Well, Shark Week is over and of course we are all very depressed about this. What a perfect week, every year! Shark Week is the week where I leave all my troubles behind, for I am finally happy EXCEPT I’M OF COURSE LYING. That’s a lie! Shark Week was over YEARS ago, my friends. I’m sorry but it’s true! We know all there is to know about sharks! They have shown us everything already! If you put even one more shark fact into my brain, an actual shark will burst out of it, and then? Well, then I’ll be dead.
The Case Against Sharks
Everybody knows about sharks at this point. These guys have been swimming around like big oxygen tanks with triangle heads for decades. They are always doing this! Zooming after something while staring at it with their dead eyes. I’ve seen it. Okay? I know it. “What’s that shark doing? Could it be trying to find a mate?” NO, it’s just biting everything because that’s what sharks do. It’s swimming around—if you can even CALL it that, because it just, like, glides LIKE A FUCKING CREEP—and BITING.
It’s time for something new. We have reached what should be the beginning of a new era. It’s time to go deeper…literally. It’s time for the world to be given a Squid Week.
A…Squeek.
And not just any squids: giant squids. It’s time to go physically deeper in the sea and find out where the FUCKING giant squids are. I know what you’re going to say: “Audrey, they’re too down,” shut the Fuck up, I DON’T want to hear it anymore. Go down there, goddammit. You have to go! I’m sorry! It’s time! You can only show us these tube villains for so long, it’s time for science to go more down.
There’s Only One Person Who Can Make Squeek Happen
Thing is, I don’t trust anyone to actually go through with this. They’ll just wave their hands and say, “We don’t know enough about them,” OR—and this might be even worse because it’s insulting—they WILL actually make a Squeek, but they’ll fill it with REGULAR SQUID SHOWS that do not contain any giant squid material because “there isn’t enough giant squid material to fill up an entire week because we don’t know enough about them.” No! Sorry. No.
Luckily, I have already written a scripted documentary to kick off Squeek with a bang. It’s a real “call-to-action” scenario, heightening the stakes for why we need a Squeek and why we need it RIGHT NOW. I know what you’re thinking:
“Audrey, you can’t write a documentary.”
Well, I have. And you know how? Because I already know exactly how this particular interaction will go down. I know all there is to giant squid research, buddy boy. I know that all of the giant squid scientists meet in one specific building every day, I know they spend their 14 hour days huddled around a squid carcass from like 20 years ago and saying, “hmm” to each other, and I know at LEAST ONE OF THEM IS NAMED “RICHARD.”
And that’s all I need to know. And all I’m asking is for an educational science television channel crew to follow me into that building where all the squid scientists are so that I can scare the living shit out of them into thinking that they need to figure out how to obtain more giant squid knowledge and that they need to have it done by YESTERDAY.
So! Welcome to Squeek. Which, right now, exists solely in this newsletter. But by the end of this week, I hope to change the world with a brand new underwater sea creature week that will blast Shark Week straight to the moon (which is a megastructure, as we all know).
So, without any further ado, I’m elated to announce the line-up of of premiere programming this week: (and by “week” I mean…the next few editions of this newsletter):
Night 1:
Explaining to a Bunch of Teuthologists that No One Thinks Their Jobs are Real
The kickoff to Squeek stars me, Audrey Farnsworth, posing as a government official and entering the lair of the giant squid scientists. I will explain to them that the government will no longer recognize the term “teuthologist” as a thing because they have not found enough information about giant squids. They will argue that teuthology is not just the study of giant squids but of regular squids, cuttlefish, etc. and I will tell them to cut the shit—the government is serious about this. Either figure out real facts about giant squids by finding them in the sea, or find something else to be a scientist about! No more of this “we don’t know why” stuff. Figure out why.
Night 2:
We’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat, As Well: Building a Big Boat with the Squid Scientists
Night 2 will depend on Night 1 going over well and the scientists agreeing to do whatever it takes to find out new giant squid information. Since this will surely work out fine, and they will elect me as their new leader because I’m sort of an “ideas guy,” know what I mean? I got ALL the ideas—and ESPECIALLY ones about how to find out more squid information. My first idea, which they love, is “building a big boat to go all the way down to the bottom of the sea, and maybe putting a tube on it for us to slide down to go even more down.”
