Ronny Chieng - Mom's Computer

My mom, she lives in Singapore right now. Okay?

And she really loves the Singapore government. Okay? For whatever reason, probably because
of propaganda, alright?

Alright, so there was a YouTube video about the Singapore government, and I can’t ever
remember whether the video was positive or negative or propaganda. Doesn’t even matter,
okay?

Because the comments were negative. That’s my point. No matter what you do online people
just say nasty things about it. So, for some reason my mom scrolls through these comments,
she reads all these derogatory comments about the Singapore government. She gets angry

Right? So now she needs to do something about it. So, like a vigilante, she registers a YouTube
account, just to respond to every hateful comment on this video.

Ok? But worse still, she registers her YouTube account, using her real name. Alright?

And she’s typing her response, like a three-page dissent. Right? Like “how dare you say this
about the Singapore government? You don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re spoiled,
you’re ignorant “blah-blah-blah-blah-blah. Post.

Five minutes after posting, regrets posting it because she used her real name, calls me up from
Singapore, all the way to Australia where I live right now, on the phone asking me, “Ronny,”
Ronny how do you delete a comment off YouTube?”

Let me tell you something, explaining to your mom, over the phone, how to fix a computer
problem when you can’t see her screen, is quite possibly the most excruciating form of torture
even possible.

If I was an intelligence officer, and you captured me, and you wanted to extract information
from me, you don’t need Jack Bauer, okay? You don’t need Guantanamo Bay. You need to fuck
some shit up on my mom’s computer, and get her call me on the phone, “Ronnie how do you
fix…” I will break like a twig! I will tell you everything you need to know, for the love of god, fix
her computer! Fix it right now!

But because she’s 5000 miles away, you have to explain every excruciating step to her like
you’re defusing a bomb!

“okay, mom, okay, look. Mom, you want to delete a comment off YouTube? Okay, its easy,
okay? Just relax. Just calm down, just listen to what I’m saying. Click the red “X” next to your
comment, okay? Do you see your comment? Yeah, just click the red “X” _ No, no. Click it, No,
click. No, click is the left button. Click means left button. No, the mouse, the thing with the wire
in front of you, the mouse. Yeah. It’s got two buttons, press the left button. Yeah just Press the
left button.

No, you have to move your pointer to the red “X” first. No, the pointer _ the white arrow,
Move the white arrow! _ oh no, you’re right mom, whoever designed this system is stupid,
you’re right. Oh, the system is stupid, computers are stupid, YouTube is stupid, everything’s
stupid, Mom! Everything in the universe is stupid except for you! Okay?
Let’s just get through this! Just move the white arrow to the red “X” and press the left button.
You see the white arrow? You don’t see the white arrow. Okay. Move the mouse. No, you
move the mouse so you can locate the white arrow moving as you move the mouse. I promise
the white arrow is there, mom! Just move the mouse, It might be off-screen for a second, Just
shake the mouse. No, shake the mouse so you can see the white arrow move as you move the
mouse!”

Because moms are like T-rex, if its not moving, they can’t see it, okay? They can’t see it!

“Okay, move the mouse!” “do you see a white arrow moving as you move the mouse?”

You don’t see the white arrow moving. You don’t see it moving. You see nothing moving.

You see nothing, now you see nothing! You see a blank screen.

Okay, fuck it! I’m flying over! Right now!

No, don’t book my flight, I’ll book it myself! You’ll mess it up!”

And then you get there, and it’s like, she wasn’t even in front of her computer.