Bill Nye

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About

Bill Nye is an American science educator, best known as the host of the children's educational television show Bill Nye the Science Guy which aired on PBS from 1993 – 1998.

Online History

Bill Nye launched his personal homepage^[13] on July 9th, 1996. His Facebook fan page^[17] was created on December 4th, 2008 and has since attracted more than 1.3 million fans. He joined YouTube^[14] in April 2009, where he has uploaded 26 videos, accrued nearly 15,000 subscribers and gained more than 3.6 million views, averaging more than 278,000 views per day as of September 2013. Nye also maintains an active Twitter^[15] account where he has more than 930,000 followers. On August 23rd, 2012, Nye argued that creationism was not appropriate for children in a video on the Big Think YouTube channel, gaining upwards of 6.14 million views and 374,000 comments in the next two years. On July 23rd, 2013, Nye appeared as a guest on the science YouTube channel ASAPScience, where he discussed humanity's hypothetical ability to stop an asteroid from colliding with Earth (shown below, right).

In June 2013, Nye participated in an Ask Me Anything thread^[16] on Reddit, which gained 58,904 upvotes, 3,257 points overall and 8,076 comments prior to being archived. On December 5th, Nye starred in an open video letter to President Barack Obama, which urged the White House to fund planetary science with $1.5 billion per year (shown below).

Creationism Debate

On January 2nd, 2014, the Christian evangelist website Answers in Genesis^[19] announced that Nye would debate the founder and president of the Creation Museum Ken Ham the following month. On the same day, Redditor mepper posted the announcement to the r/skeptic^[20] subreddit, where it received over 1,000 up votes and 220 comments in the first month. On January 16th, the Richard Dawkins Foundation^[21] published an article arguing why scientists should not legitimize creationists by debating them. In the comments section of the post, Richard Dawkins left several tips for Nye in his upcoming debate. On February 2nd, Nye debated Ham at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky (shown below).

During the two and a half hour debate, Nye argued that Earth was created billions of years ago and that all life on the planet had been formed by millions of years of evolution by natural selection. Ham argued that the Earth was created 6,000 years ago by a divine creator and that all living beings were created as they are today. Following the debate, several image macros featuring screen captures from the event reached the front page of Reddit (shown below).^[23]^[24]^[25] On February 5th, BuzzFeed^[22] published several photographs of creationists from the debate holding handwritten messages to evolutionists.

Bill Nye Saves the World

On April 19th, 2017, Nye participated in an "ask me anything" (AMA) thread on the /r/IAmA^[29] subreddit to discuss his upcoming series Bill Nye Saves the World. On April 21st, the first season of the show was released on Netflix,^[26] featuring 13 episodes in which Nye discusses various subjects related to science, politics and pop culture.

Following the release of the show, some praised the series for confronting important scientific issues such as climate change, vaccination and alternative medicine, while others accused the show of being cringeworthy for forcing a political agenda. On April 23rd, YouTuber HToTheRMX uploaded a clip of comedian Rachel Bloom singing a song about sexuality titled "My Sex Junk" on the show (re-upload shown below). That day, the video reached the front page of both /r/cringe^[27] and /r/CringeAnarchy.^[28]

Meanwhile, other clips from the series began circulating online as well, including an animated "Ice Cream Sexuality" sketch (re-upload shown below, left) and comedian Prashanth Venkataramanujam's comedy routine about white people appropriating Asian culture to sell alternative medicine (shown below, right). On April 25th, The Observer^[30] published an article by 4chan moderator Jay Irwin titled "Why 4chan Isn’t Buying What Bill Nye and Political Entertainers Are Selling," which argued that the "Leftist sanctimony" promoted in the show served as a recruitment tool for the right-wing.

November 2017 Reddit AMA

On November 8th, 2017, Nye submitted an AMA post titled "I’m Bill Nye and I’m on a quest to end anti-scientific thinking. AMA" to promote the Bill Nye: Science Guy documentary on /r/IAmA,^[31] where it gathered upwards of 8,600 points (53% upvoted) and 7,900 comments within 24 hours.

In the comments section, some asked Nye questions about skepticism, the scientific method and educations, while others questioned the television host about the "Sex Junk" music video and gender-related episodes on his Bill Nye Saves the World show. That evening, several posts mocking Nye's answers in the AMA reached the front page of /r/CringeAnarchy (shown below).^[32]^[33]^[34]^[35]

Reputation

Nye is known for being a proponent of a scientific worldview, a staunch environmentalist and an advocate for space exploration.

Bill Nye the Science Guy Remixes

Bill Nye the Science Guy Remixes are a series of remix songs based on the theme song from his PBS television show. They often appear as recut music videos featuring footage from other memorable television shows, movies or video games. Though clips from the song were used in YTMND sites as early as May 2004, the first full-length remix of the song was posted via YouTube on January 7th, 2006, which infused hardcore techno beats into the theme (shown below).

@Bill_Nye_Tho

@Bill_Nye_Tho was a novelty Twitter account based on Nye's persona that launched in early 2012. The tweets were mostly about science factoids, but from the perspective of a person who was stoned. On July 17th, a corresponding single topic Tumblr^[1] for the Twitter account was created to archive the tweets. Five days later, 20 of these tweets were curated into a listicle on Buzzfeed.^[2] In August, more of @Bill_Nye_tho's tweets were featured on The Chive.^[3]

However, the account was suspended in September 2012, following a temporary suspension that July. At the time of the suspension, @Bill_Nye_tho had attracted nearly 200,000 followers^[4] and was gaining between 2,000 – 3,000 retweets per update.^[5] It was revealed that month the account was run by Laughspin writer Lucas Gardner^[6] who told Betabeat^[7] that he had no intention in pursuing the account again after its second suspension. As of September 2013, the account is still suspended, despite a Change.org petition^[8] to save it. While many of @Bill_Nye_tho's original tweets have been archived on Favstar.fm^[9] and Tumblr^[10], a Facebook fan page^[11] and secondary Twitter account^[12] attempt to keep the joke alive, gaining more than 60,000 likes and 15,000 followers respectively as of September 2013.

Personal Life

Bill Nye was born in Washington D.C. on November 27th, 1955. He studied mechanical engineering at Cornell University, where he took classes with Carl Sagan. He then spent time working at Boeing in Seattle before getting a recurring spot on a local sketch comedy show where he earned the nickname "Bill Nye the Science Guy" after correcting the host's pronunciation of "gigawatt." The success of his local segment led to 100 episodes of his science-themed show on PBS in the 1990s. He has dedicated the rest of his career to educational entertainment and science work. As of September 2013, he resides in Los Angeles and is an avid swing dancer. In September 2013, he announced that he would be joining the cast of the 17th season of Dancing With the Stars.^[18]