For a while my special interests were p*d*philia, ab*use, DID and cults. For context, my, at the time, best friend is a survivor and was very involved in researching these topics. Not fun to have an obsession with very dark and heartbreaking subjects. It actually made my anxiety worse. And wow, the first time I watched that Torchwood episode.. The way he said it with tears streaming down his face. So creepy!

Things that are fearful seem to spark some scary special interests.

I am currently in my Autism/ADHD special interests. Some of the weirder ones that have had that I don't want is natural disasters, natural disaster preparedness, a massive subduction zone earthquake and a lot of other unpleasant. My current special interests that I actually like is birds/wildlife, fiber arts and Irish dance

At 4:30, re: autism as unwanted special interest, "I don't think it's as bad as cannibalism..." made me laugh. I'm glad you made this video, Dana. I'm sure it felt awkward to start talking about these, but I agree we all kind of suspect / hope these things are shared by at least some of our fellow Auties. But it's still gutsy to get specific with them in public (or at least seems so to me with my RSD). Since you've broken the taboo around this stuff, here are a couple of mine: (Apologies in advance for the wall of text.) 1. Manipulation techniques are one of my S.I.s, possibly because I'm quite susceptible to them and want to be "immunized" against them. (Or at least that's what I want you all to believe, muahaha.) Logical fallacies / fallacious reasoning, too -- similarly to become less likely to land in those intellectual failure modes (as well as to help against aforementioned manipulation techniques). 2. I'm strongly inclined towards pacifism and have been temperamentally gentle / nonviolent all my life, but have nevertheless since childhood built up a huge and detailed mental database of military technologies, from obscure aircraft subtypes all the way down to the manufacture and distribution of small arms across the developing world. The machinery of war is horrifying and the business of it disgusting -- and at the same time I cannot seem to resist trying to fully comprehend the anatomical and emotional effects of a specific model of American-made land mine erupting under an innocent farm-kid half a century after the last U.S. soldiers left Vietnam, and then doing the mental math on how many more around the world are likely to suffer and die from those leftover murder-devices. As a child of the Cold War, I sponged up published information about nuclear weapon stockpiles (and kiloton/megaton yields, and fallout calculations based on detonation altitudes, etc.) the way most "normal boys" might have learned baseball team/player statistics. And on and on. The physics of long range ballistic trajectories; vulnerable points on vehicles, buildings, and civil engineering structures; the flight ranges and mid-air refueling times of different aircraft; battery life in night-vision goggles. Every detail a doorway into an all-evening deep-dive into manufacturing, distribution, combat logistics, and operational life expectancies. For things that should not exist. I don't love it, and can't help it; the information just gloms onto my existing knowledge base whenever I encounter it in a news article or a book or social media. For all the encyclopedic volume of it in my head, I very rarely talk about any of it. Understanding that stuff as a danger to humanity (and how to responsibly deal with it if/when such stuff is used) tends to get lost on other people, who misinterpret the initiation of an info-dump as my being enthusiastic about the use of such horrors. Worst of all, it's not useful information; I'm not a physician and could never be a soldier or political figure. Perhaps I missed my calling as an intelligence / security analyst. And even though I know it should go without saying so here, after writing all that I still feel the need to emphasize that these are not my only special interests (I have bright and happy and creative ones as well!), and that I don't go out of my way to spend time or mental energy on them. I'd prefer my limited cognitive resources were spent only on more pleasant things. I think my view of humanity generally would be far brighter without these special interests, and I wish we existed in a world where manipulation and organized mass violence didn't. Going to play happy music and draw happy pictures, now. But I'm still glad you started this conversation; it is good to know I'm not alone in having ongoing interests that make me go, "Wait, why am I even think--...?" P.S. - Your Autism videos frequently tackle subjects (like this one) that my other favorite content makers don't, or you examine "the usual suspects" from an angle that I can relate to better, sometimes due to all-too-familiar socioeconomic factors, sometimes due to quirks of humor or shared interest or similar family challenges. Anyways, I appreciate your work on this channel amidst all that life has thrown at you over the last couple of years, and wish you the best going forward.

