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45 Times People Thought They Were Being Very Smart But Ended Up Looking Like Complete Idiots
Interview
They pretend to have triple-digit IQs, glasses thicker than Velma’s from Scooby-Doo, and they love flaunting their stuff—bragging about their big brains, of course! They’re the obnoxious wannabe eggheads that make the internet insufferable with their Thesaurus vernacular and incessant desire to prove that their intellectual capacity for reasoning (i.e. ability to sound smarter) is bigger than yours or mine. Combined.
The ‘I Am Very Smart’ Reddit community is chock-full of quality posts poking fun at people who think they have high IQs (but actually just have massive egos). And with a following of 1.5 million, you can bet that folks are interested in seeing these ‘mighty minds’ make utter fools of themselves.
Check out some of the best posts from the community below, upvote your fave pics, and be sure to follow their subreddit if you like their content. Bored Panda has written about the intellectually eloquent r/IAmVerySmart subreddit before, so when you’re done with this list, have a scroll through our earlier post which can be found right over here.
Bored Panda wanted to learn more about the r/IAmVerySmart community, so we reached out to their moderator team and members. They're a vocal and friendly group and they told us all about what their subreddit stands for, how it changed over the years, why people want to try to appear 'VerySmart(TM),' as well as how best to deal with anyone who's been hitting the Thesaurus way, way too hard.
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Too Busy To “Ackshually” To Appreciate A Joke, Only To Then Incorrect Them
Bats Are Birds
Absolute Alpha Intellectual. To This Day, I Still Don’t Get It
The 'I Am Very Smart' community was founded way back in 2013 and it's one of the longest-existing veterans on Reddit. The moderators, even though they encourage poking fun at people who try to sound smart too hard, nonetheless don't tolerate anyone sharing any identifying information. The content's supposed to be about fun while indirectly celebrating actual critical thinking and intellectualism.
Moderator Thumbs0fDestiny was very open about the fact that the main draw of the 'I Am Very Smart' community is revealing someone else's blunder when, instead, people should be humble and succinct. In other words, the sub's popularity comes from one of the most human things ever, the joy that we get from seeing someone else fail or get humiliated, called schadenfreude.
Someone’s Hot Take On The 4th Of July Was Wrong
Haha... If You Don’t Get The Joke, You Are An Absolute Moron
Too Smart To Appreciate A Good Play On Words
Or, in their own words, as the mod went in character, pretending to be one of the people the community likes to laugh at: "Every day across the internet, people comment some of the most braggadocious drivel anyone could ever hope to hear, and they do so with such confidence and disregard for logic that it sometimes transcends the bounds of the page it's written on and becomes art. We collect those masterpieces of magniloquence and put them all in one easy to find location where people can come and talk and laugh about the cockalorum character that wrote them. What's not to love?"
"I've talked to NASCAR fans before who say they don't go for the race, they go for the crash. When one goes to the circus and sees the man put his head in a lion's mouth, somewhere inside one's self they kinda want to see the lion chomp down. That's what you get, in the intellectual sense, when you come to r/IAmVerySmart," moderator Thumbs0fDestiny said, getting serious once again.
He Just Tries To Correct The Already Correct Spelling Lmao
I Don't Have An Iq Of 136 For Nothing
Ok but this is the second time the number 136 has shown up, right? Which is not bad, probability-wise. But still. So I checked and surprise! 136 is, provided you don't deal with decimals, 1 point into the top 1%. And here's the thing: I know for a fact you can go to certain psychologists for raised scores. I know there are people who practice the tests in order to gain an edge- or people who gain the actual tests and memorize them. Now, considering that single points mean a lot at the edges of the scale, but you can essentially have your number boosted by 10, 20 points with no worries... mull that over. I get that this is a conspiracy sounding post, but it does happen, even if it's not what happened in these specific cases.
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What a jerk. First off, people can be smart and watch dumb things, and secondly that comment about her being a, "smart pretty girl," is just gross.
this person contacted someone to ask how their day was and descended into berating them. why initiate contact?
