I used to watch Bill Nye the Science Guy on PBS when his show was on in the 90s. I don’t even like science, but his delivery was so entertaining that I didn’t care if the subject was asexual reproduction in newts or the birth of black holes, between which there is probably some connection. I even taped several episodes and took them with me when I went to Japan to teach English, expecting that Japanese students would think he was as funny as I did.
They didn’t.
So it was interesting to read just now that he still does public appearances and speeches at colleges. Yesterday he was speaking to an audience of hundreds at USC when he collapsed at the podium. He made it to his feet and even joked about it a little before he collapsed again.
The most interesting part of the story to me was that one student reported nobody went to his aid because they were all busy posting tweets about what was happening: “Hey, Bill Nye the Science Guy just died!” Except it probably looked like, “BN SciGuy xxx!” I don’t actually speak tweet.
Thus does the next generation confuse digital life for what we used to call real life. Imagine what George Will would say since he first said that digital watches marked the end of civilization. Then it was the designated hitter rule. Then blue jeans. Most recently John Stewart calling Barack Obama “Dude.”
No report yet on how Bill’s doing. Can’t we get a tweet from somebody in the hospital?
2 comments:
I hope Bill recovers fully. I also used his videos when teaching but interest in his shows wanes after 7th grade. I'm not sure what that says about my maturity if I find his work interesting.
They call the messages "tweets" I think they come from "twits"
Idiocracy here we come!
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