The history of the internet is replete with stories of people who were photographed or video’ed in an unusual pose and who then gained notoriety as people mocked them. Mugshots are especially good for this sort of thing. Tosh.0 wrapped an entire successful TV show around the concept. And for many of these people, the response is rage or despair… which, the Internet being what it is and populated by who it is, only makes the situation worse.
Every now and then, though, someone becomes an internet meme and decides to be awesome about it. Take, for example Neil deGrasse Tyson, recently mentioned hereabouts in the past few days. He got himself a Rage Face. The full histoy of that can be read HERE, but the short form is in the summer of 2011, a video of him talking about Sir Isaac Newton was posted to YouTube, where he can be seen gesturing in awe and astonishment over the fact that newton invented calculus at the ripe old age of 25.
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Within relatively short order, a shot from that video (at about the 1:32 mark) got turned into a “rage face” cartoon:
Now, some people might take offense to that, and either get all pissy about it or try to avoid it. And then there’s Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Now that displays a level of class that you don’t see all that often with public figures. The ability to not only impart wisdom and a position AND take a joke and have fun with it is what’s needed to really make a good leader. I can see NdGT becoming an important figure in the attempt to regain an American space program, and this sort of thing will only help.
I once worked with someone who was portrayed as an Important Leader In The Effort To Get Your Ass To Mars. That feller was *not* a badass. Nor much of a leader. NdGT seems to be the polar opposite… a smart guy who is good with the public and comes across as an actual human. Now, if only there was some sort of Society for Mars that he could be voted president of… Neil deGrasse Tyson in 2012!
