this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
583 points (95.6% liked)

The Onion

4459 readers
701 users here now

The Onion

A place to share and discuss stories from The Onion, Clickhole, and other satire.

Great Satire Writing:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] -5 points 6 months ago (3 children)

Stop for a second and really think about it.

Why would so many people hate a progressive scientifically minded black man on the internet?

Plenty of people act high and mighty on Twitter, plenty of public speakers charge for their appearances, it's ridiculous how NGT gets singled out for it so much.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Yup. There's some backlash against new atheism but ngt's high crimes are sometimes being a bit awkward or pedantic and others like Richard Dawkins opine about how eugenics is unfairly maligned and Muslims are evil.

The degree of criticism and the bitch eating-crackers-tone of it all defs has a racial component.

He's fine, he's a famous rich dude. They're all a bit annoying sometimes because power makes you weird but he doesn't really hurt people, spew malice, or agitate for horrendous politics. He makes silly tweets about movie logic and explains cosmology to people.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Revisit the thread and scroll down to find that picture of his tweets. People like to pile on other shit that bothers them but realistically, NDT is kind of a blowhard and a bit weird. His ackshewalley attitude doesn't help either.

I've said it before, I found his conversation with god podcast episode to be in poor taste - sort of smarmy and condescending, and this is coming from an atheist. I'm sure there are plenty of racists that hate him for his skin color but not everyone has such easily dismissable reasons.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You misunderstand what the poster means. It's not people foaming at the mouth at seeing a black guy be successful, it's people applying harsher judgement than is warranted to someone because on some level they're perceived as an outsider.

Just think of how many smarmy, condescending famous people exist and how few have the same level of criticism leveled against them.

As far as crappy famous people go he shouldn't even register, he's not indicated in corruption, child sexual abuse, spouse beating, slavery, wanton consumerism etc. People single this guy out so unreasonably because he's not perfect at his job.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Nah. When he first became popular he presented himself as the new Carl Sagan. The one who would continue his legacy. Those are big shoes to fill and he did not live up to it because the fame got to his head. He's getting the appropriate amount of hate as far as I'm concerned.

To my knowledge he's not getting death threats and people aren't trying to get him fired or put behind bars. People want him to cut the weird shit out and be a better science communicator. You don't have to do illegal or immoral things for the public to dislike you.

For example, to my knowledge, Brian Cox seems to be a perfectly normal guy and a good science communicator and people still say that he gives off a weird vibe. Literally people don't like him because of a vibe.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

In terms of their work output and clarity of explanations could you highlight some cases where NDT is deficient when compared to Brian Cox? They seem very similar to me, possibly I would say Cox is a bit worse at explaining the technical side of things. They seem similarly pleased with their own appearance on camera too. Cox is a little more moderate with his religious stuff, and much less outspoken politically but it's not clear to me either of those are necessarily virtuous.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm not arguing that he is, so I won't be doing that. I didn't say Brian Cox was a better science communicator, only less of a cringelord.

Unrelated,

Cox is a little more moderate with his religious stuff, and much less outspoken politically but it's not clear to me either of those are necessarily virtuous.

Those things definitely matter to me and to other people. There are ways to broach those subjects that don't paint you in a bad light - for example only when prompted or in the rarest occasion.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 6 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago

Lol. Lmao, even.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 months ago

I think it mostly has to do with how dominant he has become in social media algorithms. Once he is in your feeds he doesn't go away and he is everywhere. While most other Twitter twats are only on twitter.

But I think you still have a point. And again, I think the social media algorithm has a lot to do with it. His interview with Joe Rogan make him part of the rabbit hole that leads to all these right wing nutheads. I always try hard to get rid of Joe Rogan, Piers Morgan, and Jordan Peterson from my feeds. But whenever NGT pops up it only takes a while for them to reappear as well.

Which makes me believe he will appear in the feeds of people who do like this right wing content. And they probably will judge him harsher for being black.