Midwit Meme
The irony of accusation: when the critic unwittingly becomes the criticized
Over the past couple of days, I have come to think about the midwit meme from a totally different angle. And it’s this discovery that I want to share with you today.
I’ve mentioned before how people often inadvertently tell on themselves. In today’s case, I’ve come to realize that those who post midwit memes are often themselves a midwit.
Everyone focuses on the midwit in the meme, but they often overlook the midwit which is frequently behind the meme - the original poster of the meme. So, let's explore that idea, shall we?
The midwit meme functions as a symbolic representation of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Just as the Dunning-Kruger effect describes how those of lower competence overestimate their abilities, the meme creator is overestimating their own competence and is often partaking in the same very bias - the Dunning-Kruger effect. The meme becomes a self-referential microcosm of the psychological phenomenon it seeks to represent… talk about irony.
The midwit meme is not only a symbolic representation of the Dunning-Kruger effect, but is a living, breathing real-time example of the very cognitive bias it is trying to critique. They lack the self-awareness to realize that the very thing that they’re trying to satirize is a characteristic that they themselves embody… talk about projection.
The irony of this can’t be missed. Here you have the meme creator exhibiting the very cognitive bias that the meme which they created is ostensibly criticizing.
It's a sort of double cross perpetuated by their own ego and lack of self-awareness. And by the midwit posting the midwit meme they fulfill a recursive self-fulfilling prophecy.
It’s a beautiful self-own.
They think they are the enlightened ones, looking down on the inept and incompetent. But in reality, they are demonstrating the very incompetence they’re criticizing - the inability to accurately assess their own abilities whether that be in absolute or relative terms.
It's a fascinating and ironic reversal, where the would-be critics end up becoming the unwitting subjects of their own critique.
And how do the midwits criticize things? Via reductionistic, oversimplified, straw manned caricatures. And thus, the midwit meme is born.
SHUTTER ISLAND REDUX
I think of it in kind to Shutter Island (a must watch movie). Shutter island is a neo-noir psychological thriller. In a typical noir or psychological thriller, the protagonist is the one trying to uncover the truth and reveal what’s really going on.
Spoiler Alert ⚠️
However, in "Shutter Island" as well as today's primary topic, the roles are reversed. The protagonist, Teddy Daniels, is trapped in a delusional world, completely oblivious to the true nature of his condition. He believes himself to be the heroic investigator, when in fact he is the patient institutionalized and in need of help.
This role reversal is the ultimate plot twist. And it's this inversion of the usual narrative structure that creates such a profound sense of unease and disorientation. This is when the viewer has the rug pulled out from underneath you. And this is what’s happened to me in the past couple of days in observance of the midwit meme, as well as in regard to the movie.
We're accustomed to identifying with the protagonist who is uncovering the truth. But in "Shutter Island" and with the Dunning-Kruger effect, the protagonist is forced to confront the unsettling reality that their self-perception is an artificial construct.
This should act as a humbling reminder that we are all susceptible to the kind of self-deception and cognitive biases that trap Teddy Daniels in his own personal "Shutter Island." The question should be, to what extent and is it a sufficient extent to be classified as a midwit. And it’s the insidious nature of this that I’m attempting to bring to light today. We should be questioning our own competence and self-awareness.
YOUR STUPIDITY BY DEFAULT MEANS I’M SMART
Another interesting psychological dynamic and human propensity reveals itself within this meme. One of tribal signaling and group cohesion. The function of the meme is to criticize outgroup members to bring unity and sanctity to their own particular tribe. What better way to bond with someone than identifying a unilateral enemy - the midwit? After all, is the midwit the one who makes life tougher than it should be for everyone around them due to their blundering mistakes?
For most, group cohesion and tribe loyalty is sanctimonious to all else. Thus, the midwit being criticized in the meme is the means to an end, a sacrificial lamb and at times the scapegoat to preserve or reinstate group harmony. Pay no mind to the fact that it’s often midwit cannibalism and midwit on midwit crime.
Tribal dynamics are a well-documented human tendency that manifests in all sorts of social and cultural contexts. So why not here too? This is what I’m talking about when I say that bias knows no bounds.
By identifying a common "enemy" the meme allows the in-group to bond over their shared sense of superiority and distance themselves from the perceived inferiority of the outgroup. It's a classic "us vs. them" mentality.
