My opinion on a Foundation for a Better Life commercial

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I understand what you are saying and I think our concern is similar. What is important is how that girl's life may have better outcomes because of how things have changed. I have no problems with that. I don't doubt the story, either. I DO have problems with people capitalizing on it for less than wholesome motives. I know there are people with good motives as well as those with bad. I don't have to be on guard for the good.

Actually, I heard about something like that happening on the news but it might have been homecoming queen instead of prom. I don't know what to think about it. I was never into school extracurricular activities like proms.
As for her winning the prom queen title, if it were a popularity contest with votes, there would have to be a conspiracy of sorts to get her elected. Students, most likely, wouldn't vote for her on their own. There would have had to been lots of talks from advocates and a genuine campaign on her behalf.

Yes. And the emotional confidence she will probably get from having been Prom Queen can help her take on challenges and risks she might not otherwise have had the confidence to tackle.

I understand Wavefreak's criticism that the people who voted her in did it as much so they could think "I am a good person" as for any other reason. But is that so terrible? If people do the right thing for the wrong reason, the right thing has still been done. If the student body was experiencing the endorphin rush of self regard because of this, maybe it will push them to do more good things in the future so they can experience that endorphin rush again. As for the Prom Queen herself, I bet she also got a pretty hefty endorphin rush from this experience. This wasn't a re-enactment of "Carrie". They didn't do this just to humiliate or hurt her. She is likely going to experience not just the helpful emotional confidence that comes from this, but also some lasting local fame that will help her future life through the expanded social circle that comes with fame. "Expanded social circle" probably sounds like hell on earth for somebody with autism. But she doesn't have autism.

True, true!

"On guard?" No.

Eyes open too it though, helps me avoid being overly negative too much of the time. I was once a VERY negative person, almost never seeing any good in people, and constantly questioning motives out of a cynical belief that all motives are somehow selfish. It took a long time to learn the attitude wasn't helping me get any pleasure out of life.

I suppose you could say that IRONICALLY I've learned to look for the good out of selfish motives.

I FEEL better for it!

There is a large variety of commercials / billboards going around. - http://www.values.com/

The problem is that, in the long run, people who do things like that for the endorphin rush are not likely to change when they do bad things that they think are good (for the same endorphin rush). Because when you correct them and say "No this is not good for me, really, please stop," no matter how "nice" you try to be about it (even disabled people with normal social skills encounter this exact same problem), they freak out because the correction stops the endorphin rush, and then they will range from offended to even abusive, and still not do the thing right. I recently had someone with that kind of personality take a swing at me over simply explaining to her why what she was doing was hurting someone I was helping advocate for. That's the extreme, but even in the less extreme versions it happens every day. This is where people in wheelchairs or blind people get people who will run up to them and "help" them across the street when they weren't planning to go across the street. This is where people with developmental disabilities of all kinds get staff who go into the field for the endorphin rush of "doing good" for someone, and then proceed to trample all over our rights to autonomy and to have the right thing done by us, because they can't take criticism (even often the mildest criticism) because that will kill the endorphin rush they get over thinking of themselves as doing good for someone in need. And then they will rationalize it to themselves that the person correcting them is the one who was a horrible person, and go on harming people without even intending to, and without being able to take the feedback that would turn them into someone who was actually doing the right thing.

This isn't about cynicism, either. It's a legitimate issue recognized by large parts of the disability rights movement as a problem affecting just about every kind of disabled person who needs a caregiver, and many who do not as well. Here's an article by someone who used to do that stuff for that reason (and who's now disabled), on why it's wrong:

http://www.mouthmag.com/issues/58/contam_smile.htm

So I know it looks innocent to a lot of people, but it's not that innocent when you have to live with people like that every day of your life. (Fortunately I have a case manager who filters out people like that so they don't end up working for me, but for years I had to put up with people like that. And often correction turned into abuse and terror because they would do anything to keep their ego intact. Still does in some of my advocacy work, as just mentioned.)