I relate to this video SO MUCH! Diagnosed this year age 53. I also had the ballet special interest, I still love it and can calm a meltdown by watching (weirdly specific!) 1980s rehearsal videos, especially if Natalia Makarova is involved. I got to work with a ballet company for a season once, I would have paid THEM to let me be there 😆 One I really didn't need was the Miami condo collapse. I found some engineers on YT investigating why it happened and I couldn't stop watching them. Once I was satisfied I understood, I lost interest completely. It's so weird how these things consume us and then are just... gone.

I’ve never heard someone else talk about this, but it is sooo relatable! GREAT video

I try not to pass value judgements on my special interests, but I'll list ones that I probably wouldn't discuss in polite company. - Soviet Union - WWII-era Germany - Industrial accidents - Maritime, aircraft, and spacecraft accidents I think the overall theme is an interest in how things fail, whether that's a mechanical system or a human one. I think there are so many lessons that can be applied from these scenarios to things we do in our lives.

You are so hilarious. I love the way you express yourself. Your content reminds me that I’m not alone in my experiences and it’s such a relief 💕

Ooooh I understand this! I have this very weird interest in the occult and religions despite being incapable of believing in the supernatural and hating religious organisations and cults and so much of it just feels like a scam to me. But I can't stop reading and watching content about it! It's so fascinating to me and I have no idea why! I tried real hard to believe in something because I thought maybe it would explain my interest, it doesn't work. I just really enjoy learning about religions, cults and occult practices without taking any part of it.

Countrycide was the scariest episode in the whole of Torchwood! Brilliant TV.

The Holocaust was my special interest for years! It kind of impacted the trajectory of my life... I never met anyone else with that as a special interest, so thanks for making this video and opening up about it! Plus the cannibalism thing, which I can also relate to due to an adjacent interest😳

Tina the Ballenrina🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🥰 I’m almost 60 years old and as a young girl would play that one song, the only song in the world for me over and over and over and over and over and over. And yes so often we don’ choose our special interest, they seem to just manifest

I noticed the pattern on wall look like horoscopes I like it

I think you might like The Luminous Dead by Caitlin Starling, it's horror sci-fi lesbians in caves as a metaphor for grief. Caving is a topic that sticks in the head real easy. People are really out there putting the only body they will ever have into potentially unstable holes in the Earth for fun, and I can totally get the appeal and fascination of discovery & experience, but also count me completely out 😂 I feel like the KZfaq algorithm is fine tuned to feed those unfavorable fascinations too, I'll get sucked into mini documentaries on disasters and serial killers to find a whole day is gone and all my recommendations are to continue the journey down this uncomfortable insight into the world.

I have a thing for disasters, Bijlmer(amsterdam) airplaine disaster 1992, fireworks disaster Enschede 2000(I survived this one myself so I guess that was a natural development) in NL where i'm from, the fall of the twin towers, Grenfell tower disaster more recently. Had a long serial killer phase as a teenager. Witch trials and persecution.. WWII and holocaust is definitely also one of mine Also the War in Ukraine is permanently on my mind and that is not a good thing as you can imagine. I just got diagnosed today at 46.

Haha for me it was once plague and pestilence in the Middle Ages 😂 to be fair that spark is still there. Love torchwood and that episode is terrifying!

Autism is a special interest to me as well. I didn't find out I was autistic until I was in my forties. So I wanted to learn as much as possible about it. If I am lame, oh well!

I could live without my South Park special interest I’ve had for the past year and a half

This absolutely made me die. And I love hearing neurodivergent folk talk about their special interests. They kinda light up. Apart from the usual childhood ones; Star Wars, dance films, fantasy novels, ancient Egypt etc, when I was about 8 I became obsessed with the life, death and posthumous shenanigans of Eva Peron. I used to wander about the house with a tape recorder, whispering facts about her into it 🤣 Did multiple school projects about her that no one asked for too. Fun kid that I was. My parents still insist I was just a normal child. Which probably says more about them, come to think of it.

Heh, I can relate to the strange fascination with Hannibal Lecter, although it’s more part of a broader special interest in serial killers and true crime that yeah, I definitely never asked for. 😂 Otherwise, mine are usually more things that other people consider cheesy/lame/cringey, like the Disney Descendants movies or Sky High or the old TV show The Rifleman.

One of my special interest right now is the Holocaust, for the past several years I have read tons of books, literature, and watched movies about WWII, German fascism, Nazism, and the Holocaust. It has taken a toll on my mental health. Another one of my special interests is collapse, social/economic/climate. Having politics as a special interest is a fucking curse and everyone hates you for but they don't understand I can't help it.

