I really only took issue with the bolded. He's not the only one speaking so if people aren't receptive to him because of his jokes they can ignore him and listen to someone else who they do find more credible. And it is better to have more varied voices speak on the subject especially if certain speakers have a broader reach audience wise. Like this thread wouldn't have existed without Hasan tweeting about it.
The focus of this thread seems to be how funny he was though, not the issue.
I don't think all press is good press. I can imagine some people who aren't very aware of the issue seeing this and thinking "Wow, this is supposedly a major issue affecting people's livelihood and this is how you express your concerns?"
Anyone CAN go seek out other voices, but what are the odds they will? It seems far smarter to me to always have someone credible speaking instead of trusting that people will be turned off by this video and then go out of their way to seek other perspectives.
I don't disagree that having celebrities use their platform to spread awareness is great, but I'm confident a large portion of Hasan's audience are aware of, likely affected by, this issue, and I can easily imagine his tone here turning off people who need convincing.
It just feels to me that he prioritized creating a potential viral video over the message. If he would have just shared the stats about what the committee members paid for school vs. what their constituents are currently paying that would have been powerful. If some people found the video funny that's fine, but I think it would have been far more effective at actually making progress to some sort of solution if he delivered that message without the clowning around.
The video is just super awkward to me too. There's videos of Jon Stewart and Colbert doing humor in front of similar audiences with no reactions, but it's usually because they're speaking truth to power, saying things they're not supposed to, or criticizing people to their faces. Hasan just has a bunch of goofy jokes with no bearing whatsoever on the topic at hand. I'm not impressed.