Assuming that this is the only manifestation of this sort of behavior, sure. It could be a dry sense of humor playing off of taking common turns of speech literally. But he's been repeatedly shown to be a wholly unpleasant, needlessly pedantic asshole with a superiority complex in his public and personal life. Peoples intolerance of his tweets aren't only informed by those tweets, they're also shaped by years of insufferable drivel coming out of his mouth, said seriously and with intent.

I love dry humor and wordplay. This isn't either of those things. He actually thinks people are that stupid and need a lesson on leap years. His reason is as follows: I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson and I'm better than everyone. People don't know what I know and I'm going to bless them with my genius in 180 characters or less. Please clap.

[–] EvilLootbox@lemmy.world 4 points 8 months ago

remember when the Daily Show in the old Jon Stewart days tried to push him as a correspondent for awhile? It was completely intolerable, the man does not understand comedy at all.

[–] Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago

Yeah, I'm not trying to say he is definitely joking. But it is something I'd do if I were in his position, so I can't discount the possibility that he is trolling with some of these.