Why I call myself "Uncanny Valley Girl"

And use Bukiminotani, the original expression coined by Japanese roboticist, Dr. Masahiro Mori, as tribute to him

Uncanny Valley Girl is the moniker I took up after recognizing my own lived neurodivergent experience in roboticist, Dr. Mori's description of Bukiminotani (不気味の谷), the uncanny valley.  

In the seventies, (think first video game: Pong) Japanese roboticist, Doctor Masahiro Mori, made the observation that people feel an affinity for humanoid robots until the resemblance is too close. They are suddenly overcome with uneasiness and lose all affinity, free-falling into what Dr. Mori called Bukimi No Tani, the Uncanny Valley.

When I first found out about Dr. Mori’s observation, I recognized something crucial about my own lived experience as a neurodivergent. What Dr. Mori described was identical to that of people who had become close to me, but ultimately dropped off (ghosted me). The wonderful affinity was replaced with a sudden disquietude. What I couldn’t understand was why. 

After hearing from many other nerurodivergents on the spectrum like myself, I understood it to be a shared experience. Like the others, I had no way of finding out from those who would profess love or fondness and suddenly disappear. Everyone I had loved, who professed to love me and accept me as I am, had suddenly one day disappeared without explanation or goodbyes. Most of my life has passed in solitude.  I am the uncanny valley girl. The fact is, the Uncanny Valley and the liminal lands inhabited by the unrecognized neurominority are one and the same.

You can call me Uncanny Valley Girl. Think of me as your docent, or guide, in the real world of diverse neurotypes. 

Allow me to assure you that, as uncomfortable and eerie as your experience might be, being forced to live in your world is infinitely worse. Toughing it out here where you lose bearing and cannot understand what is happening to you beyond it being extremely uncomfortably foreign and having no resemblance to what you have always understood about human beings, will not harm you. 

Remember, you can make the choice to leave, and the neurodominant mostly do choose to leave. We neurodivergent are never afforded the choice to leave without the cost of death or dangerously prolonged isolation. We are forced to live in a neurodominant world where everyone is in a trance, believing theirs is the only human consciousness or neurological type. They refer to themselves when they describe human experience or behavior, never aware by doing so they insure we neurodivergent remain invisible and condemned to silence. 

It seems a lot depends on the neurodominant among us. Until the consciousness of the neurodominant is liberated, and they break free of their coding, scripts, traumas, imprints, indoctrination, and conditioning, none of us are free. It is only in that place of liberated view that the neurdominant will finally see and hear the neurominority. We will never be free until the consciousness of the neuromajority is truly free.  It’s up to each one of you to break out of your collective dream imprisoning us all.