Vivek Ramaswamy went on a long rant on social media this week, complaining about, among other things, the chosen heroes of 1990s television shows. But, fans of those shows are pretty sure he missed the mark entirely.
In a lengthy post to X, Ramaswamy argued that the reason tech companies hire employees from other countries is not “because of an innate American IQ deficit,” but rather because “American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long.” According to Ramaswamy, it began in the ’90s, in large part due to popular TV shows.
“A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math olympiad champ, or the jock over the valedictorian, will not produce the best engineers,” he wrote. “A culture that venerates Cory from ‘Boy Meets World,’ or Zach [sic] & Slater over Screech in ‘Saved by the Bell,’ or ‘Stefan’ over Steve Urkel in ‘Family Matters,’ will not produce the best engineers.”
In the days following his post, Ramaswamy was roasted on social media for it, with fans picking on various points in the post. Chief among them was the idea that Cory Matthews, played by Ben Savage in “Boy Meets World,” was anyone’s favorite character on the ABC sitcom.
“LMAO who venerates Cory from Boy Meets World,” one person wrote. “This 100% reads like Vivek was stuffed into lockers at 9 years old and spent 30 years waiting to lash out to prove his superiority.”
Another argued that the analogy offers “no better insight into Vivek’s psyche,” while another joked that it proved he didn’t actually watch the show.
Others pointed out that, in reality, the fictional characters Ramaswamy took aim at were actually quite smart, and explicitly shown as such.
“That’s setting aside that Zach [sic] got into Yale, Slater got a wrestling scholarship to Iowa (best program in the country) AND got into West Point, and Stefan Urkel was just as smart as Steve!” one person noted. “Ben Savage from Boy Meets World went to Stanford!”
But, beyond Ramaswamy’s irritation with TV characters, many mocked him for arguing there are flaws in American culture itself, given that he works for Donald Trump.
Even Nikki Haley took issue with Ramaswamy’s post.
“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” she wrote. “All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”
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You can see more reactions to Ramaswamy’s post below.