The meme creator isn’t concerned with making a nuanced point and is more concerned with reaffirming group and personal identity and validation. But identitarians are going to do what they do best - create contrast in an artificial way to prop themselves up, as well as their tribe.
Finding a convenient outgroup to vilify is an effortless way to cultivate a sense of in-group solidarity and righteousness. Note that the operant word is effortless. In evolutionary terms it’s a “cheap signal”.
MORAL HAZARDS & UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: BOLSTERING THE DUNNING-KRUGER CROWD.
The Dunning-Kruger effect, which this meme is referencing, suggests that those with moderate abilities often overestimate their own competence and intelligence. So, the midwits themselves are the ones most likely to see themselves as belonging to the high IQ group on the right side of the curve.
Their self-serving bias and inability to accurately assess their own skills is precisely what the meme is attempting to highlight and ridicule. But in doing so, it plays right into the psychology of the very people it's targeting.
The midwit meme becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy to some extent. The more it is used to mock the midwits, the more those individuals will cling to the belief that they are part of the superior high IQ group, further perpetuating the cycle of overconfidence and lack of self-awareness.
This will cause more midwits to post more midwit memes in an attempt to differentiate themselves from the other midwits. This feeds on itself and is what creates this self-fulfilling prophecy.
Simply put, each new midwit post they see causes them to develop more resolve, vigor and entrenchment in their delusion of being part of the high IQ crowd.
MORAL HAZARD
At the heart of the midwit memes implicit critique is one towards overcomplexity and lack of self-awareness but this could end up backfiring by discouraging the very behaviors (diligent research, developing comprehensive understanding, etc.) that are part and parcel of the high IQ crowd.
People, in large part, want to be told what to do by someone that they’ve deemed credible and are ready to outsource and consign their investing decisions to that perceived authority figure. Even more caution should be given to memes since the average person is intellectually lethargic and will adopt the meme with a literalist stance because they lack the capacity to see nuance (thus the whole reason they’re consigning their investing decisions to begin with). This is not conducive to desired positive outcomes, but nonetheless it's what people do. Which means that the social influencer should take this into consideration before posting a meme. At least, insofar as they believe in being a custodian of their community and making a positive difference in the world.
This is where the irony of the midwit meme comes into play. As a consequence of the posters' audience, which in all probability, predominantly residing in the center or left of the bell curve, are running the risk of reinforcing the very midwit behavioral characteristics they’re simultaneously criticizing. The poster is seemingly dismissing and devaluing the things that they alleged to believe in. It's sort of a corrupt dynamic along the lines of, “I don’t care if my followers are brainless insofar as they brainlessly follow me.”
This is a profound irony - the meme intends to mock intellectual posturing and overconfidence, but in doing so, it could end up enabling those very traits by discouraging the humility and hard work required for genuine understanding.
Remember, those who are most susceptible to midwit behaviors are precisely the ones least likely to recognize it in themselves and thus will be the quickest to latch onto superficial mockery of dumber people because they lack the very accomplishments that would otherwise provide them with a healthy level of self-esteem which would make such mocking behavior unnecessary to begin with. So, the meme runs the risk of merely confirming their distorted self-assessments, rather than inspiring genuine self-reflection.
In the meme posters haste and zeal to mock intellectually inept individuals, they end paradoxically exacerbating those very deficiencies by discouraging the very habits of mind it seeks to promote - such as open mindedness and due diligence.
There’s a tragedy of the commons dynamic at play here too. As I’ve argued, these sorts of memes run the risk of undermining and discouraging thoughtful nuanced analysis.
The tendency for people to search out or reward simplistic, eye-catching content over more substantive engagement is well-documented and known. It’s in this context that we can see that the midwit meme is both a symptom and a contributor. But as the poster knows, in order to get the attention, validation, sense of communal bonding that they desire they have to pander in an audience capture fashion. The tragedy of the commons comes into play when they realize that they might as well compromise their published content since the majority of others do too.
Here they are, complaining about the degradation of their community while contributing to that degradation. Irony on irony. But this is what happens when appealing to the consensus bumps into the tragedy of the commons - a collectively worse outcome for the broad communal participants.
You do see the tragic juxtaposition, right? They’re unWITtingly unaware of the hazards associated with their midWIT meme.
