6 Parodies Taking The Piss At TED Talks

The best TED Talks are hilarious, heartbreaking, informative. The worst, well, sound a bit like this.

Poor TED gets punched around a lot as some sort of very expensive flattery camp for Silicon Valley milquetoasts. It's important to remember there are genuinely moving, hilarious, informative, and disturbing talks among the duds, but the duds, well, sound a bit like this:

1. The Onion Talks' "Compost-Fueled Cars: Wouldn't That Be Great?"

The worst business metaphors you can ever imagine, plus the gross pomposity of every startup bro who thinks they're good enough to delegate the real hard work on to you.

2. Onion Talk on "Ducks Say Quack, Chickens Say Cluck."

Bland. Facts. With. Dramatic. Rueful. Pauses.

3. Comedian Sam Hyde recently finagled his way to Drexel University's TEDx event. Onstage, he shouted a stream of nonsensical buzzwords.

It should be noted, by the way, that TEDx events are "unofficial" and not sponsored by TED.

4. College Humor's High TED Talks gives the conference stage to (pretend) stoned wastoids.

Expensive business forum or stoner freshman conversation? You decide.

5. "Using Social Media To Cover For Lack Of Original Thought."

*Violently hides Facebook tab*

6. Improv Everywhere faked a talk on solar power that became an epic tech error dance routine.

This was actually done at an official TED event, so maybe TED has a better sense of humor than people give them credit for.

Also relevant to TED: The Worst SXSW Tech Panel Ever.

By BuzzFeed's own Mike Lacher, aka Wondertonic.