Most of the time, Twitter can seem like a cacophony of fights and disagreements. But sometimes, a gem cuts through the noise and unites people in a bold fifteen minutes of everyone dunking on the same person.
Bill Maher is no stranger to controversy, or getting things wrong. But it's sometimes impressive how wrong he can truly be.
Like this clip where he downplays the possibility of there ever being a global pandemic.
A Twitter account called the "Pessimist Archive" collects and shares articles and clips of people in the past making very negative claims about the future and technology, such as dismissing horseless carriages, or reading novels.
But it was a collection of clips from Maher's show that recently caught people's attention.
Among some hot takes that really aged poorly, Maher talked about supposed scaremongering around viral epidemics.
At the time in 2003, the threats of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and West Nile Virus were contained with help from medical professionals and policy changes.
But Maher also said:
"Mysterious Asian diseases just don't come knocking at your door."
As we've seen, pandemics are a very real possibility.
Maher's other takes were also not great, such as dismissing vaccines as a "risky medical procedure" and thinking those newfangled social media networks will never catch on.
He also reacted to camera phones, downplaying them as just something another annoying person uses.
The other videos all had people rolling their eyes at Maher's hot takes.
@PreetBharara/X
@RepBrendanBoyle/X
@twesq/Bluesky
@christopherharris/Bluesky
@evangelinewarren/X
@FrankC164/X
AMC