The overconfident posturing that it’s ostensibly criticizing is not only often being displayed by the critic themselves but also reinforces it.
Another ironic development occurs too. Much of my echo chamber criticizes the SJW types. A primary complaint of theirs is that much of what the SJW do backfires. And yet, here they are posting memes that perpetuate the very thing that they wish to have eliminated. And now we can better understand the Horseshoe Theory in application (which posits that political ideologies on the far left and far right exhibit more similarities than differences, particularly when it comes to things like dogmatism, lack of nuance, and an unwillingness to engage in substantive, good-faith debate.)
But humans are going to human.
Oftentimes, people are more concerned with scoring rhetorical points to seek favor with their ideological allies and to feel a sense of validation than they are about having an intellectually honest genuine conversation.
With all of this said it should be of no surprise to all the intellectual snobbery and narcissists indulging in their delusional fantasies that’s occurring in the world. And to think that many of us are complacent in fostering its creation and are enablers of their divorcement from reality.
It seems like a logical outcome of reinforcing their own biases and dismissing opposing views through fallacious reasoning. So, people develop an exaggerated sense of their own intelligence and due to their unhealthy character, they look down on those who don't share in their beliefs. The driving force of much of this is people's need for attention, validation, status and belonging. There’s a reason it’s called the Tragedy of the commons. The operant word being tragedy. But this is what happens when you create an artificial delineation between midwit and high IQ. You polarize people. But I’d be naive to think that people would adopt a Sorites paradox style of thinking where reality blends together and there’s a large area which might fall under the phrase of, “distinction without a difference” or “gray area”.
But this is what happens when complex issues get reduced to caricatures, you inadvertently contribute to the spread of misinformation and the compromised erosion of truth and reality. It’s a toxic mishmash of maladaptive competitive compensation.
But you must remember that some compassion should be given to these midwit sufferers. The high IQ persona they adopt is a desperate attempt to carve out a niche of perceived superiority, and to create a “safe place” against the existential insecurity of not knowing one's place in the grand scheme of things. It's a way of asserting relevance and importance in the face of an overwhelming and chaotic world.
The phrase, “fake it, ‘til you make it”, comes to mind.
A more potent, cynical and evocative take is that this is the consequence of being a so-called big headed, malformed, intellectual fraudulent perpetrator, where they commiserate and jack each other's egos off with masturbatory vigor within their own rightful echo chambers of intellectual vanity and fraudulence. This is why they retreat into their insulated echo chambers. It’s to insulate them from reality, which just so happens to disagree with their opinions. This is why people lash out when you don’t identify them as they think they should be, it’s because you’re not indulging them in their maladaptive narcissistic fantasy.
But the grounds that they lay roots in lack the sufficient nutrients for them to grow into a more comprehensive individual. And thus, they become more rigid and jaded over time. At some point reality no longer has the gravitational pull that it once did, and they become lost in the void. This is why it’s extremely rare to be able to convert these people with proselytizing and reasoning.
Who would have thought that a silly meme could be the genesis for such broader realizations?
THE IRONY
Here a delusional person is passive aggressively attacking another delusional person in an attempt to posture that they are an intelligent person. LOL, the irony. Talk about the blind leading the blind.
It’s a nice subtextual humble brag to demonstrate their own intellectual dominance and reinforcing in-group/out-group dynamics. You come to realize it’s more about social positioning and ego gratification and image brand management rather than genuine enlightenment or understanding. The poster is an imposter who is essentially positioning themselves as part of the sought after high IQ group, using the meme to elevate their own sense of intellectual prowess. Like I said, it’s a cheap signal.
And don’t bother accusing these people of this, they’ll adamantly, viscerally and vehemently deny it. Remember, a core tenant of suffering from the Dunning-Kruger effect is cluelessness of one's suffering.
You must remember that they’re using these sorts of displays as a crutch to prop up their own self-worth due to lacking actual merit that would warrant the title of high IQ. And they’re seeking peer validation via this sort of communal signaling. They’re personally incredulous, intellectually lethargic and dishonest. They’ve created too many layers of ostensible plausible deniability, to both them and you. The con only works if it’s believed. This means that they have to believe it too. Never underestimate the human capacity for self-deception.
It’s actually quite clever. The often-unnoticed humblebragging that occurs, where the poster puts down others in a way that subtly elevates their own sense of intellect and competence.
