This reel-of-reels marked my return to short-form video—an ongoing invitation to think sharper, feel safer, and make sense of the chaos in 60 seconds. My neurodivergence & trauma healing shorts were designed to be sharp, shareable, and emotionally intelligent. I tackled demand avoidance, narcissistic power structures, ADHD hacks that actually work, distinguishing between threats when the amygdala is triggered, and how extroverted AuDHDers can survive social chaos without abandoning hope. Every reel points to something deeper: how misunderstood neurotypes end up caught in systems that mistake protection for pathology. (To see them in their original intended vertical format, visit @lindsay-makes-videos on YouTube or @zamdanga on Instagram.)

I'm a huge Fallout fan, and in this video, I use the rivalry between Benny and Mr. House in Fallout: New Vegas to explore power—how charisma, manipulation, and fear drive survival decision-making. I frame The Courier (the player) as a pressure point that reveals each character’s philosophy: one rooted in image and rebellion, the other in cold, calculated control. This was a chance to merge my love of narrative gaming with the bigger questions I always circle back to—when we serve power more than honesty, what kind of future are we really choosing? With the Fallout Amazon series now a hit and Mr. House featured in Season 2 this December, this conversation is more relevant than ever.

This video marked the official launch of a communication model I’d been quietly developing for years. “Truth Gears” is a framework I designed to replace the broken fact vs. opinion binary with something more human, more nuanced, and actually usable in daily life—especially for people with trauma and neurodivergence. In this video, I break down how subjectivity, shared reality, and firsthand experience operate on different “gears,” and why so many internet conflicts are really just gear mismatches. It’s my attempt to build something practical for emotional safety, epistemic humility, and collective understanding. 

This was one of my direct attempts to bridge the gap between autistic people and the neurotypical world. This is a highlight reel from a longer training session where I broke down the unique and commonly misunderstood characteristics of autistic communication to an allistic (not autistic) audience—how we ask questions, how we process context, why directness isn’t aggression, overwhelm isn’t a character flaw, and why “common sense” is a poor measuring stick for autistic “uncommon sense.” For autistics, repairing broken communication isn’t just about clarity—it’s about survival. 

This era of my YouTube work was about sorting out where autism ends and trauma begins—or whether that’s even the right question. I discussed burnout, masking, misdiagnosis, emotional neglect, and the psychological cost of being misunderstood. I was candid about respecting dysregulation with a sense of personal responsibility toward accountability and boundaries. These videos reflect a turning point in how I frame neurodivergence in myself and others: not as a problem to solve, but as a perspective to honor. 

This was the first time I publicly broke down a fictional character through an explicitly autistic lens, and it’s one of the most successful videos I’ve ever uploaded. In this video, I analyzed Caleb from Big Mouth not just as a fan, but as someone with lived expertise and broader awareness. I pointed to moments of representation done right—with accurate nuance and social sensitivity. I also discussed why Caleb resonates with autistic people in ways that feel deeply personal. This marked a shift in direction. I wasn’t just an autistic person talking about autism, I was critically assessing how autism is portrayed in media, why others come up short, and why that matters.

This year I participated heavily in the autistic TikTok community. Around the time I received my autism diagnosis, I was making short, pointed videos about masking, miscommunication, workplace shame, and why self-diagnosis has validity. These clips explored the late-diagnosis experience and the disconnect between autistic experience and allistic assumptions. While TikTok gave me a great opportunity to connect with those with similar experiences, I eventually determined the environment was disastrous to my nervous system. 

I don't say this lightly—The Social Dilemma changed my life. This video, focused on the journey of Tristan Harris, was my raw, urgent attempt to connect the dots between persuasive tech, psychological vulnerability, and the fracturing of human agency. I wanted to use The Social Dilemma to call out the invisible violence of surveillance capitalism, share my own history of manipulation and trauma, and argue that reclaiming attention is a spiritual act. This one came from my soul, and was a statement of appreciation toward one of the few people on the planet I truly admire.

This was a breakdown of how deregulation, disinformation, and denial of climate change collided to make people suffer. I made this video in the middle of a real-life crisis—my apartment flooded, my power failed, and elected officials tried to blame it all on wind turbines. I used sarcasm and storytelling to expose some unsettling, deeper truths—that our systems are designed to save money, not people. I made the case that love, not fear, has to be the foundation of public policy.

In this emotionally charged video essay, I confronted the intense controversy surrounding spiritual teacher Teal Swan—not to exonerate her, but to dissect how trauma, ego, and public perception collide. Drawing on my own lived experience as an abuse survivor, I explored why Teal’s claims provoke such visceral reactions, how we project our fears onto public figures, and what it means to advocate for nuance in a culture that feels safer making binary judgments. This piece lays groundwork for the deeper systems analysis I pursue today.

This stretch of time over peak COVID cracked me wide open. I started questioning not just culture, but the machinery behind it—how social media manipulates emotion for profit, how outrage is commodified, and how cancel culture holds a mirror to our inner darkness. I was dissecting power, criticizing complicity, and seeking deeper understanding of collective behavior. These videos mark the moment I stopped asking “what’s wrong with people” and instead asked “what have people built? And how do we change course?”

After walking away from my most successful YouTube series, I felt compelled to consciously untangle my beliefs on my own. I explored media influence, beauty standards, goal obsession, and perception itself through timely pop culture entry points. I began to confront that much of what we take for granted as “truth” is actually shaped by systems, conditioning, and personal bias. These videos were playful on the surface, but underneath I was starting to see the problem—the world isn’t neutral, and we can’t grow until we question what we think we see.

Before I stepped into advocacy and systems commentary, I spent my career inside the media machine—producing, directing, editing, and animating video content for tech companies, hotels, healthcare giants, and digital networks. My longest straight run was with Larry King’s Ora TV, where I worked on brand shows and delivered top-performing content across platforms. Later, I ran my own boutique media business, managing full production pipelines for big name clients. I was good at making things look polished. Sadly, over time, the constant instability of that lifestyle turned my attention to the root causes of that instability.

Alyssa and I had never met. I just heard the song, connected with the message, and sent her a pitch. The rest is history. I didn't share her experiences as a musician, but I deeply related as a YouTuber navigating the pressure to satisfy both audiences and revenue streams—and somehow remain authentic. The concept came together quickly, but the production took about six months, with over 30 volunteers pitching in. Looking back, this was one of my earliest attempts to say something real about performance and selfhood in capitalism.

Throughout making music industry content, I craved to cover broader topics. Ergo, The Dinz was born—a YouTube series splicing sketches and talk segments to encourage thoughtful discourse with levity and laughter. I ended up hosting and producing two episodes a week and managing a 6-member team. We were writing, shooting, editing, performing, and promoting for over a year. We achieved a following, but I walked away when the pressure from the attention far outweighed financial opportunity.

For a number of years, I hosted a variety of events at Anime Expo, the largest celebration of Japanese pop culture in North America. I developed event concepts and entertained and educated crowds. Even at a young age, I supervised crews and successfully delegated tasks to subordinates while maintaining the requirements of my supervisors in very high stress, time sensitive situations. Looking back, this is where I learned that I have no problem taking charge and commanding the stage if I feel alignment with my environment. 

When I first kicked off my YouTube channel, my professional goal was to direct music videos. They ended up being a lens to talk about bigger issues, like the intersection of pop culture, media ethics, and the complexities of global marketing. I unpacked how industry structures exploit loneliness, how idol fantasies distort real connection, and how niche marketing reinforces stereotypes while pretending to celebrate diversity. I wasn’t just reviewing videos, I was tracking the mechanics underneath, and that lens only sharpened with time.