"THE DAY I BECAME A TED TALK HATER" by Zoé Mahfouz

Hi everyone, my name is none of your business and I’m a TED Talk hater.

Watching TED Talks started out as a distraction. Something pleasant to hear while putting my makeup on in the morning. But it quickly got out of proportion. I was introduced to TED Talks a few months ago, when my mom showed me one about  Pachelbel’s D-major canon, a music meant to stimulate amino acids in the brain and increase our immune response. I’m quite ashamed to say that I kind of liked it. I had to watch another one. I found a TED Talk with over 77 million views. I figured, it’s even more views that some networks get on their Late Night segment, so it must be good, right ? This TED Talk was called “Do schools kill creativity ?”It exceeded my expectations.  Evenso, I never got the answer to that question. 

This is when it started spiraling. The YouTube algorithm spotted me as a potential TED Talk aficionada, so it kept  suggesting to me more and more similar content. It went from “My journey to Yo-Yo Mastery” to “SWAG : Even your grandmother has it” to “How to use a paper towel”. And you want to know what the worst part was? Not only  did I not know any of these TED ‘Talkers’, but I also learned nothing. It was  white noise. Still, I kept coming back for more. 

I’ve watched every single motivational TED Talk there is. I listened to  random folks teaching me how to achieve my goals, increase my confidence, follow my dreams and all that American crap while a cheering crowd of brainless sheep who paid five-thousand dollars to be there vigorously applauding  as if they were the next Messiah. I could sum all of these TED Talks up in one sentence : People are dumb, do your own thing. It’s not that hard. You don’t need to lose 18 minutes of your life  watching a nobody mansplain it to you. 

And now I’m staring at this TED Talk woman insisting that we  use a pen instead of a computer to write, claiming that I will otherwise ‘lose my focus’. Oh I’m sorry Jane Austen, I guess I didn’t realize we were still in the 18th century! Should I also wash my clothes in a river? Oh, be careful where you step, I haven’t finished digging that well yet! I guess I was too busy being traded by my own parents in exchange for some cows and estate! 

Please, give me a break. But don’t, really. 

Here’s another one: “Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model”. Yes they are and no I don’t believe you.

 “How to figure out what you really want” ? Well for starters I want out of this conversation.  

“How to talk so that people will listen ?” Hey, maybe people aren’t listening because you’re irrelevant.

But It was already too late for me. Before I could say Eenie Meenie, I was USER45679654 hating on TED Talks on Reddit. 

Zoé Mahfouz is a writer who randomly bursts into improvised musical numbers when she is alone at home, then pretends to be emotional when the imaginary audience gives her a standing ovation. Also likes to kidnap the neighbor’s cat to make TikTok’s and complains when he throws up on her terrace.