Ooh did you watch find me in Paris? About ballet, ish, and time travel. Cheesy but fab

I'm interested in psychopaths. I don't mind having that interest though.

I remember in high school one of my special interests was child se***l abuse. Yeah. My library record was wild.

Well you opened the door on this... As a child I had the stereotypical interest in trains, particularly steam trains. So within the limitations of access and finances, my parents tolerated that. I had a fascination with mechanical gear trains, having seen a Geneva mechanism (Google it) when I was around 4yrs. old. So I wanted an erector set. My father's special interest was photography and cameras, so there was always a camera stuck in my face. I was always trying to squirm my way out of frame while he fiddled with f stops and exposure meters and all the accoutrements. Endlessly, until I would edge towards a meltdown, and he would actually have a screaming rage of a meltdown over my non-compliance. So my clever mother anticipated that she could avoid that whole scenario by taking me to a department store to have my portrait taken. She bargained with me: a "reward" for my cooperation. So I'm expecting that erector set (despite my not being entirely cooperative, but having endured the process). I still have that picture of a sullen me. But what I received instead was an obnoxious multi colored pegboard set that I called a "baby toy", which I despised on sight. Especially considering that I was being treated like a "child prodigy" at the time. My older sister had already tested at genius IQ, and her "special interest" was architecture. I was furious, because I felt I had been quite clear about what I wanted. Since I had been obsessing nonstop about the possibilities of what I could accomplish with an ERECTOR SET! It sticks in my memory because my exasperated mother said maybe she should give it to a little boy that "deserved" it. Me, taking this at literal face value, assumed I was an "undeserving" person and was only receiving the toy out of obligation. Which made every birthday and Christmas from that point forward just awful. The more lavish the gifts, the worse I felt. I never quite got over it. Making me averse to presents, compliments and generally any attention at all, lifelong. It's crazy, I know. Which leads me to my latest special interest, or vice-versa. I went down the rabbit hole 4 or 5 years ago. After unsuccessfully trying to obtain a diagnosis. To understand how trauma manifests in people's lives. Specifically: how or why some people are able to process and heal or at least live with the aftermath, and others become consumed with nihilism, often tragically. Deep dive: hundreds of hours of interviews with survivors and therapists, research papers, intervention approaches, on and on. Along the way I came across a number of individuals who were both traumatized and autistic. A subset that required further understanding of autism, how it manifests in people's lives. The more I watched, listened and learned I began to recognize patterns and traits that reflected my own life experience. How my literal, trusting and naive nature opened me up to being vulnerable and easily exploited. Which led to self assessment tests, more reading and research and then a process to explain myself (to myself) that would account for some other reason my life comported with being autistic... other than being autistic. No luck. Which led to cataloguing childhood events, experiences and affectations. It revealed a self referential loop of how one aspect of my life fed into the other. Also revelations of why some autistic individuals excell and accommodate themselves, while others don't. The significance of nurture and support, especially in early childhood. How awareness of otherwise unremarkable events and attitudes can have profound repercussions with an autistic childs worldview, and their place in it.

Another great video, very thought provoking and good at getting one to re-examine their fixations, guilty pleasures and secret kinks - something many of us autistics seem to share! I get the weird repulsion/fascination with cannibalism - I've seen and read lots of content about this (including all the Lecter stuff) but with a gruesome fascination often to the point of nausea. The Holocaust is another we have shared (although have divested myself of now) but I at least had the excuse of being raised in the Jewish faith. Caving tho! Totally claustrophobic, scared of the dark but actually fell in love with it after LARPing in the Chislehurst caves. Luckily have also managed to rid myself of this one over time and introduction to scuba diving. But then there are the other types of fixations - those of a more adult or socially unacceptable nature - that take up too much time and energy to be healthful. Many ND's also have issues with addiction that are basically maladaptation's to their navigating an NT world and which become fixations and routines that they would prefer to leave behind as much as their other, odd seeming, interests.

