Adam Ruins Everything will be familiar to those who are regular watchers of the Collegehumor YouTube channel and maybe other fact hunters in the world. The whole show is based on Collegehumor writer and performer Adam Conover taking a social construct and showing why it’s either outdated, used badly or just plain wrong. Subjects have ranged from Cars, Security, Voting and the general idea of Giving.
However this week things took a dark turn. They tackled the impossible subject of death, facing the fact that you (the viewer) will one day die, how to deal with loved ones dying and enforcing the issue that it’s something that we as a society should talk about. Saving our family and friends emotional and financial grief trying to make sure we left the world how ‘we’ wanted, without having the aforementioned discussion.
While the first 10 minutes followed the show’s formula with upbeat music, some slapstick humor and shock value through statistics and historical facts, the final half did something I can’t remember any show doing before, tackling the subject of death with the utmost maturity and respect with no other agenda than to inform and empathize.
There was a brilliant moment where the person Adam is ‘educating’ begins to really comprehend what this all means and this is the precise moment the audience does the same. For true empathy to make it from the writers room to the performer to the audience without missing a beat is something to be applauded.
I can honestly say I never cry while watching television, films and games get me but for some reason not TV. Having said that, watching these normally happy and upbeat people talk about something so profound and how it can affect the people we love in the world so much got me right in my very core.
“Sometimes, it’s OK not to know.”
This show’s entire premise is to make the audience more knowledgeable about issues that affect us in our every day lives. To end on a note of such ambiguity was, for lack of a better word, perfect.
Thank you Adam and all the writers and performers (especially the brilliant Emily Axford) on the show for an unforgettable season and I am eagerly awaiting your return to ruin everything all over again.
