12. Every Documentary Ever
Whether about politics or religion, animal cruelty or human injustice, conspiracies, alien evidence, or the lack of both, when it comes to documentaries, your friend usually always shouts a variation of the phrases, "Wow!" or "This is SO TRUE!" Sometimes he just shakes his head and sighs. Every documentary is further proof for your friend that the world has become worse, granted for completely opposite reasons depending on what he watches. Every documentary ever made immediately causes your friend to completely agree, but to his credit, also find a new cause to talk about for the rest of the next day or so, even though he doesn't do any research about it on his own. Despite his fleeting social activism, however, he nevertheless always arrives back at the conclusion that everything is generally terrible, mainly because teachers on the whole are bad people and that both anarchy and institutions are good and neither (depending on what he believes in at that moment) are given their due. You try to emphasize to your friend to remember that anything can seem convincing through talking heads or editing, that keeping your mind open is great but you need to do objective research to really get anywhere with these issues, but to no avail. Documentaries are also very notable because they effect outside conversations with your friend, causing him to spout truths out of context, half-truths, or things that aren't true at all, before ultimately bringing those conversations as well to the conclusion that everything is bullsh*t. But luckily, documentaries also help keep the situation in check themselves, never causing things to get too out of hand for him, as they help your friend go between positive and negative feelings all on their own. And yet, you wonder, your friend can enjoy a Christopher Guest movie just fine. One of these days you're hopeful he'll be able to put two and two together.