That girl from America's next top model.

Post Reply New Topic

"Curebies" are people who think that we need to be cured of AS, or autism more generally.

What I find so fascinating though is how someone with aspergers can cope in this kind of environment... in a way, it's a bit of a landmark for our kind.
Maybe it'll inspire me to thrive in the - god forbid - music industry. Harsh stuff.

I bet that she will get picked. Look how attractive she is.

Actually, there are scores of people out there who are complaining that she couldn't possibly have Asperger's Syndrome because they aren't seeing her display My Favorite Symptom. My Favorite Symptom varies from doubter to doubter, but I've seen variations on stimming, or confusion with idiomatic speech during panel judging, or total social withdrawal, or a lack of a sense of humor, or flat affect, or meltdown/tantrums, or stereotyped and exagerrated and readily noticable eye contact avoidance, or yada yada yada aspie-stereotype fishcakes.

What is most frustrating is that I've seen more than one of these objections coming from persons who claim to be clinical therapists and tout themselves as "familiar with" or "adept at spotting the telltale signs of" Asperger Syndrome. The claim is usually followed with The Manifesto of Those Who Are Smarter And More Tough-Minded Than You Gullible Fools, that rant which we so dearly love and which fills us with encouragement and a sense of acceptance: "Asperger Syndrome is the new fad diagnosis, because {implied: lazy and/or pansy and/or immature and/or self-deluded and/most-definitely-AND irritating} people have expanded the dx to cover simple introversion and/or lack of social skills and/or immaturity and/or amotivation-or-dare-I-call-a-spade-a-spade-gasp-selfish-and-egocentric-laziness {usually, but not always, implied: which people are using as an excuse for not being successful, which makes me personally uncomfortable, and I am irritated by people like that.}"

Fortunately, they tend to get the righteous smackdown *at least in the context of ANTM*, from wonderful enlightened people who point out that they are practicing poor logic when they feel they can dx a young woman based on LESS THAN AN HOUR of HEAVILY EDITED exposure on a REALITY TV PROGRAM. (Because, of course, duh, "reality" has nothing to do with it in, you know, reality.)

Back to frustration, we all know that such smackdowns only make them shut up; it doesn't change their opinions. To which we can only beg forgiveness from WP for this Bianca-rrific* reply to the naysayers:

b*****s, PLEASE!







* Bianca is another of the ANTM hamsters in this cycle, an amusingly snarky girl playing the role of "house b***h."

Seconded.

sorta like makin' love to a bag of antlers. . .

but I love it she is out there, completely out about being Aspergerian.

She had a bit of trouble with the tutorial last night--action posing. They had to pose while being carried by a male pairs skater. Heather froze and didn't even get off the ground. (For the record, I'm NT, and can skate, and I would have frozen, too... ).

But she pulled it out again in the photoshoot where she was one of the few models who got what a gargoyle is--which they were supposed to be. She was chastised for giving another profile shot--her comfort zone--and told she needed to connect with the camera full face.

I love the way she is refusing to look straight on. The judges take such a united front that they want her to do it, and she wisely holds back til she needs to save her self as a contestant, and then she will blow them away with her straight on shot !

Now that I've seen Heather jump on the trampoline and try to ice skate, and do basically as well as I would have done, I'm now starting to feel like I am part of a great either mutant or super race of humans, I don't know which.

Actually, she acted EXACTLY as I would have there! I am not ABOUT to bounce on a trampoline. I am getting to kind of like her. She is kind of expressive, and I didn't notice how she DOES look autistic!

I missed the ice skate part though. 8(

She LOOKS autistic!
Is artistic!
Bad Socially
Overly Expressive(to make up for not really being so)
Shy
Withdrawn
Has obsessions
A quick learner
Bad coordination

She seems pretty AS to me!

What more could one desire in a girl?

ah, thanks man!




if she likes action movies, she will be perfect A++

She's won 'Covergirl of the Week' three times in a row now! IDK, after this week people may get bored....

Would an encyclopedic knowledge of action movies be required?

I don't like action movies, but I would certainly give points to someone who had an encyclopedic knowledge of action movies.

They picked a bad picture for her from the gargoyle episode. When she was posing for the shoot, she totally got the gargoyle look down, much better than any of the other models. I thought she was going to win.

Then when she went up to get her picture to stay in the running, she didn't say thank you to Tyra, and all the judges laughed at her. Poor girl. She's doing really well, though. I couldn't do it.

How she's doing so well it's quite phenomenal... well it would be interesting if she reaches the very latter stages.