Chapter 6: The Princes of the Air

  As someone who grew up on a steady diet of science fiction and fantasy, I was fascinated to read about Hugo Gernsback and his role in creating and selling wireless radios, creating a pulp publishing powerhouse, fandom as we know it, and essentially helping pave the way for people with autism to augment their communication. Gernsback was friends with Nikolai Tesla and while neither could’ve been diagnosed with autism, they both possessed characteristics of being on the spectrum. 

    Gernsback founded the magazine Modern Electrics for radio ham operators, attempted to coin the genre of scientifiction with his novel, and founded the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories. He was obsessed with cool gadgets and all the possibilities and promise of science.

    What’s particularly interesting is the mark he left on modern fandom. If you’ve ever read any of those old pulp stories about a single, stoic man exploring unknown planets and aliens and saving beautiful yet two dimensional female characters, or pondered Mr. Spock’s lack of emotion and sense of utter logic, looking back on it all through the autistic-tinted solar goggles might suggest that not only many of these creators and inventors had autism, but that many of their fans identified with them as well.

    Eventually, these creators and inventors would move on from ham radios to other forms of communication like early emails and the first ever online bulletin board systems. These princes of the air created a hacker culture at MIT that would eventually transition to Silicon Valley. While they struggled to appropriately express themselves in face-to-face interactions, they invented new ways to augment their communication without making eye-contact or worrying about body language, but still making a big impression.