Every prudent man acts with knowledge,
but a fool displays folly.

Proverbs 13:16

No doubt we have seen a fool’s folly displayed all over social media! In fact, on platforms like TikTok and YouTube there seems to be a contest on who can be the most foolish. And for some of these fools, they are earning tens of thousands of dollars simply for being a fool and proud of it! I suppose to some these videos may seem harmless enough. I beg to differ.

I differ because The Truth is that God has nothing good to say about being a fool and that we are too avoid foolish behavior. Yet in our culture we see in every generation people acting like fools and being exhibitionists about it. Behaving like an out of control child or adolescent is common place even for grandparents. I am not thinking of just the foolish people who jump off a roof into a kiddie pool of Jello. The Internet is barraged with people disfiguring themselves, destroying property and possessions, etc…and ranting and raving about any topic under the sun. Fools are an epidemic!

These things are not ‘posted’ to benefit the viewer in any way; there is no teaching value, there is no virtue lesson or any helpful motive. They aren’t even funny! They are nonsense! The fool simply wants to get laugh emoticons, likes and shares in the hope that their narcissistic foolishness will someday earn them the almighty dollar and lots of those dollars. And the craziness is that these fools are being given the attention that they crave and they are earning a living being a fool!

I am not referring to good children’s programing that uses imagination to teach and discover the wonderful things within our world. But there are some kids’ videos that are just stupid, teach nothing, value nothing and promote nothing but chaos and, again, are just not even funny. Many of these even demean parents and their critical role in the nurture and admonition of their children. And even more of these seemingly harmless kids’ videos completely undermine the Bible and the God Who wrote this love letter to us! Parents beware! Mr. Rogers is no longer the measuring stick.

I am not speaking of good comedy or even some forms of slapstick comedy. I am not talking about the scientist who does way out experiments to show how science works in our world. Or the math expert who uses numbers in crazy ways to show how math impacts just about everything around us. These folks do crazy stuff, but they are not fools. Their craziness and comedy are actually well thought out, very controlled, and carefully executed. Often what we see in some of these types of videos has been practiced over and over and requires years of training; like snow skiing through caves or swimming with whales. Attempting these things would be foolish for me or you, but for the trained individual, it is an amazing skill and they know better than to be foolish in those skills.  

I am talking about the man who senselessly blows up his gas grill on purpose just to see if his grill will fly higher off the ground than the other fool who documented the same thing last week. Or the nut who tries to rollerblade tied behind a race car. I am talking about challenges made on social media to do stupid and foolish things that have actually killed those who try to do the challenge.  I am talking about people who scream into their microphones and contort their faces to make a point about…well…just about anything ungodly and grotesque. If you can even understand what they are saying, a wise person realizes quickly that their words have zero substance behind them. 

Yet millions and millions of people are hooked into this type of foolish nonsense on the Internet. And the millions crave dumber and louder foolishness and the ‘influencers’ bring on the dumber and louder with relish. The cycle is relentless and it is dangerous.

Paul wrote to Titus about this very thing.

Titus 3:1-5a

Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed, to malign no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing every consideration for all men. For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But, when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us…