We all know that you can’t just overtly say you’re smart, people will criticize you. But if you manage to signal it in a discreet and indirect fashion then you’re good to go. And that’s the function the meme serves. It provides a medium for communal bonding with others who share this self-perception of intellectual superiority. They’ll call you smart if you call them smart. It’s a weird sort of reciprocity that people do. See, it’s all about covert and tacit communication. But they have to cloak it in a guise so that their self-aggrandizement doesn’t appear explicit and obvious.
I’ve warned against this sort of behavior in The Magnificent 7 & Hedge Funds complaining.
“...If you find yourself around a bunch of people who are commiserating with you, you better watch the hell out. I mean it. They’re not doing what you think they’re doing.
They’re not lending a compassionate empathetic ear. Anything but.
What they are doing is excusing and rationalizing the faults and mistakes of others as a way to indirectly excuse or rationalize their own faults and mistakes.
It’s a parasitic relationship. You’re playing a role in their fantasy.
They’re downplaying and excusing your faults in order to minimize the significance and impact of their own faults. They’re trying to absolve themselves of guilt, shame and responsibility. And you’re the patsy at the table who’s playing along clueless of all of this.
They’re seeking validation and reassurance that their actions are not unique or as significant as they initially perceived. This is done to provide themselves with a sense of relief and justification for their own mistakes and normalize it.
You get it? If you’re not at fault and they did the same thing you did then they mustn’t be at fault either…”
This creates a self-reinforcing cycle of reciprocity within the in-group as people join in. By engaging with, sharing or providing heart/thumb-up emojis they are essentially saying to each other, "We’re (in-group signaling) so smart and they’re (outside group) so stupid”. It becomes a way for them to mutually validate each other's delusion of being part of an intellectual elite.
There’s an unspoken and unconscious covert social contract happening here. It’s where they agree to affirm each other's intelligence and superiority, as long as it's done through these coded, indirect ways. It's a way for them to enjoy the ego boost of feeling smart, without actually being smart.
It’s akin to the principle of "get it by right or by might" - where the so-called high IQ initiators are essentially using social pressure and the threat of non-validation to coerce agreement and affirmation from others.
Rather than earning the recognition of their intelligence through genuine merit and accomplishment that would warrant that sort of praise, they're resorting to a kind of "might" in the form of group dynamics and social manipulation. Yet again, this is the low effort way for a person to gain a sense of intellectual superiority, status and belonging.
Scratch my ego and I’ll scratch yours.
It’s a beautiful subversionary strategy.
The parasocial sycophants in the comment section will be glad to remark how intelligent the poster is. And in doing so they’re signaling their own intelligence. After all, you must be smart to be able to recognize smartness.
As far as I’m concerned, it's a disturbing manifestation of the human tendency to prioritize in-group status over truth and intellectual integrity.
As often is the case, it’s more about social positioning and status-seeking than it is an attempt at genuine engagement and demonstrating a comprehensive understanding.
WHERE DID THEY GO WRONG & WHY CAN’T THEY COURSE CORRECT?
In essence, the midwit is portrayed as going wrong by getting in their own way - their insecurities, lack of discernment, and misguided notions of intelligence undermine their ability to think and communicate effectively. They struggle to differentiate signal from noise and thus get caught up in the minutiae and can’t identify what’s relevant and not. They’re trying to account for everything which leads to unforced errors.
Of course, all of this is on an abstract level so it’s not like there’s much actionable insight that can be gleaned here. But that doesn’t mean that the overarching lessons can’t be incorporated into a more comprehensive modeling of the world. Such as, consult your conscience in an honest fashion to reveal your inadequacies.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. Because you’re essentially asking someone who lacks self-awareness to be self-aware, it’s contradictory in nature and difficult in practice. It normally requires a zeroing out event and tragedy to shift one's paradigm. But more often than not, people merely double down on their beliefs and use their tragedy as evidence for their beliefs. It’s when things are most chaotic that we often latch on to the things which we are the most familiar with, our beliefs.
But it’s also at these times that neuroplasticity increases and affords you the opportunity to shift your paradigm.
PRACTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO DISPROVE OR PROVE
Those who frantically assert their intelligence and abilities in the face of the midwit label miss the fact that that is the sort of behavior that would be expected from someone who is, in fact, a midwit. At least according to the meme's underlying logic.