OK, I do not get people who go around boasting about their IQ as if it somehow proves their point. If you have a high IQ, good for you, but it only measures a certain type of 'intelligence'. There are many other kinds of intelligence that aren't so easily measured. Moreover, a person with high IQ might be able to argue their opinion clearly but it doesn't mean they're right. They're technically more intelligent than average, but you still have to learn basic information. It's so dumb when people have an idea and, without doing any research, insist that they're right just because they can attach a number to it, which they could easily be lying about. Also, narcissists like this give all intelligent people a very bad reputation
Television like that exists solely to entertain. I pity this guy. He probably doesn't laugh at Community either!
Community, in my humble opinion, was much funnier. I can’t speak for the last few seasons as I refused to watch them on principle.
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sounds fake. Is anyone that socially inept? "clearly you are not engaged with proper television that I watch" - does anyone say that, ever?
I knew a guy who told me (in all earnestness) that he made sure to let everyone know on his first day at the new job after graduating with his PhD that he didn't think less of those who only had a master's degree. I believe that there are people like this - even if this one in particular is fabricated.
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136 may be a pretty high IQ, but it’s not considered truly gifted. I believe 160 is the minimum to qualify for membership in MENSA.
Me too! I need to take a few years off from it tho honestly lol. I’ve seen it like three times
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Repeat after me: LIFE ISNT ABOUT BOASTING YOUR IQ DUMBASSES. ITS ABOUT ENJOYING IT.
LIFE ISNT ABOUT BOASTING YOUR IQ DUMBASSES. ITS ABOUT ENJOYING IT.
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An IQ of 136 and watchign"History Channel" or "National Geografic"? My oh my and he prolly also think QVC are the news then........
Lmao I have an iq of 133 and I love the office and other stupid shows I don’t learn anything from. I also enjoy shows I do learn things from.
Lmao THE HISTORY CHANNEL of all things “Yeah I’m educating myself with Ghost Storage Wars”
Can't the history channel be incorrect at times? Idk for sure cause i don't watch it just hearing it from friends.
With an IQ of 136 he probably knows a lot of big words, like "patronizing asshole."
Bwahaha "I was gifted..." that girl better don't lose her brain cells on this guy
He's another species. His IQ is under 140. (It's a joke from the post above.)
Someone should tell this genius that IQ is comparable to the speed of reasoning, not the about of knowlage they have.
some shows are for smarts, some shows are for fun,get over it dorky mik doo doo!
lmao yeah the history channel that has stuff about aliens, natgeo or animal planet who have stuff about bigfoot, etc. what a douche
On the contrary, I think it takes a genius to make good comedy. The office is brilliant, how could it rot anyones brain (if they enjoy it)?
Do I like The Office? Not particularly. Am I gonna s**t on someone else for liking it? Absolutely not. People like different things
This is the same excuse my parents tell me so I get off the TV and other devices (also, I think they meant -136 IQ)
Yes... learning that aliens are among us really DOES enlarge your brain and mentally stimulate brain cells
I live a simple life.I like the office. They like the office. They are now my bff.
... it’s not for learning... it’s for fun.... fun is good for you..... oml
He's an IQ of 136 and still believes in a God who'd make that as a special gift to him ? Poor baby, stepping out of this fantasy world will hurt some day. Love the girl's clap back though.
This dude: *calls the history channel mentally stimulating* The History Channel: alternate-...d837c8.png 
The history channel has Ancient Aliens. So I'm not sure it's the best place to go for good content
My IQ is in the 130s (I can never remember exactly what number bc ADHD brain) and I find shows like Community and Brooklyn 99 absolutely hilarious. Shows that are "mentally stimulating" have to be specifically about something I fixate on or I can't focus at all. This one reeks of ableism-you can be perfectly gifted and smart and still have a hard time enjoying documentaries and similar things, even if you're not neurodivergent but especially if you are. This guy's just a d**k.
This Meme Isn't Funny Because It's Incorrect
Meanwhile, community member OneGoodRib (loving these user names, by the way), point-blank said that people love laughing at others and there's less guilt if we all poke fun at the "chumheads" who are the targets of the subreddit. "I don’t feel nearly as bad about having a laugh about someone being pretentious as I do about laughing at, say, people who are dressed really poorly in public."
