Let me preface this by putting my respect for Bill Nye into context. I watched him religiously as a child. I adore his bromance with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. My Twitter account handle is “MsTheScienceGuy.” I donated money to the Planetary Society to send tardigrades into space on the second-to-last space shuttle mission and drove across the state of Florida TWICE to watch it blast into the sky. An autographed photo of Bill is framed on the wall of my library.
So imagine my face when I heard his new science show just dropped on Netflix! Then imagine my face when I actually watched it…
No, you don’t have to imagine. Just watch this clip and you’ll understand. Unfortunately.
Ummmm.
*steeples fingers like Sherlock*
You know, I’ve been praying for a solid reason to hate Rachel Bloom for a while now (she just tries too hard, you know?). I guess God exists.
Now, Bill… bro bro bro bro….
Honestly, I have not been more disappointed about the state of science education and its public relations issues than right this moment. This show… *heavy sigh*… has justified every fear I have been secretly harboring about how science is presented to the public the last few years. To admit that I saw this coming is extremely disheartening and frankly, terrifying.
I didn’t want to believe what I was seeing. I told myself I was being too cynical about the Cosmos remake. I told myself that I was being paranoid to think that the new Cosmos might be seen as a big, smug “fuck you” to conservatives and the devoutly religious instead of the enlightening programming it strived to be.
Then I stumbled upon this article about the viability of Neil DeGrasse Tyson as America’s beloved science ambassador. It warns about the level of smugness perceived by the very people our science heroes are trying to convince. It's a difficult line to walk--trying to communicate complicated concepts to the masses without being condescending or holier-then-thou. Neil was great on Cosmos, but his association with left-wing Family Guy magnate Seth MacFarlane was a bit of a red flag. Or a red cape being waved in front of a right-wing bull.
Of course you see the world differently if you’re science literate; I have that experience every damned day, usually in the form of overhearing someone spout some arcane superstitious/undereducated comment in an otherwise benign conversation. It’s the mental equivalent of stepping on a sticky piece of gum spit out on the sidewalk. I try my hardest to A) not laugh and B) gently and politely edify the person whose knowledge is skewed or incomplete (which, may by no means be due to a conscious effort to be ill-informed, but rather is a result of their genuine lack of decent education).
But the perception of science as this anti-Jesus anti-blue collar anti-family-values bastion of hedonistic apologetics is even more widespread than we (as science fans) could possibly understand. It is beyond bizarre at this point, and downright backwards, especially since science brought us all the iPhones and vacuuming robots and all the damned missiles everyone's so excited about using on terrorists. I find myself shaking my head in disbelief so often that I need a chiropractor.
Now Bill Nye—the science hero of my childhood, untouchably “cool” in that hipster dorky way before hipsterism was even a thing, smart without being smug or angry—is hosting a show that feels blindly focus-grouped to death so it appeals to some unimaginable unicorn that is both an aged/younger millennial who remembers The Science Guy show but never watched it, who is college-educated but dumb enough not to vaccinate their kids. You know, BIZARRE.
This results in a show that is alternately awesome and befuddling, cute and cringe-inducing, like a chocolate cake with fucking avocado in it. Or one of those Febreeze Noticeables air fresheners scented with vanilla and vomit. For example, I loved the episode about the money-wasting industry of snake oil salesmen selling magnetic bracelets and telling people that screaming at your stomach will cure cancer (because I HATE quackery with a passion) but I pinched my nose and grit my teeth the moment the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend popped up, shaking her heavy boobs at me while trying to convince me that she’s actually just so quirky and smart even though her wide eyes are obviously screaming "LIKE ME LIKE ME PLEASE!"
Am I supposed to love this show? Am I finding it achingly patronizing because I’m not the prime demographic? Perhaps I’m supposed to show this to tweens (the above NSFW video answers that question, actually). What the actual fuck is going on here? After a good heart-to-heart conversation with my dear friend in nerdiness, I think I can explain it, through my haze of embarrassment.
On the surface, Bill is angry, frustrated, passionate. So am I, honestly. I am on Bill's side in this quest to get actual facts (not alternative ones) spread. I get why he's at the end of his rope, and that's the only thing preventing me from writing this off as a "pulling a Tom Hiddleston." I never understood the Taylor Swift thing. I never will. But I understand why Bill got sucked into this. He is desperate. Times are tough for science right now. He hooked up with Netflix (attractive, hip, popular) hoping to get some good advice on how to reach the undereducated millennials out there, and they strapped him to the bucking bronco of buzzphrases, slanguage, offbeat pop cultural references, and random celebutard cameos to present us with this... this... disturbing DeepDream version of my favorite show from childhood.
By now, all the conservative bloggers are in an uproar over this very video that, frankly, should be walked through King's Landing naked and shorn, so the street folk can hurl things at it shouting "SHAME, SHAME!" And that is the absolute worst part of this debacle. It will be held up as a (false) golden idol of liberalism and used to prove that science wants to give you autism and make you gay and abort all the babies and take away your guns. This tone-deaf and facetious fail of a video alone has made a mockery of sexuality and gender issues, both of which have only recently gained a foothold as legitimate in the public eye. It's depressing and scary and I am losing all hope.
So, here we are. At a loss. Once again. 2017 has already failed us. In many ways.
Science, my dear, sweet science. You are better than this. At least through the lens of the BBC, you are. David Attenborough and Brian Cox will never disappoint me. Bill... call me when you're ready to apologize. I will forgive you.
