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10 Topics I Want 'Last Week Tonight With John Oliver' To Address

Here's hoping it goes for several more seasons so there's enough time to discuss everything on my list.

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10 Topics I Want 'Last Week Tonight With John Oliver' To Address
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Over the past few years, few shows have captured my interest more than Last Week Tonight With John Oliver. Every week for half an hour on Sunday nights, I learn about a relatively underreported topic that's somehow relevant to my life, all through the brilliant comedic lens of John Oliver.

The show has tackled many interesting topics through its 4+ seasons so far, such as the tobacco industry, the Miss America pageant, and cryptocurrencies.

However, I do think that there are many potentially fascinating subjects that the show has yet to discuss, so here's hoping it goes for several more seasons.

1. Ticket scalpers

This has become a particularly newsworthy topic in the wake of sky-high prices for Hamilton tickets in the past couple of years, though obviously people have been buying and reselling tickets for years.

Beyond just examining the major resale sites like Stubhub, I'd be curious to see Last Week Tonight delve into how deep the ticket scalping industry runs and how people have tried to fight it, defend it, or respond to it.

2. "Big data"

This was a topic in my market research class recently, specifically regarding how data analysts in marketing in recent years have begun to worship big data as the "next big thing" and the end to any company's marketing problem. As we discussed in my class, big data is only useful when companies are actionable about how and why they collect data.

I'd love for Last Week Tonight to dive into this recent trend in companies capturing as much big data as possible and looking into how it may, or may not, be as useful as most people think.

3. DNA/ancestry testing

John Oliver and his HBO crew have already tackled the subject of forensic science in general on Last Week Tonight, but I'd be very curious to learn more about how sites like Ancestry.com actually work, and whether you can really trace your family history back several centuries through a single DNA test.

I find the topic of heredity and family trees very interesting, and I'm sure that John Oliver would be able to put an amusing spin on a subject through which people find out that they're all, somehow, distantly related to Genghis Khan.

4. The "tagging friends in memes on Facebook" epidemic

Mind you, I don't think this topic is meaty enough to discuss for 20 minutes, but it could definitely serve as a brief, 3-minute segment to end an upcoming episode.

John Oliver has a knack for providing a perfectly snarky perspective on modern trends, and though I doubt that any truly controversial news stories have emerged from this seemingly harmless trend, perhaps there's more going on beneath my news feed than I thought.

5. The upcoming royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle

As a native Brit, I have no doubt that John Oliver will at least mention this at some point on the show. He's already alluded to his complete indifference to royal weddings on other talk shows, though not yet on his own show.

I realize that this is probably the polar opposite of an "underreported topic," but since Oliver has publicly mocked the idea of royal weddings in the past, I think this would make for an amusing segment.

6. The college application process

Last Week Tonight has delved into topics very salient to students, such as standardized testing and school segregation, but it has yet to devote a full segment to examining the chaotic, panicked landscape that is the college application process in the U.S.

I'd love for LWT to look into specific stories of kids that have experienced personal or financial difficulties in the midst of applying to colleges and apply that to the state of our country as a whole.

Also, John Oliver has a lot of high school and college-age fans that surely would appreciate his comedic lens on this subject.

7. Technology's effect on children

I don't mean to sound like an old soul, but I'm glad that my childhood took place largely before the age of iPhones and iPads. I can vividly remember a time when people weren't glued to their phones 24/7, and sometimes it worries me when I see kids that are 5 or 6 and constantly on iPads at home.

I'd be curious to see if there are any scientific studies on if this constant exposure to touch-screens has any impact on kids while they're growing up. Even if the literature on this particular issue is still young, I think it would be an interesting topic for the show to tackle.

8. Homelessness and poverty in well-off areas

Last Week Tonight has tackled topics related to poorer segments of the population, in the U.S. and elsewhere, on several occasions, but one topic that I feel could use more attention from this show is the prevalence of homelessness and poverty in what people usually consider more well-off areas, such as Charlottesville.

Last Week Tonight generally does well with topics that appear to be one way on the surface, but are actually quite different in nature when examined further. Surely there must be some heart-tugging stories on this topic out there that have been ignored, but perhaps they'll find a home on HBO in the future.

9. Facebook's recent controversies

Beyond serving as a harmless place for memeing, Facebook has gotten a lot of flak lately for working with Cambridge Analytica and selling user data. Founder Mark Zuckerberg doesn't appear to have done much to re-endear people to Facebook in the aftermath of this scandal.

I always enjoy when Last Week Tonight looks at a company that is in some sort of fallout and tries to pick apart the elements of the controversy. For the average LWT viewer that has a Facebook but is somewhat unsure of the nature of this scandal, devoting part of an episode to this particular story could be very beneficial.

I also find it interesting that many people my age and younger say that they barely use Facebook anymore, and I'd appreciate if LWT perhaps looked into why that has become the case or why people seem to have fallen out of love with Facebook in recent years.

10. Wales

As someone proud to have Welsh heritage, I often wish that this charming little country to the left of England got more attention. It's got everything: lots of sheep, the longest town name in the world, cliffs galore, and many castles, among other things.

Though a specific segment-worthy topic regarding Wales does not immediately spring to my mind, I'm sure the Welsh people have done something noteworthy in recent memory to warrant a mention on Last Week Tonight.

Season 5 of Last Week Tonight is still relatively young, and in my mind there's a good chance that at least one of these topics will eventually be discussed on the show.

If not, I'll be perfectly content continuing to get my weekly dose of Last Week Tonight on Sunday nights and learn about countries that I can't place on a map, tyrannical world leaders I've never heard of, and silly things that local news anchors are doing to celebrate various holidays.

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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