CLEVELAND – After learning that looking directly at the sun during a solar eclipse could blind him, Tyler Dennison made a conscious decision to skip viewing it and instead destroy his vision by looking at screens for 16 hours a day, sources confirmed.
“I’ve been hearing about this eclipse coming and everyone’s so excited to see it, but apparently you can’t even look at the stupid thing without going blind,” Dennison said. “What’s the point in some event happening that you can’t even look at? If I’m going to ruin my vision, it might as well be doing something that I love – like playing DayZ alone in the dark or scrolling mindlessly on my phone in bed in dim lighting with the screen brightness turned all the way down.”
“Besides, I have work to do,” Dennison continued. “And once I finish work, I need to decompress, which means either playing Vampire Survivors for 12 hours, watching TikToks until I see at least three ‘you’ve been scrolling for way too long’ videos, or binging The Office for the 9th time. Then I keep doing one of those three things until I’m mentally and physically exhausted enough to sleep, and wake up the next day and do it all over again. But at least I can look directly at all of those things. Plus, I don’t have to go outside.”
Rachel Tester, Dennison’s girlfriend, was disappointed but understood his feelings on the matter.
“It’s a bummer Tyler doesn’t want to come out, because it’s a pretty rare opportunity to see something like this where we live. But to be fair, it’s also not a bad day to sit in front of the television with your phone in your hand and force your eyes to alternate back and forth between reading something close up and then far away. Personally, I can’t wait to see the eclipse, and then spend the rest of the afternoon looking at other people’s photos of what I just witnessed in real life on Instagram.”
Optometrist Dr. Karen Wen recommended exercising precautions in both scenarios.
“I’m desperate for my patients to stop looking at screens all day, but not desperate enough to encourage them to go outside and look directly at the sun during an eclipse,” Wen said. “There are plenty of safe ways to view the eclipse and to rest your eyes throughout the day. But honestly? I don’t even know why I’m telling you this – it’s not like anyone listens to me anyway. Get some rewetting drops and leave me out of it.”
At press time, Dennison was seen opening his blinds during the four-minute duration of totality as it was dark enough outside for him to comfortably watch TV while keeping an eye on his computer.
