On Wednesday, Twitter finally paid off. After a decade of objective failure as a micro-blogging network, the social media platform culminated in a moment of pure, serendipitous genius thanks to the efforts of famed astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who took a brief break from telling everyone that the sci-fi movies they like are actually shitty and dumb to share this small nugget of wisdom:
So much to dissect here. First, Tyson injects some of his signature science talk when he claims to “have pretty good balance for his body size,” implying that, as humans grow larger, we tend to fall over more because all of the weight is in our heads with our big, smart brains. He then admits to having fallen over before (only once?) while “attempting” to take off his pants “quickly.”
Why did he need his pants off so fast? Does the word “attempting” imply that this was just one of many pants-removing experiments? Why is Neil DeGrasse Tyson telling anybody any of this? The mind reels with possibilities.
Although this confounding yet oddly comforting image was already firmly planted in the minds of his 7 million followers, the Cosmos host quickly followed up the tweet of pure poetry saying he “didn’t intend to send that last tweet to all” and that he was replying to someone asking if he’d “ever fallen trying to remove [his] T-shirt.” Tyson offered no further elaboration on why he felt the need to answer that person’s question or what the hell is even going on. Perhaps the best explanation for all of this can be found in Tyson’s own words, posted just one day before admitting he done got out-smarted by his own pants: