The Weekly Infodump, 2024/04/01
Welcome to The Weekly Infodump, which contains a short write-up of whatever is on my mind. You are allowed to share this newsletter with others and I hope you will.
(observances) Brace yourselves, Autists: it's That Month again.
So my place of work is already balls-deep into its annual, highly performative Bewareness Programming (complete with Sharepoint landing page!) and I am mentally calculating whether it will be more harmful to my mental health to speak up or keep my mouth shut.
However, this year I planned ahead! I've got a bunch of links to informative articles written by ND people locked and loaded, so that if I'm called upon to explain my lack of enthusiasm for this shit (and, as an ungrateful (supposedly) "high functioning" "person-with-autism" that is Not Like Your Child, you know I will be!), I can just hurl them into the chat and run.
I'll put them here, reader, in case you find yourself in a similar situation!
- I am Autistic & Don't Like Autism Awareness Month by Lyric Rivera (NeuroDivergent Rebel)
- Why Autism Awareness Month can be Traumatising for Autistic People by Chris Bonnello (CaptainQuirk)
- 10 Things Autistic People Wished You Knew About April and Autism Awareness Month by Terra Vance
- Why Many Autistic People Don't Celebrate Autism Awareness Month by Leslie A. Zukor
- An #ActuallyAutistic Reponse to Autism Awareness Month by Laura Sharkey; this one has a good AVOID.../FOCUS INSTEAD ON... framing that may be helpful when dealing with NTs.
- Bonus: if you work somewhere that is more likely to listen to Serious Businessperson Publications, check out Your Autism Awareness Day May Be Excluding Autistic People by Ludmila N. Praslova
(news) What could possibly make ABA worse? Private equity, of course!
Ah, late-stage capitalism, the absolute GOAT when it comes to "Hold my beer!"
(news) Although I take pride in my ability to annoy the shit out of any and all NTs I encounter, it now occurs to me that no one has ever sued me for it? Therefore I say, ALL HAIL OUR TINY AUTISTIC KING.
(celebrity autism, part 1) Talullah Willis, daughter of Bruce, announces her autism diagnosis. We'll see how this goes, I guess! Will she use her nepo baby platform to help the community in a meaningful way, or like, is this just the lead-up to launching a sensory-friendly skincare line? If it's the latter, I guess I'm fine with that? Really, the only outcome I don't want is for her to become the Caitlyn Jenner of Autists, embracing the perennially popular "human rights for me, not for thee!" stance of right-wingers everywhere.
(celebrity autism, part 2) Every few years, when the autism prevalence ratio gets revised (e.g., from 1 in 44 in 2018 to 1 in 36 in 2020), people completely lose their shit and start panicking about epidemics. Except for me, of course, who thinks, "Hmmm 1 in 36 is pretty good! But I know we can do better!"
Well, good news, folks! We can all stop drinking both Tylenol AND Round-Up because Nick Cannon is on it! He or his team writes:
“Today our family recognizes World Autism Awareness Day which is beyond meaningful to us because our amazing 2-year-old, Zillion, was recently diagnosed with ASD,” the joint announcement reads, in part. “Our beautiful boy experiences life in 4D and teaches us something new every day!”
Huh. Wish I got the "experiences life in 4D" autism instead of the "crashes into walls because has no depth perception" autism but hey, the spectrum giveth and the spectrum taketh away.
ANYWAY, I am super-excited because there is no way that Nick Cannon has only one autistic child. In fact, it is entirely possible that he has 10-12, regardless of whether or not he has noticed this.
(television) These days I am watching Cruise Ship Killers on Tubi. I will not be taking questions at this time!
We have come to the end of the newsletter. Class dismissed!