In OneGoodRib's opinion, some people are "super insecure" about their intelligence and believe that being smart is the most important thing in the world. That's why they're willing to sacrifice anything just to make others believe their IQ's hitting Super Saiyan power levels (even if it backfires... magnificently). "It’s okay that they don’t have friends, or talents, or accomplishments, as long as they just keep telling people they’re super smart. And of course some humans are just smug [jerks], it just happens that the people in this sub are smug about being smart rather than smug about motorcycles or veganism."
Ummm... Yeah, That’s A Big Yikes
Only The Most Intelligent Of People Can Understand This
Yeah, I Am Very Smart
Nobody's a stranger to not wanting to sound like a fool, however. We've all been in situations where we end up regretting coming off stupid. However, the 'VerySmart(TM)' that are featured on the r/IAmVerySmart community overcorrect in these situations way, way, beyond the norm.
"There's a lot of id involved in the VerySmartTM commenters we feature. They seem to have much of their self-esteem tied up in their (mis)conceptions of their own intelligence, or the person they're talking to depending on the circumstance. Who knows why," Thumbs0fDestiny mused. "Perhaps it's because everyone views themselves as the hero of their own story and some people prefer playing the intellectual to the athlete."
I Love Tinder
Stop The Assumptions Now
So you are saying a mouse doesn't actually think that a bat is an angel? Oh no, it can't be true, who could have thought? My life will never be the same.
Nice Try, Smartie
What does that have to do with staying in school though? Personally at least, I never learned about Medusa in school.
They also had other ideas about why some folks try so hard to seem intelligent: "Maybe it's because they are actually of above-average intelligence and their life's circumstances have led to them being right so often, they now just take it for granted, and then we just happen to catch them when that assumption bites them on the ass. Or maybe the person views intelligence as a weapon, a status symbol that must be flaunted for its own sake."
He’s Too Smart
Nothing Is More Romantic Than Getting Mad Over "Btw"
I Really Hope My Friend Was Being Sarcastic With These Messages
At the end of the day, everyone's desire to sound smart can be as unique and varied as there are different individuals in the world. Most likely, it's a mix of many small different reasons, the main one probably being that we've evolved to depend on our social group where reputation is everything... and being someone who's looked up to can mean the difference between a life of luxury and being an outcast who has to fend for themselves. However, our 'tribes' aren't dumb: they know when someone's desperately pretending to be someone better than they are.
Pfff... Scientists Can't Get Anything Right
You're Hired!
Why are you going on about your parents achievements? List what you did yourself?
Cultural Appropriation
The r/IAmVerySmart subreddit shares a lot in common with the 408k member strong r/confidentlyincorrect online community which we’ve covered right over here. Both subreddits poke fun at people who are overly confident in their abilities and just ooze arrogance with their every word.
But the higher they rise, the more satisfyingly long their fall into internet shame. (And we all know that once something’s up on the net, it’s there forever, much like Homer Simpson working at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant.)
His Post History Is Worse
Memes are literally a fab source of entertainment. They can be smart too! Some of them have tiny details to really make the puns pop, so...
I'm Relieved I Thought That Was Possible
Say It Louder
Being featured on the r/iamverysmart subreddit is all about being all bark but no bite: it’s a wall of shame for those who can’t back up their braininess with actual proof. Instead, they think that long words and synonyms will show everyone they’re the stars of the show (even though they’re clearly painting the props all the way backstage).
Interestingly, if you want to sound smarter and make a genuine impact on people (whether you’re applying to university, for a job, or just like the attention), communicating via text might not be the right way to go.
High Level English
Ah Yes, Speaking A Foreign Language With An Accent Makes You Dumb And Lazy
The Irony Is Absolutely Astounding
The Harvard Business Review wrote about a study where evaluators judged a person’s intelligence based on their pitches on why they should be hired. One part was videotaped while the other was transcribed (with flow-breaking sounds like ‘um’ removed, of course).
To sum up, the evaluators found those people who delivered their pitches in front of the camera and spoke aloud to be more intelligent than those who argued why they’re the best possible candidates in text form. Not only that, there was a greater emotional bond to the test subjects when they were seen on camera. Elle Woods’ videotaped pitch from ‘Legally Blonde’ to get into law school doesn’t sound silly anymore now, does it?