They miss the irony in their knee-jerk reaction to vehemently deny being a midwit and to cite all the reasons as to why they’re not, which is exactly the type of overcompensation and unnecessary complexity that the meme is critiquing in the first place.
A high IQ individual might alternatively respond in a more measured, self-assured way, perhaps even embracing the midwit label as a humorous self-reflection rather than feeling the need to aggressively refute it.
But the midwit, in their insecurity and inability to discern true signal from noise, would predictably launch into a lengthy, elaborate defense - further exemplifying the very traits they are being accused of.
These sorts of conversations can serve as a sort of litmus test for the very qualities it seeks to critique.
DISPROVING MIDWITTERY
The midwit meme has two criteria that make it all the better.
It’s an unfalsifiable claim that is irrefutable due to the intrinsic structural ambiguity of it. Any attempt at disproving it is seen as only portraying characteristics of it. And it’s these properties of unfalsifiableness & circular logic which makes it a catch 22.
It’s a criterion based upon adjectives and thus is vague and ambiguous allowing the accuser to obfuscate and speciously argue that you are a midwit, in a sort of guilty until proven innocent fashion. But as point 1 noted, any attempt to “prove” your innocence is perceived as a tacit admission and recognition of midwittedness. The more evidence you use, the evidence they co-opt and bastardize to use against you.
Any response the person gives can be interpreted as further evidence of their midwit status.
This is the linguistic and logical trap that I’ll call the midwit dilemma. Most people will fall into one of 3 categories.
If they deny being a midwit, the retort might be "That's exactly what a midwit would say."
If they try to prove their intelligence, they risk coming across as arrogant or insecure.
And if they simply accept the midwit label, they essentially concede the point.
You're effectively "between the horns of a dilemma".
How would one disprove that they aren't the midwit? If there are measurable objective standards the judges don’t know what they are.
Simply put, it’s a trap. And the more you attempt to rebuke it with evidence, the more “evidence” piles up against you.
The way that people often go about it (including myself) makes it not just a futile and elusive task but a counterproductive task of negative returns.
Even not entertaining or engaging their accusation can be seen as you not wanting to incriminate yourself. It’s a lose-lose situation.
STUPID SMART, INTELLIGENTSIA, SECRET KINGS, GAMMA MALES, NICE GUYS & SMALL MAN SYNDROME
Why am I bringing this cohort into this?
Because the midwits are at a heightened risk of being adversely affected in a cognitive comorbidity co-occurrence fashion. Not only that but these “diseases” of the mind can reinforce and compound one another. Possessing these sorts of personalities increases one's susceptibility to other characteristics. All of these personality types are symptomatic of the underlying Dunning-Kruger-esque pathology that we’ve been talking about. It only seems like a logical tangential rabbit hole to explore to better elucidate the points being made today.
Mediocrity presenting itself as exceptionalism is dangerous for all parties involved. It is my belief that the better we understand it the better we can defend ourselves from it, forewarned is forearmed. These personalities (symptoms) share synergistic interplay and interrelated psychological tendencies. The more ways we can see midwittery play out, the more familiar we’ll become with it which should allow us to better identify it across the set of experiences. It’s a sort of multi-trait multi-method approach I’m taking.
What is the common thread that connects these seemingly disparate personality types?
They project a false and exaggerated sense of grandiosity due to their insecurities.
They derive their self-worth from others.
Recognition, admiration and affirmation are above average in importance to them. They need to convince others to convince themselves.
They’re averse to having their self-prescribed and curated identity challenged.
They associate with like-minded individuals who mutually validate each other.
They have a propensity to distort reality in an intellectually dishonest fashion.
They’re highly resentful and bitter and feel themselves to be a victim of not being appreciated for being “so awesome”.
They’re ideologically possessed and thus rigid, with a prioritization towards signaling over substance.
You should identify that the conversation flows oddly as though there’s a program running in the background and as though they’re detached in some way from what’s actually being discussed and that it’s almost as though they’re hitting talking points with an ulterior motive behind it.
They’re mental masturbators always looking for an excuse to justify their inaction and make their inadequacies virtuous. Which is interesting because it’s their lack of real-world efficacy, absence of tangible accomplishment and their so-called grand theories never seemingly translate to much more than self-sabotaging mental models which leads to a life of quiet desperation. Their preoccupation with their delusions prevents them from developing practical skills.
