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.
Anti-vaxxer Bill Maher on the prospect of a global Pandemic (2003) "Stop scaring us with diseases we will never ge… https://t.co/LvOLKZ1n6M— Pessimists Archive (@Pessimists Archive) 1619960127.0
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.
That hasn’t aged well... https://t.co/BwRZ5Weml8— Sharon Fetter (@Sharon Fetter) 1620072868.0
@PessimistsArc Yo, Bill, where you at?— Sexual Chocolate (@Sexual Chocolate) 1620046800.0
@joesanders33 @PessimistsArc “I couldn’t go get drunk at the local applebees for 6 whole months. This is government tyranny.”— JJ (@JJ) 1619978098.0
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.
Bill Maher reacts to camera phones in 2003: "It's a phone not a swiss army knife" https://t.co/9smaj4QdQw— Pessimists Archive (@Pessimists Archive) 1619916672.0
@PessimistsArc https://t.co/rMACOfLKpP— MUNOZRICK (@MUNOZRICK) 1619980216.0
“I already know what the captain of the football team is doing these days, mowing my lawn.” He was just as elitist… https://t.co/hOXfPNj227— David Kuhne (@David Kuhne) 1619956932.0
Bill Maher is that guy in the 1996 movie your mom’s gonna marry unless you and your brother can work together and do something— McKeever (@McKeever) 1620047336.0