Highly Functional Brain
Smarter Than Actual Scientists
Pisses me off that some people don't fathom what major work and learned technique goes into scientific research, as opposed to laymen who just read up on stuff on the net. This has got to stop! Sure, scientists make mistakes, which are called out by other scientists, not by Mr and Mrs Tinfoilhat!
TV Bad, Books Good
if someone tries to give you advice first make sure there ego isn't 10 times larger than their head. if it is then simply ignore them.
But if you do have to communicate via text, it’s best not to overshoot: be in writing who you are in real life. (Having an incredibly loud inner monologue that loves reading aloud everything that you write certain helps you realize when you overstep into cringe-territory.)
That means sprinkling in some common phrases and simple words, not just purple prose and delicately-crafted word amalgamations to delight and please the readers.
This Is My Landlord's Response To A Simple Text. No Previous Convo, Nothing. What You See Is What You Get
Prose So Jacked
Outpaced Einstein And Hawking
When in doubt, always remember Joey Tribbiani from the hit TV show ‘Friends,’ and what happens when you substitute every single word with a complicated synonym just because you’re insecure about sounding ‘dumb.’ Be like Joey when he’s proud of who he is and doesn’t pretend. Or study hard, level up, and be like Ross Geller.
You Cannot Simply Understand My Highly Complicated Thoughts
No Moral High Road From This Intellectual
Apparently, Trump, According To Trump, Has "Unmatched Wisdom"
Moderator Thumbs0fDestiny also revealed to Bored Panda how the subreddit has changed how it approves posts because of a few major slip-ups that led to people getting harassed. The last major shift they went through was moving the community to manual moderation. "Most of Reddit operates by allowing users to submit posts, then having a few automated checks in place to make sure that the post doesn't violate any major or obvious sub guidelines. For instance, does this post link to an outside source; is it a link that's been posted before; or does the post use a forbidden word in the title? Things like that are fairly easy for a bot to catch and save moderators a lot of time on menial verification tasks," they explained.
Yep, I’m Sure That Is Why
Portraying Intelligent People “Wrong”
My Friend Went As Pikachu And Posted It To Her Story. A Thirsty Dude Replied
Now, if the post passes all of those checks, it then goes live on the board, and redditors can see and comment on it, as usual. "At that point, the sub moderation becomes a collaboration between the moderators and the community. Moderators are out there checking things out of course, but we're just regular users, too, so we don't see everything. We instead partially rely on user reports to let us know when there's a problem that needs to be addressed. This is obviously not a failproof way of operating but it does get the job done most of the time."
The Brexit Guy Is Super Duper Extra Verysmart
Your Marketing Scheme Is No Match For My Calculus Skills
Guy Is Convinced I Am A Girl (He Wishes) And Proceeds To Lecture Me On How He Knows
However, getting things right most of the time wasn't good enough to meet the moderators' standards for quality. They wanted to be right all the time when it came to posts not revealing any identifying information, as per the subreddit's very first rule. "There should, ideally, be no way for a user to see a post on our sub and use that post to find the person in that post. This means that all real names, phone numbers addresses, usernames, online community names, Twitter handles, etc. have to be redacted from the post before submitting it. There's no way a bot can guarantee that to happen. As such, we found ourselves in the position of having several posts live in the feed that contained that information which some people then used to track down and harass the VerySmart(TM) person."
I’ll Stick To Baby Yoda Then
About A Computer Mouse, When Asked If It Could Perform A Particular Function
If everything is possible, it means that it is possible for something to be impossible...
Good In Math = Better Human
Note: this post originally had 60 images. It’s been shortened to the top 45 images based on user votes.
Thumbs0fDestiny was very candid about the situation: they'd let down Reddit's standards, r/IAmVerySmart's standards, as well as society's standards. "So we had to put a stop to it. The only way to make sure that didn't happen was to put the sub on full lockdown. All new posts are automatically filtered into a moderation queue where they sit until a human volunteer checks them to be sure there aren't any rule violations. This change has mostly been behind the scenes and therefore largely noticed by the community except to say new posts now arrive on the sub in batches when a moderator is clearing the queue, where before they would trickle in one at a time. The change had the desired effect though. We've not received a single complaint about harassment from anyone since we instituted the new policy."
