stay woke

Alex Trebek Introduced a ‘Stay Woke’ Category on Jeopardy! Before Cruelly Revealing It As a Pun for Sleep Issues

Jeopardy! in 2017. Photo: NBC

If you missed Jeopardy! on Friday night, allow us to fill you in: Alex Trebek emerged wearing a bright-red hockey jersey and introduced the very promising “Stay Woke” category to three white-guy contestants, only to disappoint viewers hoping for a little discourse by revealing the phrase’s purpose as a mere a pun for questions about sleep issues. Naturally, those who caught the episode weren’t left totally satisfied:

Jeopardy might not seem like the ideal place to hold court on dilemmas of wokeness, to be fair, but every once in a while the long-running game show yields moments of surprising, jagged spontaneity: Consider Trebek rapping lyrics by Drake, Kanye, Kendrick Lamar, and (many) more, or that time he called a contestant and her friends “losers.” So, no, Jeopardy didn’t wade into the “Stay Woke” waters this time around. But don’t be shocked if Trebek starts provoking discussions on the cycle of poverty and the prison-industrial complex before too long. Stranger things have happened.

Alex Trebek Introduced a “Stay Woke” Category on Jeopardy!