Maybe he's trying to do some deadpan humor. I say obvious shit like this to my daughter all the time. Like the thing he's "correcting" here is that metaphors shouldn't be taken literally. It's so obvious that I have to conclude there's a high chance he's just trying to do a self-parody here.

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 30 points 8 months ago (1 children)

He does this specific thing way to often for it to be a joke. Also the mirror thing

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 12 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If he gets a kick out of it and people think he's serious each time, why not do it more often? IMO that's a great way to deal with some people vocally not liking you: lean into it to fuck with them.

Like with this one, what would it even look like to someone who believed in literal leap days? It's a position I have trouble even imagining. Are there even people who hold this position that he's correcting? Would he have any reason to believe anyone needs this correction?

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 17 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Assuming that this is the only manifestation of this sort of behavior, sure. It could be a dry sense of humor playing off of taking common turns of speech literally. But he's been repeatedly shown to be a wholly unpleasant, needlessly pedantic asshole with a superiority complex in his public and personal life. Peoples intolerance of his tweets aren't only informed by those tweets, they're also shaped by years of insufferable drivel coming out of his mouth, said seriously and with intent.

I love dry humor and wordplay. This isn't either of those things. He actually thinks people are that stupid and need a lesson on leap years. His reason is as follows: I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson and I'm better than everyone. People don't know what I know and I'm going to bless them with my genius in 180 characters or less. Please clap.

[–] EvilLootbox@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

remember when the Daily Show in the old Jon Stewart days tried to push him as a correspondent for awhile? It was completely intolerable, the man does not understand comedy at all.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Yeah, I'm not trying to say he is definitely joking. But it is something I'd do if I were in his position, so I can't discount the possibility that he is trolling with some of these.