoting the club through PR and things connected to it.
Secretary, who is responsible for basically making meeting minutes and being there at meetings of Club Committees.
And the President, who basically represents the Club at Town Hall Meetings and things like that which I’m personally not too bogged down with.

So that’s the Club, but what about my experience in it so far?

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The Aspie #12 – Being Uninterested in… Bad YouTubers

I may be a YouTube Binger, but there are certain creators and categories I wouldn’t touch. Even in Incognito Mode.

Previously on… The ADog Blog: But let’s not be complacent. Especially since, truth be told, for every masterpiece of a video that is published, some are at the bottom of the barrel either because they represent everything my favourite channels are not, the creator behind them has a dreadful personality, or the genre they belong to does not appeal to me, personally. That was how I concluded my post on YouTubers I like. Now it’s time to explain who qualifies as YouTubers I don’t like.

I’m not going to rehash who is and isn’t a YouTuber in my eyes. Read my last post to understand where I’m coming from on that point. Instead, I’m just going to get straight into it with the YouTuber of the Moment who exemplifies everything that makes a YouTuber terrible in my eyes. And that’s MrBeast, who needs no introduction, especially if you’ve seen anything he has produced over the last 7 Years at least. And that’s where I’m going to fire my opening shot.

You see, whenever I see the cold opening of any MrBeast video, two words come to mind: Sensory Overload. Instead of a gentle glide into the madness or a snappy but concise explanation of the video’s objective, it’s straight into the action. From there, that action is non-stop and wall-to-wall with no room to absorb, no time to properly understand where the narrative is heading, nor why, and no idea where individual players’ heads are really at in any particular moment. And while this method of presentation may deliver exactly what the title implies, it also makes me wonder if the participants were forced to drink a whole crate of Monster Energy beforehand. Especially since, in reality, most people don’t talk at the speed & pitch MrBeast does for a sustained period of time. They don’t attempt challenges on the scale MrBeast does, especially in the time frames he sets. And they probably wouldn’t even attempt to accomplish those same crazy goals unless the money on offer spoke louder than he does.

Compare this to most Sidemen videos. A prime example that comes to mind is when they played The Chase for the first time. Ethan is asked a Bradley Walsh Question (the kind of question that almost guarantees Bradley will lose the plot for our amusement), namely: What do cows drink? He puts the Milk they produce as his answer! This causes a chain reaction of Harry screaming “YOU FUCKING IDIOT! YOU IDIOT!”, Tobi literally rolling on the floor in hysterics, Vik the Chaser guffawing “You’re joking, you’re joking!”, Josh telling Ethan to stop ‘flexing’, the rest of the Sidemen piling on top of each other in disbelief and Vik adding the cherry on top with the line “That has to be the best way anyone has lost 50 grand in their entire life!” After several minutes, order is restored, and Vik reveals the correct answer he needed to catch and exclude Ethan from the Final Chase. My point is that in this example, it was an over-the-top reaction that was allowed to flow like lava and give everyone watching a good laugh in between some mediocre quizzing. With a MrBeast challenge, the opposite is the case. And I think the YouTuber Donna said it best in her video about the genre where she identified what MrBeast videos lack:

“As I watched upload after upload [from OGs like Casey Neistat and Emma Chamberlain], it became clear that the MrBeast genre feels empty because they are missing two components that allowed YouTube to break into the market in the first place: Vulnerability and Authenticity. … If all we really cared about was spectacle and being entertained, television and film would have gone parabolic.”

And when I think back to the Sidemen in general, even if you don’t like the current direction they are heading in, she’s not wrong. Yes, some of their videos are a spectacle of sorts in terms of location and execution, but the general runtime appears to be sufficient so that a lot of things that a MrBeast video does not carry can exist. This, to me, includes chaos, whether intended or not, being absorbed by the audience in a decent amount of time before the next wave hits. The characters they play for the purpose of a video being consistent and only breaking whenever someone (usually W2S) drops a one-line howler you have to be literally stone-faced not to laugh at! And each individual Sideman having a base personality that distinguishes them from each other.

Can you honestly think of a MrBeast video where any of the above applies? Probably not. Unless you were consuming his content around the time that some narrative arcs, as pointed out by some commentators, did persist. But I think that was more in an era when MrBeast and those that featured regularly seemed like genuine friends pushing concepts beyond practical limits. Nowadays, it looks to me like it’s just Jimmy making the top lines (views and retention) get bigger and bigger with each upload while trying to fulfil his ultimate dream of dying with practically nothing in his Bank Account. But at least he is pursuing it ethically, right?

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The Aspie #11 – Being Keen about… YouTubers

I describe myself as a YouTube Binger. But only if the content is right for me.

Right then… Welcome to 2025 here on The ADog Blog! It may be a new year but I’m in the middle of a season focusing on my tastes as an autistic person. And the next item on this particular agenda is YouTube. We all know what the platform is and no doubt use it for a wide variety of purposes. Me? I use it to listen to music, binge mainstream TV shows that have published their back catalogue of content there, watch clips of what I grew up watching on TV in between those programmes and, in today’s post, watch content published by YouTubers. Today, and in the next post in two weeks’ time, I’m going to talk about those that I like and those that I hate and explain why so.

Before I do, I think I need to explain who qualifies as a YouTuber in my head and is therefore eligible to be talked about in this post. A YouTuber, as far as I’m concerned, is an individual or small group of people that publishes original, usually long-form content on the platform on a frequent basis. That first part therefore excludes existing corporations who just so happen to have a YouTube Channel, such as any mainstream newspaper or rolling news channel. As well as T-Series, the music conglomerate that overtook PewDiePie since, to me, it is just a platform within a platform hosting a huge catalogue of India’s newest music. Whether or not that music is any good I’ll let Indians decide themselves. I’d also argue any artist with a music note next to their name is part of this list too since all those channels are doing is publishing the works they have created over the years in whatever P the industry is able to stretch audio quality to. As well as song remixes, variations and live performances for our viewing pleasure.

However, exempt from this part of the definition are, for example, The Theorist Channels who may have a company structure behind them, but are still four individual channels hosted by four individual hosts (at least since MatPat called it quits) publishing original content on a semi-weekly basis. I’d also include anyone who is the face of a Channel but seeks out others for assistance in things like editing, researching, writing, voiceovers, etc, which is fine since you’re not always going to be good at everything this job entails and technically covers the ‘small group of people’ wording. Examples will be provided as soon as I start talking about my favourite channels.

Before that, all Channels I’ll be highlighting publish content that usually they’ve written, researched and edited by themselves or with some help. VHS Archive Channels (which have their own self-contained post waiting in the wings on The Analytical Aspie) do not. Apart from the processes of digitising, adding in a Watermark, and maybe trying to reconstruct bits and pieces damaged by attic mould, these Channels are simply goldmines of TV and News from years gone by. You never know what you might rediscover or find original copies of day-to-day! I’ll be assessing some of the issues they wrestle with on a regular basis on the aforementioned sister section in March.

Finally, the term frequent basis is basically ‘How long is a piece of string?’. But, again, to use VHS Archive Channels as a comparison, they basically upload content as they find tapes and do whatever they need to do to get them onto YouTube safe and sound using their free time. Proper YouTubers, however, do it full time because it’s their main source of income. Schedules vary greatly from creator to creator and while most try to discipline themselves and stick to a set schedule, from my experience as a viewer, it’s a case of content becomes available when the creator has finished that video and pressed ‘Publish’. Especially when real life gets in the way.

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