Neil deGrasse Tyson sure knows how to celebrate a birthday.
Tyson turned 64 on Wednesday, and commemorated it by posting a tweet he previously speculated would be “too controversial” and “land really weirdly” if he ever tried it out. The now-existent post features a photo from the 2009 mega-hit Avatar with the caption “Blue Lives Matter.”
Back in April 2021, the New York Times Magazine ran a profile on the astrophysicist where he spoke about conducting a Twitter survey to find out the political leanings of those on the platform, which revealed about 10 percent identified as conservative. “I was disappointed in that because if half the country votes conservative, that means conservatives are underrepresented in my Twitter feed,” Tyson said. “And my feed is not politicized. You might want to believe it is. It’s just not.”
The scientist pointed out he’d read books on conservatism to “get inside the head of why is someone thinking this way” before confessing he has some tweets, presumably in his drafts, that wouldn’t see the light of day due to being “too controversial even though they are completely fun and true.”
“Here’s one, I’ll just tell you. I don’t know if I’ll ever post this,” Tyson told the mag. “You go to the planet in Avatar, right? Get a nice shot of them being oppressed by the military unit that got sent there. Then I put up that image and have as a caption, ‘Blue Lives Matter.’”
“Because all of the Avatarians were blue, right? That would land really weirdly,” he continued. “People would pick fights because social media is very tribalizing even when there’s no reason for it to be. I have a list of others that I’m never going to post.”
Apparently, never say never. As expected, the response to the tweet has been contentious, with some bringing up the American Museum of Natural History’s 2019 investigation into Neil deGrasse Tyson’s sexual misconduct accusations. The museum ultimately allowed him to keep his job, but these latest allegations created a murkier picture of someone who was also accused of raping a woman in 1984.
The true irony of his “Blue Lives Matter” timing is that Saturday Night Live poked fun at Tyson this past weekend by including him in a game show titled “Send Something Normal.”
Speaking of not being able to “send something normal,” see a few responses to Tyson’s “Blue Lives Matter” tweet below.
