Alex O'Connor

It's better if you do well, sure.

But it's not the end of the world if you don't.

Yeah, exactly.

I think it was because I knew that I could do more.

I knew that I could pass the exam.

I knew that I could do philosophy and critical thinking and this kind of stuff.

Just sort of flunking out of school in that way, for me it was a very intentional thing.

I'm not interested in this.

I want to be a rock star or a professional skateboarder or something like that instead.

But I kind of got the feeling that people didn't believe me.

They thought that the reason why I'm failing is because I don't have the goods.

I can't do this kind of stuff.

And it wasn't just that.

It wasn't like I just thought I need to prove a point now.

But when I suddenly got this idea in my head that it would be fun to go to university, it would be cool.

And I started admiring new atheist figures like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, both of whom studied at Oxford.

And I'd also started making YouTube videos.

This was the other thing, right?

I'm like 17 when I start making videos online, at least the videos I make today.

And they were these kind of edgy new atheist type videos.