This is quite tragic actually. They’re stuck in some sort of pseudo-intellectual limbo. They’re too arrogant to be humble and too detached from reality to excel. All of this nicely captures and encapsulates the Dunning-Kruger-esque archetype and dynamics we’ve been exploring amongst these pages.
They’re all about FEELS over reals. They want to feel a sense of appreciation without doing the necessary things which would warrant genuine appreciation.
What’s so tricky about them is that they have enough intellect and knowledge to seem intelligent on the surface. The problem is that there’s a disjuncture between perceived and actual competence. This discontinuity should hopefully become evident sooner than later. You’ve met these sorts of people; they regurgitate facts in a pseudo-intellectual fashion and always revert back to some other non-sequitur talking point when you ask them a question. They rarely if ever admit their ignorance on a topic.
At this point, they’re either a disingenuous individual with a conscious ulterior motive or they’re what I’ve been describing throughout these pages. The end result is functionally the same insofar as you’re concerned.
Much of this reminds me of the book: "No more Mr. Nice Guy book" - of how nice guys actually hold covert contracts and are resentful and bitter i.e. they're not actually nice.
The parallels between the "nice guy" archetype described in the "No More Mr. Nice Guy" book and the midwit, which is often a secret king persona, are quite striking.
Just as "nice guys" present a veneer of agreeability and kindness, while secretly seething with resentment and having ulterior motives, the midwits also engage in a form of dishonest presentation, both to themselves and others.
They’re full of entitlement and victimhood, never feeling that they get the respect or recognition that they should. They feel short changed and entitled to more. They want to bathe in your compliments and feel a sense of comradery. Yelp, its classic unattractive validation seeking.
When this unspoken quid pro quo isn't fulfilled, they lash out, condemning the "system" and those around them, all while stubbornly refusing to reflect on their own shortcomings. It's a toxic mix of ego, entitlement and emotional immaturity masquerading as high-minded intellectualism.
It's a parasitical, toxic relationship.
They feel slighted. But in part, they refuse to develop their character and put in the work necessary for personal growth. They adamantly refuse to put in the effort and develop their skills. Simply put, they’re entitled. It's a house of cards or a rhetorical smokescreen built on narcissism, entitlement and self-delusion.
This is not about a simple clash of egos or a battle for recognition. It goes much deeper, it’s a fundamental lack of self-awareness, personal responsibility and integrity. They are unwilling to do the hard work of transformation, preferring instead to wallow in resentment and self-pity.
They’re word weaponizers and emotional vampires who have no intention of contributing anything meaningful to the world. This is why it’s a parasitical toxic relationship. There’s nothing like a little unbridled hubris to get things off to a bad start.
The common thread amongst this cohort is their inability to reconcile one's self-image with objective reality. There is a profound disconnect between how they see themselves and how they are perceived by others. And it’s that divergence which creates the toxic dynamics we’re discussing.
All of this should help better crystallize your understanding of the underlying psychological drivers at work: the fragile ego, the compensatory posturing to offset their shortcomings, the stubborn refusal to grow and evolve. It's all part of the same fundamental dynamics.
THE ANTIDOTE
It seems that the capacity and willingness to engage in introspection, humility and curiosity (openness to new ideas and willingness to challenge one’s assumptions) are the key traits needed to not fall into the midwit trap.
Interestingly enough, that is reflective of what After Skool thought it to be in a well made video that they’ve published.
The interplay of these three elements - introspection, humility, and curiosity is crucial for developing the self-awareness needed to navigate the complex landscape of our existence.
The sobering truth is that we are all susceptible to self-deception to some degree. Even those who appear the most self-aware may be blind to their own limitations. A more sobering truth is that as much as the vast majority of people want to proclaim that they’re open to feedback and are open minded, they’re not.
You come to realize that most people are intellectually dishonest and lethargic, personally incredulous, disingenuous obfuscators and dismissive of unflattering truths while cherishing their comforting propaganda and flattering lies? It’s not just the midwits, they’re merely a more extreme and distasteful example which stands out.
I understand that this is a scathing indictment, but one that appears to be tragically accurate in capturing the core pathologies of broader humanity.
