OPE! Mixtape #55: Cthulhu's Autism

I needed a good laugh this week.

Welcome to OPE!, the newsletter by writer and music journalist Brady Gerber. This is where I share the top music news of the week, my favorite (and new-to-me) songs and links, and various musings on life. All typos are intentional.

Well, hello there. How are you?

How about that Super Bowl. Congrats to all my Eagles-supporting friends. I’ve already forgotten about the bulk of Kendrick Lamar’s Super Bowl performance, but it wasn’t bad. This week’s Big Three for paying subscribers has me rewatching the show on YouTube, which inspired more thoughts on the role of the Super Bowl within the music industry (I feel mixed?) and how Kendrick, I argue, is walking away from the Super Bowl as … sort of a loser? This week also got the best of me with many appointments that kept me away from my laptop, so this week will be short and sweet.

In the meantime, I wanted to shout out Sara Gibbs. At least within my world, she went somewhat viral for her latest for The Daily Tism, which is The Onion but specifically for neurodiversity gags written by neurodiverse writers and, thank goodness, is actually funny, even if you just read the headline:

“I have autism” announces Cthulhu.

It was a much-needed laugh after a pretty brutal couple of days, in-between RFKJ getting his green light (something I wrote a lot about a few newsletters ago), weird X bros choosing to blame Elon’s weird nazi salute on his autism, and most recently, Kanye West reentering the news saying (more) unpleasant stuff and adding, “By the way, I’ve now been diagnosed with autism, so I can continue saying weird shit and you can’t be mad.”

PSA: You can be autistic and not be a nazi. I’m not a nazi, contrary to what TikTok will tell you.

Sara’s joke is relatively short, so here it is:

A gigantic entity worshipped by cultists, Cthulhu, has announced that he is evil because he has autism.

Cthulhu, described as “a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind,” disclosed their diagnosis after Kanye West made a similar claim yesterday.

Cthulhu is non-speaking, but communicated via their followers: “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn,” which loosely translates to: “everyone else is trying it on, so why not Cthulhu?”

“Cthulhu isn’t nearly as evil as Kanye Boris, or Elon and yet they hadn’t tried flinging autism into the mix as a vague catch-all excuse.”

A spokesperson for autistics, Paige Thomas, commented: “Wait autism doesn’t make you ev-“ but was unable to finish her sentence before Cthulhu woke and dragged her into the depths of the ocean.

“Everyone else is trying it on.”

But enough about all that. Here are this week’s top music news, and my favorite links and songs …

Loving this unpacking of Cthulhu, the gigantic entity worshipped by cultists? Become a paying subscriber to dive deeper into the following biggest music stories of the week and gain access to my curated links and mixtapes, for the cost of just one cup of coffee per month. You can also make a one-time donation to my coffee fund.