“My Autism Keeps Upsetting People” - Vittorio Angelone - #1119

Confession time: I went through a heavy Jordan Peterson phase in my early twenties, felt mortified about it for years, and yet the blunt, tidy-your-life energy actually got me moving.

Would your crowd have guessed you were once a Peterson superfan?

Some would be shocked, but I try to be honest about past influences, even when they’re cringe, because they were useful then.

On tour in Nashville I’m pretty sure my drink got spiked after I thrashed a couple of pool toughs; I spent the next day heaving every half hour, went to urgent care, got an anti‑nausea jab for two hundred dollars, and crawled through the airport in a wheelchair I requested on the app.

I didn’t tell the airline I might’ve been drugged because I wanted to get home, cried on the phone to my mum, and swore off booze for the rest of the month.

America’s been chaos: LA felt like roads pretending to be a city, New York was great until my stomach betrayed me near the memorial, and I can’t believe what passes for a sandwich here.

The UK meal deal is a national institution Americans don’t understand, right down to the joy of a triangle cut.

Diagonal slices taste better, Ireland’s deli counters are elite, and the chicken fillet roll is our crown jewel.

You were diagnosed autistic at twenty‑nine; what’s shifted since?

No movie moment—just years of misreading people, apologizing too much, childhood panic attacks and bolting from crowds, then a four‑year NHS wait I shortcut when clinicians who saw my show offered to assess me privately.

I score modestly on traits but extremely high on masking, which explains why I pass until I don’t; I’m not using it as an excuse to be rude, I just hope folks clock the intent if I misfire.

That BAFTAs Tourette’s backlash was ugly—are people forgetting how tics work?

It was maddening watching celebrities moralize when the condition literally compels the worst‑timed words; inclusion means building ramps for hard social moments too, not barring the person who needs one.

Labels are clumsy—Asperger’s got retired, so I’m autism level one, and I likely have hypermobility that travels with it; I was also told ADHD, but I’m wary of how quick that label gets handed out because meds create incentives.

What went down with the Irish Times piece?

A reviewer framed my show as parochial, which felt off given I wrote it in London and over‑explain Northern Irish context on purpose; I posted a pushback that exploded, brought some nasty pile‑ons, and led to a frank call where we both accepted we’d phrased things poorly.

I’ve been watching the Kevin Hart roast fallout; America turns a comedy show into a week of post‑fight pressers in a way the UK rarely does.

Roasts here are old hat and now feed a reaction economy; I even stumbled into a wild Comedy Store night with Chappelle, Gillis, Louis, Rock, and Kanye, got roasted myself for a stone face, and still think the best lines were jokes, not culture‑war signals.

There’s a thing I call cringe cancellation—make someone so uncool that word‑of‑mouth turns negative and their brand rots; you can see hints of it with certain podcasters and even the Rock’s mid‑rebrand.

Overexposure and forced edginess make people allergic fast, and when a mega‑star starts cursing to look dangerous it shows how narrow the acceptable lane got.

Do you feel the pendulum swinging back after the 2020 chill?

It ebbs and flows; too many sets here chase clapter by stapling a slur onto a soft premise, while my show aims to unsettle everyone a bit—sentiment for the cynics, sharp jokes for the earnest crowd.

There’s also speedrunning relatability, where performers reverse‑engineer vulnerability until it feels synthetic.

Audiences want a single identity lens, but I resist that—I’m not just Irish or autistic; I’m a comic saying what I actually think.

You built a show around that viral bowling outburst—what hooked you?

I titled the show after Pete Weber’s infamous yell because I was writing about identity, then realized most crowds hadn’t seen it and had to teach the meme before using it as a mirror for my own swagger and heel‑turn moments.

He lives in Nashville and missed my date; I DMed him the special link and got a polite ghost.

Talk me through the phase where you boxed yourself in and then broke out.

A podcast clip of me joking I was “the guy” at Edinburgh got ripped from context and dunked on in group chats, so I suppressed the bravado for a while, then rebuilt it because ambition and a little strut are part of the craft—and you can’t sell a tour by whispering.

