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A 35-year-old man who paid zero attention to his science teachers, or the books he was encouraged to read during his admittedly brief time in the formal education system, is today telling everyone he’s done all of his own research on climate change.
Simon Williams is currently doing his best to educate his friends on social media, after completing his one-week Masters in anthropomorphic climate change, courtesy of YouTube.
He told us, “I had absolutely no interest in learning about science, or biology, or chemicals. Until this stuff was available to consume on YouTube in a highly persuasive format that confirms all of my existing biases.
“Books are boring, lessons were boring, teachers were boring – but YouTube videos are exciting and they have music and graphics and some are as good as the movies you can see on the telly. Of course I’m going to watch and believe them.
“Who even knew you could do proper climate research and become an expert by watching YouTube for about eight hours a day?
“Last week I watched fifty-two videos that all explained why climate change is a hoax, why it’s a scame to control us, and how the government wants to kill your kids, or something – and now I am busy sharing links to those same videos because it’s important everyone gets as educated as I am.”
“Sigh,” said actual scientist and former classmate of Simon, Graham Matthews.
“Yes, I remember Simon, if he wasn’t sneaking out of class to smoke, he was using a compass to scratch poorly articulated football slogans into his desk. Whereas I went on to study the sciences at A-Level and degree level, and now have a Masters in climatology and spend my days working on the very problems he thinks he’s solved thanks to an 8-minute YouTube clip.
“I mean, let’s look on the bright side, he has decided he needs to know more than the clearly very little he knew – that’s a good thing.
“But unfortunately, it’s sometimes difficult to explain to those with a ‘simpler’ mind that the truth is often quite mundane, boring even, but that lies – well – they can be made to sound very exciting.
“One day he’ll realise he loves all these conspiracy videos for precisely the same reason he loved the Avengers movies – they tell a fantastic story with a bad guy we all love to hate – we can only hope that one day he’ll be able to tell the difference.”
