This week's episode is a recording of the Lab's virtual roundtable on ADHD Advocacy and Social Media, organized and hosted by SLU Graduate Instructor and Ph.D. Candidate Carol Hogan-Downey. Carol invited Jennifer Parker and Michael Ruffin to discuss their work creating peer advocacy networks on platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.

Jennifer Parker started her page, Jenn Has ADHD, in 2019 to learn more about her ADHD and to advocate for herself. Now, she has reached over 260,000 followers on Facebook, 35,000 on Instagram, and two ADHD support groups with a combined 40,000 members. Jenn’s content draws on her studies in art, her love of memes, and her Maori heritage to promote ADHD awareness and advocacy through peer support. While she works on her own content, she also promotes the work of other neurodiversity advocates and leads a team of moderators in her peer-support group, We Have ADHD—all working toward her goal of ending the stigma about ADHD and furthering awareness of adult ADHD and its many presentations.

Michael Ruffin is an ADHD coach and social-media advocate. He entered into ADHD advocacy after developing a following in 2020 as a Dungeons and Dragons Twitch streamer and TikTok personality @Words for Sale. In September of 2020, he was diagnosed with ADHD and started to pursue a career in mental health by becoming a Peer Support Specialist. While becoming more and more educated on neurodiversity, he discovered the similarities and differences between ADHD and ASD that resonated with his own experiences and was diagnosed with ASD in July of 2021. He began posting about neurodiversity in early 2021, amassing over 73,000 followers on TikTok as Words_and_ADHD. Michael incorporates his skills as a writer and actor to spread awareness about neurodiversity and its overlaps with topics of gender, mental health, creativity, and geek culture.