I'm no expert but I think cannibalism is how you get things like mad cow disease

WW2 is a scary s.i, I have it too, it’s mind blowing. My favourite s.i is the French monarchy and French revolution, although history in general, it’s all so sad, it interests me because it’s infinitely multifaceted ❤❤❤

Ballet is also one of my special interests too! I have been to a couple shows, and they're super enjoyable. Quiet, the music is great, relaxed vibe. Definitely recommend! Hearing the sound of their pointe shoes tap the stage is so satisfying. x

I can relate to this. I have some special interests that I didn’t choose and don’t want. Have you read Unmasking Autism by Dylan Price? He says that autistic people can have special interests that they didn’t choose. It has helped me normalize them and to realize that I’m not a bad person for having them. The special interests I’m talking about are: African American slavery before the American Civil War. I had a book about Harriet Tubman when I was a kid that I read until I memorized passages from it. Also the autobiography of Frederick Douglass and other slave narratives. It makes it difficult because I have ancestors from Kentucky who owned slaves and my grandmother will say that it wasn’t that bad because they stayed with the family after they were freed. Right wing hate groups. I’m against them but also morbidly fascinated. And with what’s happening in the US now it’s especially relevant. Christian church denominations And one that dates me. Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses. It started out as a relatively normal crush but then it came out that he abused women. I tried to stop liking him because of that but I couldn’t. At this point I don’t even really like his music. But I still find myself thinking about him.

😂😂😂 fucking caving, man that cracked me up, you’re bloody hilarious, thankyou I needed to laugh. Omg caving disasters, now I’m not laughing at that it’s definitely you I’m laughing at

I can understand this a bit. I have always had a special interest in serial killers.... not because I like violence or anything like that, I've just always been obsessed with psychology and what makes people do what they do, so I think it's more of a curiosity thing lol.

Why do I have hyperfixation on clowns?! Clowns terrify me! :O

For me it's autism, aeroplane crash analysis reports, and I have this weird morbid obsession with watching disaster basrd youtube channels.

Okay last one (my special interest is leaving an embarrassing and creepy number of comments), I totally get the Philip Glennister thing! Life on Mars/ Ashes to Ashes ❤

My special interest is like just USSR Old Communist Russia and Dictators. One of my favorite movies is Animal Farm because the whole idea was so interesting to me in a morbid way. But weirdly its only Russian Dictators i have a special interest in. And listen to The Red Army Choirs music because i love how it sounds, but idk what the sings are about, i just like the sound of it. Idk why im so interested in all of this, i dont like or agree with communism at all. I just find old Communist Russia interesting and i sometimes i hate myself for it

Another great Dana video. I'm totally with you on wwii and fascism, never again, and aspergers I even have Playlist of favorite videos, you're on the aspie one of coarse. Cannibalism no, but the Dahmer files I'm watching now, and that was interesting, dahmer had a lot of issues there, but some of them I think leaned into autism if you ask me

There’s two kinds of unwanted SIs for me: annoying and distressing My annoying SI is definitely the FNAF series of video games. I don’t even particularly like it; the worldbuilding is just so sloppy imo that I want to rip out of Scott’s/Steel Wool’s hands and fix it myself lol. It was the same with the Twilight series, 50 Shades, Sia’s trash movie Music, Harry Potter, and now JK Rowling’s new book. They all frustrate me because the basic premises aren’t bad, but they’re just so poorly executed. The last one is especially frustrating because reworking it would require the most… gutting? It’s built on a rotten foundation to begin with but, from a writing perspective, the formatting is just godawful. But the idea of a murder mystery about a KZfaq animator who gets murdered for having bad takes is just so funny to me (I could be wrong tho, I’ve only read snippets). It’d be like if hotdiggetydemon got killed because someone decided the PONY.MOV series was just THAT ~problematic~. Like, I do think there’s potential in a murder mystery that dives deep into Internet culture, the niche groups we form, online etiquette, ‘cancel culture,’ being disabled online, authenticity, the internet’s anonymous safe haven vs the current exploitation/monetization of our entire lives, and so on. And it’s certainly worthy of commentary/analysis/satire; the Internet is bursting with possibilities for fiction writers. But JK Rowling, who probably found tumblr while Twitter-stalking some nobody who called her cringe, is absolutely not the person to do it. Tbh the title of the fictional animated series immediately tells me she has no understanding of the Internet. ‘The Ink Black Heart,’ that’s so stuffy and sounds more like a found footage ARG or at best, an account that makes vent art/animations on tiktok. Any speck of potential the book had is ruined by JK’s projection about how she’s not owned.

Everyone, what has been your "weirdest" special interest or special interest you didn't want?

you can develop a special interest on things, that scare you???

Why am I you tho 😅😅😅