a test to see if you are a human.

Please raise your hand if something applies to you.

Are we agreed? Yes?

Then let's begin.

Have you ever eaten a booger

long past your childhood?

(Laughter)

It's okay, it's safe here.

Have you ever made a small, weird sound

when you remembered something embarrassing?

Have you ever purposely lowercased

the first letter of a text

in order to come across as sad or disappointed?

(Laughter)

Okay.

Have you ever ended a text with a period

as a sign of aggression? Okay. Period.

Have you ever laughed or smiled

when someone said something shitty to you

and then spent the rest of the day

wondering why you reacted that way?

Yes.

Have you ever seemed to lose your airplane ticket

a thousand times as you walked

from the check-in to the gate?

Yes.

Have you ever put on a pair of pants

and then much later realized that there was

a loose sock smushed up against your thigh?

(Laughter)

Good.

Have you ever tried to guess someone else's password

so many times that it locked their account?

Mmm.

Have you ever had a nagging feeling that one day

you will be discovered as a fraud?

Yes, it's safe here.

Have you ever hoped that there was some ability

you hadn't discovered yet

that you were just naturally great at?

Mmm.

Have you ever broken something in real life,

and then found yourself looking

for an "undo" button in real life?

Have you ever misplaced your TED badge

and then immediately started imagining

what a three-day Vancouver vacation might look like?

Have you ever marveled

at how someone you thought was so ordinary

could suddenly become so beautiful?

Have you ever stared at your phone

smiling like an idiot while texting with someone?

Have you ever subsequently texted that person

the phrase "I'm staring at the phone

smiling like an idiot"?

Have you ever been tempted to,

and then gave in to the temptation,

of looking through someone else's phone?

Have you ever had a conversation with yourself

and then suddenly realized

you're a real asshole to yourself?

(Laughter)

Has your phone ever run out of battery

in the middle of an argument,

and it sort of felt like the phone

was breaking up with both of you?

Have you ever thought

that working on an issue between you was futile

because it should just be easier than this,

or this is supposed to happen just naturally?

Have you ever realized that very little, in the long run,

just happens naturally?

Have you ever woken up blissfully

and suddenly been flooded by the awful remembrance

that someone had left you?

Have you ever lost the ability to imagine a future

without a person

that no longer was in your life?

Have you ever looked back on that event

with the sad smile of autumn

and the realization that futures will happen

regardless?

Congratulations.

You have now completed the test.

You are all human.

(Applause)