Which posts were your fave ones, dear Pandas? Do you plan on becoming a member of r/IAmVerySmart? Do you know anyone in person who tries way too hard to look smart? Share your thoughts and drop us a line or two in the comment section below.
Ironically after reading these I think my own IQ dropped a few points🤦🏻
100 IQ is the average; and that's already triple digits.
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Truly smart people don't feel the need to tell others they are smart. Like with many other positive traits (kindness, generosity, etc.), people will figure it out on their own. If you have to say it, odds are it isn't true.
I found that out the hard way as a kid, lol. This guy was calling me an idiot (which looking back, wasn't him making an observation as much as it was him trying to get under my skin with any insult he could hurl), and my dumb ass decided that I could prove to him I wasn't an idiot and bring the results of an IQ test I had a few years earlier to school. Yeah, even if the dude didn't think I was actually an idiot before, he started to then, and I still cringe just thinking about it. Everyone who thought I was smart were the people I never talked to about being smart.
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I think I went through all of the above phases as a teenager, except the ‘people are girls when... ‘ one. Then one day my mom challenged me to take the official Mensa admission test with her... She got in! I didn’t, and that was the end of all that.
I like the dichotomy of “I’m so smart that I understand this joke” and “I’m so smart I refuse to acknowledge this is a joke”.
I learned something today. I learned that a lot of people don’t understand sarcasm.
bragging about a "triple-digit IQ"? The average IQ is 100, which is triple digit.
This totally seems like the perfect post to put an intelligent quote in, so here goes. "Nobody is better than you and remember, you are better than nobody." Apparently Thomas Jefferson said that but given how fitting it would be to the post, I probably got something wrong. *Sigh...
So these people with high IQ's are smart enough to use big words from the thesaurus but not smart enough to know that nobody cares?
Every single one of these demonstrates irredeemable assholism. Blind arrogance effectively halves your functional intelligence.
All these people bragging about their IQ.... Meanwhile I learnt at school that there's various kinds of intelligences and various kinds of tests for each. A little detail that always gets left out.
Your IQ doesn't determine your success in life. Other traits such as grit, kindness, confidence etc do.
Ironically after reading these I think my own IQ dropped a few points🤦🏻
100 IQ is the average; and that's already triple digits.
Load More Replies... Truly smart people don't feel the need to tell others they are smart. Like with many other positive traits (kindness, generosity, etc.), people will figure it out on their own. If you have to say it, odds are it isn't true.
I found that out the hard way as a kid, lol. This guy was calling me an idiot (which looking back, wasn't him making an observation as much as it was him trying to get under my skin with any insult he could hurl), and my dumb ass decided that I could prove to him I wasn't an idiot and bring the results of an IQ test I had a few years earlier to school. Yeah, even if the dude didn't think I was actually an idiot before, he started to then, and I still cringe just thinking about it. Everyone who thought I was smart were the people I never talked to about being smart.
Load More Replies... I think I went through all of the above phases as a teenager, except the ‘people are girls when... ‘ one. Then one day my mom challenged me to take the official Mensa admission test with her... She got in! I didn’t, and that was the end of all that.
I like the dichotomy of “I’m so smart that I understand this joke” and “I’m so smart I refuse to acknowledge this is a joke”.
I learned something today. I learned that a lot of people don’t understand sarcasm.
bragging about a "triple-digit IQ"? The average IQ is 100, which is triple digit.
This totally seems like the perfect post to put an intelligent quote in, so here goes. "Nobody is better than you and remember, you are better than nobody." Apparently Thomas Jefferson said that but given how fitting it would be to the post, I probably got something wrong. *Sigh...
So these people with high IQ's are smart enough to use big words from the thesaurus but not smart enough to know that nobody cares?
Every single one of these demonstrates irredeemable assholism. Blind arrogance effectively halves your functional intelligence.
All these people bragging about their IQ.... Meanwhile I learnt at school that there's various kinds of intelligences and various kinds of tests for each. A little detail that always gets left out.
Your IQ doesn't determine your success in life. Other traits such as grit, kindness, confidence etc do.
