A category on “ Jeopardy!” Friday night woke audience members right up, but for not quite the reason you’d expect.
The popular quiz show unveiled a category called “Stay Woke,” prompting celebratory Tweets from some viewers because the term is used by groups like Black Lives Matter to encourage people to stay aware of social and political issues.
But as it so happened, the category didn’t feature questions on current events or injustices. The term, which the Oxford English Dictionary last month noted is derived from African-American vernacular, was instead about sleep and staying awake, in the literal sense. The questions’ answers included melatonin, caffeine, and the stimulant product NoDoz.
Obviously, Twitter had a lot to stay on the matter, with some viewers suggesting that the category was “disappointing” and suffered a “major miss.”
Hey, you can’t win them all, and to be fair, puns and wordplay in the show’s categories are to be expected.
That said, there have been far more cringeworthy moments on the show, like their past “What Women Want” category ― whose answers included a vacuum cleaner, pilates, and jeans that make butts look good ― and that time a contestant mispronounced 2Pac’s name as “Two Pack.”
