In developing nations, millions of children have little to no experience with digital technology compared to kids in wealthier countries. One tech giant just proved that access is all it takes to level the playing field: When Microsoft donated tablets to the kids of this Kenyan village, they became the most toxic fans of The Pitt online within days.
How cool is this? With equal opportunities, the world’s poorest children are capable of projecting their own neuroses onto HBO’s hit medical drama even more irrationally than American Pitt fans!
Last month, the children of Lolupe, one of the poorest villages in all of Kenya, received 30 Surface tablets from Microsoft as part of a philanthropic company initiative. These kids had never seen a tablet before, and yet, after just four days with the new technology, Lolupe’s youth had figured out how to not only operate the devices, but binge watch The Pitt and then histrionically plague star and executive producer Noah Wyle with complaints about the way his character was sometimes short with other characters. In no time at all, these Kenyan children were going viral with louder, angrier, and even less coherent whining over The Pitt’s creative decisions at a pace far more impressive than their privileged global peers.
“If you said ‘Ding Dong Mohan’s Gone’ around these kids earlier this year, they would have no idea who you were talking about – today, saying ‘Ding Dong Mohan’s Gone’ in Lolupe could spark a region-destabilizing war,” said Kate Behnken, head of Microsoft Philanthropies, who personally witnessed a six-year-old in Lolupe attempt to doxx Noah Wyle on her Surface tablet.
“The way these kids have taught themselves to react to an actor’s departure from The Pitt by perpetuating false accusations of bigotry against that actor’s co-workers is nothing short of amazing. They’re innovating entirely new ways to not understand how fiction works and pathologically hold other people’s art accountable for their own debilitating moral scrupulosity. You’d think these Kenyan children were Internet veterans.”
This is how you bridge the digital divide! Well done, Microsoft!
It’s so cool to see that with access to the same resources as kids in the Western world, children who grow up in poverty can weaponize their own mental illness and sheltered views to steer The Pitt discourse in the most toxic direction possible. Microsoft, you rule for this one!
