If Pete Davidson wanted to shake a bunch of young people into caring about climate change, he picked the wrong strategy.
Last night, the comedian (of SNL and Ariana Grande fame) went off on a group of UCF college students. He called them “privileged little a**holes” and several other illustrious terms and freaked out about the fact that some of them were using cell phones.
He also said, “We’re embarrassing. That’s why the world is going to end in twenty-five years. We’re all re****ed. Yeah, I meant it like that.” The phrase was met by some boos, followed by dead silence.
The audience wasn’t having it. When Davidson figured out that the jokes didn’t land, he quickly tried to backtrack. “I was just trying to scare you,” he said.
Students took to the Internet to complain about how uncomfortable the whole exchange made them feel.
But when has comedy ever made anyone feel comfortable? Particularly Pete Davidson’s kind of comedy? What did we expect, really?
To his credit, despite the awkwardness, Davidson made some good points. The world is probably going to end in 25 years, if global temperatures rise more than 1.5 degrees celsius, as projected, which will happen if carbon emissions are not significantly cut or if the Amazon Rainforest keeps burning.
Davidson was wrong to blame millennials and young people for all this, though. He should’ve saved his vitriol for an audience of boomers: the real ones who set the planet’s death into motion and are refusing to stop our collective annihilation, even though they have the tools to do so. It’s kind of ironic that one of the main things Davidson told the audience was to “grow up,” when young people sometimes seem to be the only ones doing s**t about the state of the world. Plus, he made his name playing the resident “young person” on SNL. Clearly, growing up hasn’t been too kind to him.
Ultimately, only one real conclusion can be drawn from this fiasco: Pete Davidson should take a long, long break from the spotlight. He’s already spoken about how online bullying has been damaging to his mental health, and the lifestyle of the rich and famous can’t be good for his well-being. Friends like Kanye West can’t be great influences, either.
How is it that so many famous people seem to be screwing up right now? Could this be indicative of dark truths about humanity, truths that have plagued us since the Fall of Man? Actually, maybe we should all take a break from the bright lights and hyper-surveilled carbon-saturated pollution of the modernity we’ve collectively built. Maybe we should all retreat to bunkers underground or cabins deep in the woods until the oceans wash our entire society away and clear space for new forests to overtake our ruined cities. Pete Davidson can lead the exodus.
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