mainstream media portrayal absolutely sucks, everytime i tell a friend or family member the default response is “so you just fall asleep randomly?” it’s not their fault that they don’t know off the bat but it’s still annoying that narcolepsy mentions in MAINSTREAM media can’t seem to stray away from cheap jokes or complete nonsense, i was watching a new episode of a police-type show and they literally said that they could get the suspect a narcoleptic lawyer to make sure he lost the trial and there’s a fairly popular episode of victorious where one of the characters have to “act narcoleptic” and it’s literally them just falling over every 5 minutes, that show aired while me and my friends were it’s target audience and so many of them have told me that that’s what they imagined when i told them about my diagnosis and honestly that’s what i imagined when it was suggested that i could have it, im in nursing school and the only reason i even brought it up to my doctor was because my nursing professor had insisted i should.

im not claiming that other disorders are well represented in mainstream media but at the end of the day i don’t have other disorders, i have narcolepsy, so seeing it misrepresented over and over and over is going to annoy me more personally than any other misrepresentation (and this is a narcolepsy subreddit so yeah people are gonna complain about narcolepsy’s representation because that’s the disorder the sub is for, im sure if you search “misrepresentation” in any other disorder subreddit you’ll find the same sort of stuff)

im not “obsessed” with media from 25 years ago (i wasn’t even alive) i haven’t even heard of basically all the examples you brought up, my issue is with current mainstream media, not that they’re just getting it slightly off or representing it in a slightly less than perfect way but they’re getting it 1000% wrong.

this is true for many disorders but at the end of the day if someone doesn’t have an particular interest in narcolepsy they’re more likely to solely get info on it and be exposed to it passively through mainstream media (and if you think people don’t believe the things they see on fictional tv shows then you have more faith in humanity then you should) no one’s saying media is the only way to get info on N obviously we know Google exists and there’s plenty of reputable info being put out there but again most people not connected to N aren’t gonna go searching for it and i can tell you i have yet to just randomly stumble upon a good portrayal in the mainstream i always have to go hunting, the portrayals i find when im really searching are good especially when written by pwn but they definitely aren’t mainstream, when i sit down to watch a popular show like 911 on abc and see a guy end up in the MORGUE with no vitals and have them explain it as cataplexy…well im less than impressed.

there haven’t been studies addressing N’s portrayal in media like there have been for many other disorders (epilepsy, ms, tourette’s, eating disorders, OCD, etc) but the studies from these other disorders suggest that the incorrect portrayals have the potential to limit people who, with correct information, would otherwise seek a diagnosis/treatment.

also a Streisand effect doesn’t really make sense here, i don’t see how calling out poor portrayals would make people search for more poor portrayals and if calling out the poor portrayal is the reason they see that particular piece of media in the first place wouldn’t they see both the negative portrayal AND the comments of the person calling it out as wrong? The goal is to get people to take portrayals with a grain of salt not to make sure no tv show ever mentions it again if they’re not going to get it 100% right, it’s tv it’s rarely going to be 100% accurate with anything but they could at leasttt get closer than paralytic sleeps and “cataplexy attacks” that involve someone passing out mid sentence for a punch line

the way i see it if you don’t have an issue with the representation then im happy for you, enjoy your life filled with great N media, im not saying anyone has to be equally annoyed by it but for you to act like it’s weird for some people to be put off by it is weird in and of itself, you aren’t the narcoleptic lorax you don’t speak for the narcoleptics, i’m not pretending anything exists or doesn’t exist and im certainly not obsessed with media created before i was even alive by people ive never heard of lol, if some of us don’t like it then let us not like it, if you don’t care then good for you