I will be shouting instructions at them like “Make it titanium!” or “What’s titanium? Can it go underwater, do you think?” and “Build faster!” and “Put a tube on it, that can go even MORE down, and we can all slide down it from the boat, just in case the boat can’t handle the pressure!” and “But make sure the tube can withstand the pressure!” and I will continue doing this until the boat is constructed. Along the way, I will develop platonic relationships with many of the scientists and we will understand each other, emotionally. By the end of this documentary, we’ll have faith in ourselves as a team, and frankly, as a family, to take this big boat all the way down into the deep big sea.
Night 3:
Journey to the Bottom of the Sea in a Big Boat
The scientists and I will take our newly built titanium (?) boat out into the sea, and all the way to almost the bottom of it! Everything goes perfectly to plan and, just as I suspected, the boat will need to stay at a certain sea level, and we will release the tube, which will travel all the way down to the bottom of the ocean. Then, me and 17 other squid scientists will slide down it like it’s a little slide all the way to the bottom. Since it will be dark, and I expected this, I will radio the lighting guys from the boat to drop the Huge Lamp down to the bottom, which will illuminate the bottom of the sea. During this episode, we will find giant squid clues but no squid…until the last minute. That’s right! This is a two parter.
Night 4:
Beast Mode: An Examination of the 1996 Epic Giant Squid Miniseries The Beast
We want to keep viewers watching all Squeek long, so we’re breaking up this big two parter about actually finding a real giant squid with a little intermission of good old fluff: a deep dive into the 1996 miniseries The Beast, in which a giant squid gets pissed off because its son is captured. We’ll go through every single frame of the movie, and discuss why certain guys run a certain way down the dock, who the “leading squid man” of the movie REALLY is, and—of course—the famous line: “It’s the sea—that’s all.”
Night 5:
Lost and Found: The Giant Squid Lives
And we’re back at the bottom of the sea, in this thrilling part two of the squid scientists and me sliding down a tube and FINALLY locating a family of giant squids. The first squid we locate is the father squid, who is about as big as a mall parking structure. We learn many new facts—for example, that squids live in nests. The bottom of the ocean—which used to be too down to know about—looks a lot like New York City (Times Square, to be exact). It’s bustling with deep sea fish going to their jobs, none of them as menacing as we thought, despite the fact that they have flashlights growing out of their Fucking Faces. Everything goes smoothly until the son giant squid mistakes our huge lamp for a big fish and eats it. We sort of all freak out a little because, damn, but it actually works out for the better because the lamp stays lit in the squid’s tummy (which is also its head)! Now the bottom of the sea is illuminated by a giant squid’s whole body and all of the scientists feverishly take notes and obtain facts.
Night 6:
Kesha’s Squid Brother
Kesha has begun a new career as a ghost hunter in her absolutely perfect new show Conjuring Kesha, but now she’s diving deeper—literally—to find one specific giant squid that she’s been having dreams about lately and who claims to be “her biological brother.” That’s the whole show, and I’m telling you, it’s the best one of this whole lineup, actually.
Night 7:
Squid Parade
With their job titles saved, the squid scientists celebrate, and hold a grand parade in town, complete with giant squid floats and all of the new facts they’ve discovered being read into microphones by Richard the scientist. I will be long gone at this point, on the run, for I DID lie to them—I wasn’t working for the government. I was just a regular guy who wanted more squid information. The parade will result in all of them being arrested because what they did was actually illegal and “not allowed” for safety reasons, and they will say, “But YOU told us to do this! You sent your agent!” and the government will be like, “What?" What are you freaks talking about?” and they will realize my facade. While in jail, they will do nothing but plot their revenge.
Stay turned for all of our wonderful programming this week!
Up Next: We kick off Night 1 of Squeek with the call-to-action scripted documentary “Explaining to a Bunch of Teuthologists that No One Thinks Their Jobs are Real.”
first article read on this page. I have much to look forward to if this is the standard. 2023's Squeek will go foolish, knowing the scientists have a whole year to map out their plan down to the last tentacle. Wonder who Ke$ha will side with