Comedian Gives Ridiculous Prank TED Talk

Advertisement

Sam Hyde Ted Talk

YouTube.com

Sam Hyde punked college students who thought they were attending a TEDx talk on the "2070 Paradigm Shift."

It was only a matter of time before someone mocked TED Talks - motivational and educational speakers from around the world who promote TED's slogan, "ideas worth spreading."

Advertisement

Brooklyn-based comedian and filmmaker, Sam Hyde, was up for the challenge.

Hyde snuck onto an independently organized TEDx program at Drexel University earlier this month and delivered a rambling, ridiculous, incomprehensible 20-minute speech on the buzz-wordy "2070 paradigm shift" - while wearing a gladiator costume over sweatpants.

"Guys, pat yourselves on the back right now, okay? I'm not gonna let you stop until I see everyone do it," he began. "That pat on the back is for saving the world."

Gawker's favorite part of the too-long talk is when Hyde says: "What inspire me, is teaching African refugees how to program Javascript. What inspires me is finding out how to use MagLev trains to get resources to the moon. These are the challenges that tomorrow's going to face."

Advertisement

In another tangent, Hyde goes so far as to say: "Great ideas come in all shapes and sizes. 9/11, September 11th. We're gonna use some reverence here and not be silly about this, but look at what they accomplished with no weapons and just 11 guys who didn't even speak English? And that proves that sometimes great ideas are actually horrible ideas."

Philadelphia Magazine explained how Hyde snuck his way onto the panel:

One wonders if the organizers of TEDx whiffed on vetting Hyde, which wouldn't have taken more than a few minutes of Googling. [TEDx organizer Dhairya Pujara] was not immediately available to comment afterward, but Hyde allegedly fed them a good story. Hyde said: "I told them I had just returned from Mogadishu where I was shooting war journalism following this group of women cleaning up the neighborhood, and by picking up trash, they had lowered crime rate. So it's like broken window theory there, or whatever the f--k. A little Malcolm Gladwell. [They] wrote back and said, 'Wow, that's exciting. We got some real hard hitting stuff here.'"

What do you make of Hyde's presentation below?

Advertisement