MOST PEOPLE, BY THE TIME THEY HAVE REACHED ADULTHOOD HAVE SUFFICIENTLY COMPROMISED THE GUIDING MECHANISM THAT DETERMINES ALL THEIR DECISIONS - THEIR SPEECH.
MENTAL MASTURBATORS
The midwit has a preoccupation with thought which excuses action. With an ideological bent that's fixated with the ideological "should" of the world instead of the praxeological description of what "is". This leads them to jump to conclusions that aren't implementable in the real world because they're concerned with theory and disregard pragmatic practicality.
They’re deriving an ought from an is with little understanding of what actually is. For as much time as they spend “thinking” they’re not that good at it. The reason being, is that their beliefs are perceived to be so self-evident that they don’t feel like they need any further examination. They couldn’t be more wrong.
And when they do “think” it’s more along the lines of ruminating and letting festering emotions wreak havoc on their conscience. They’re big on dwelling in the emotions of a situation without giving much thought to the situation.
They’re detached from reality, lost in some fantasy world. You’d think they’d realize this when their impractical ideas are implemented and then fail terribly but often it is the case that there’s so many degrees of separation between their actions and the consequence that they seemingly never catch on.
Plus, humans are smart enough that they merely post hoc rationalize it away and blame it on some malevolent existential predator. That could be “The markets rigged” or “The patriarchy” or whatever else nonsense that’s loosely tied to reality that they can drum up. Their explanations have a conspiratorial bent, are often unfalsifiable, categorize themselves as the victim and are more predicated on excluding information that disconfirms their beliefs than it is on a comprehensive framework of included information.
The recipe is something along the lines of one part fact, one part fiction and one-part willful blindness.
Does that sound like someone engaged in introspection, humility, honesty and intellectual curiosity?
This is what mental masturbators do. They’re preoccupied in self-indulgent, unproductive, detached theorizing that lacks real-world applicability with the seeming goal to justify inaction. They’re more preoccupied with unearned pseudo-self-gratification with little regard to its divorcement from genuine problem-solving or sincere constructive action.
They ruminate more on the emotions of a situation than actually thinking about, reconciling and resolving a situation.
Mental masturbation underscores how this mode of thinking is an end in itself, rather than a means to an end - meaningful and measurable change.
THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED!!!
They condemn the system and its participants due to their inadequate placement in the structure. With thoughts of, “Only if their talent was appreciated and recognized that they would be valued and appreciated in all their glory”. With seeming disregard towards what people value and appreciate.
As of late, much of the bashing towards the Mag 7 has died down again. But it’s always interesting seeing and hearing people say, “The markets are detached from reality”, or “Things don’t make sense.”
These sorts of statements are a tacit admission of their self-imposed ignorance, hubris, inarticulateness and their own ironic detachment from reality.
Telling reality that it’s detached from itself (reality) is only the sort of thing a person detached from reality would say.
The reason they do this is for the reasons I explained earlier, it’s because they think along the lines of how reality SHOULD be, rather than how reality actually IS.
Don’t forget that these sorts of statements aren’t without their unconscious ulterior motives. They’re often expressed by those who are underperforming in the market. And thus, grabbing straws to explain away their underperformance. It definitely couldn’t be them holding onto their malformed and maladaptive ideological beliefs which are causing them to be inadequate in relation to their pursuit - outperforming the market.
CONCLUSION
You’ll come to recognize that most midwit memes are unearned pseudo virtue signaling meant to rile their base of people in an emotionally resonating fashion while simultaneously revealing their own midwit tendencies. And the risk you run by interacting with them is dealing with someone who is: low resolution, smug, condescending, seething, resentful, has an adolescent social skill set.
Even after discovering today's profound insights, I must admit I still like the midwit meme. However, I thought it was important to bring to your attention some of these overlooked dynamics.
I love memes, they’re like pieces of art or comedy skits. I don’t want you to think otherwise. Here’s a recent one I’ve come to appreciate.
Midwit is a placeholder word, and as such it’s an oversimplified caricature which is mildly descriptive but not granular enough in detail to provide any real value. Memes intuitively resonate with us. The danger of this is that we don’t examine the meme or the poster of the meme any further. It is my belief that we should be more conscious of what we consume. As such, I hope that I’ve provided you with further context to add insight and clarity to your meme consumption with some ideas to keep in mind.