The UK’s tall‑poppy reflex had me practicing performative meekness for years; as an awkward kid who played cricket, I learned to be small so people wouldn’t hate me.

A Coach Carter monologue flipped a switch for me—it’s not our darkness but our brightness that scares us, and showing it gives others permission to shine; when did you shed the false modesty?

I still downplay everything to keep my ego in check and because I assume I’m less likeable than I need to be, so I compensate—yet I try to act anyway, which is why I even said no to a Trump interview.

Good—basic line to hold, but in this era it still counts.

I even passed on a high‑stakes interview because I knew fifty minutes wouldn’t move a generational communicator, and the bigger lesson for me was this: most people are held back by confidence, not competence, so act first and let belief catch up.

You need a baseline trust that you’re not a monster, so you can push yourself into the world without fearing you’ll become arrogant overnight.

Authenticity can freeze you in place, and with anxiety and possible autism in the mix, my gut’s unreliable, so I prep answers and then force myself to move anyway.

You’ve said having prefab responses helps you avoid relying on instinct in the moment.

Totally, because my instinct is to press people on why they do what they do, and half the time they’re just running on momentum without noticing other options.

There’s that couples‑therapy idea of sliding versus deciding, and people do it with careers and relationships until they wake up wondering when they ever chose any of it.

Comedy has that treadmill too, so I’m planning a year off performing in 2027 to write, live a little, and make the podcast sturdier so I come back hungry.

You’ve got to live a life to make art about life; otherwise it’s airport lounges and green rooms forever.

Our podcast name is deliberately idiotic because the show is gleefully stupid, and we even put it in the kids‑and‑family category just to crank the joke.

What surprised me is how many women love loose, playful guy chat because they don’t always get that silly, zero‑stakes banter in their own circles.

A lot of comedy pods go guy‑centric and edgy, then drift right and lose women, and I keep getting mislabeled as some gateway to the manosphere.

You’re not in that world, but you sit near topics those audiences track—fitness, mindset, male identity—so the Venn diagram can confuse people.

I’ve been slammed from both sides, called a right‑wing looks‑maxing pipeline one week and blue‑pilled the next; it’s like getting roasted by opposing tribes for the same take.

If our show reaches young men before the worst voices do, that’s a win, because we model warmth and soft‑edged friendship, which is what helped me most about early Jordan Peterson—clear, non‑patronizing direction.

After more than a thousand episodes, the basics of sleep, food, training, and productivity are covered, so I’m building a big‑table hang with friends because in the AI era people need company more than another info‑dump.

As AI muddies what’s real on your phone, live gigs feel precious again, and I think stand‑up and music will matter more because you can trust what’s in the room.

Nightclubs are fading fast, so what’s the most Belfast way someone’s ever tried to intimidate you?

Twice on tour someone shouted the exact street my dad grew up on in West Belfast, which isn’t a direct threat but lands like a quiet flex of we know where you’re from.

It’s that chilling we‑know‑who‑you‑are energy.

Rural roots run deep, which is why I try to build city community too; in North London I’ve even become tech support for the lovely Italian lady who feeds the foxes.

Being needed beats living like no one depends on anyone, so what Italian tradition would Brits call psychological warfare?

La Befana—an old witch who gives gifts to every child in case one is the newborn Christ—meant our community hall parties ended with a kindly witch handing out presents, which is delightfully deranged.

Those grind‑parody bits we taped were killer, and that tiny‑sunglasses character had me in tears yesterday.

Theme parks gave me the fear too; I remember the Tower of Terror chaos and then hearing about that Alton Towers disaster.

After the Smiler amputations I’ve sworn off coasters, and we even joked about the price of a leg before veering into handedness and how percussion training forced my useless left hand to level up.

That’s exactly the kind of tangent I mean when I talk about stand‑up chemistry.

Appreciate you, man—this was a joy; until next time, everyone.