30 Times People Tried To Appear Smart But It Completely Backfired On Them
"I do not know what lower cognitive ability means, but I am never going to wear a mask."
Some people manage to sound confident right up until the moment their own words collapse under them. That is exactly what happens in this roundup of smug, hateful, and wildly misguided statements that backfired in public.
The posts collected here come from a Twitter account built around calling out conservative self-owns, and the results are equal parts frustrating and absurd. The people behind these comments try to sound clever, but they end up exposing just how little they understand.
That is what makes this list so hard to look away from, the confidence is huge, but the logic is nowhere to be found.
1. Lower cognitive ability is a medical condition that prevents you from wearing a mask.
ConSelfOwns2. Oh, just a piece of paper? Well, then it is completely different...
ConSelfOwns3. Heterosexual is kind of straight. Well, not kind of... All straight.
ConSelfOwns
4. You are black by choice, not by birth.
ConSelfOwns
5. That would actually be nice for a change.
ConSelfOwns
The confidence is doing a lot of work here.
6. Yeah, men without beards all look like women. In fact, beards are the only difference between men and women...
ConSelfOwns
7. Just say no to pronouns, everyone.
ConSelfOwns
8. Yeah, that's the only thing... not much, but still...
ConSelfOwns
9. You are right...
ConSelfOwns
10. There is no such thing...
ConSelfOwns
That aged badly in a hurry.
11. Pretty soon...
ConSelfOwns
12. Who was on the plane?
ConSelfOwns
13. Who said that blowing up a hospital is an act of terrorism?
ConSelfOwns
14. Facts over feelings, you liberal scum....
ConSelfOwns
15. I want to be a liberal...
ConSelfOwns
That one did not land the way they hoped.
16. Why would I get insurance? Why?
ConSelfOwns
17. And where did you come from, exactly?
ConSelfOwns
18. Did you hear that?
ConSelfOwns
19. The only way to fight socialism is to become socialists.
ConSelfOwns
20. Please, pray for me.
ConSelfOwns
21. Explain, please....
ConSelfOwns
It only gets more awkward from here.
22. Wasn't the explanation on the website easy to understand? Even for conservatives?
ConSelfOwns
23. Surprising...
ConSelfOwns
24. The iPhone is okay. They can’t track that...
ConSelfOwns
25. No one wants them...
ConSelfOwns
26. Fake news...
ConSelfOwns
27. Need I say more?
ConSelfOwns
28. I would rather be lied to than know the truth.... That explains it all.
ConSelfOwns
29. Heat waves are just great.
ConSelfOwns
30. Yeah, those two are not related in any way. I just want the baby to be born - I don't care what happens to it after that...
ConSelfOwns
If you are wondering about this phenomenon where the dumbest people are the loudest, it is called the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The definition is
"It is a cognitive bias whereby people with limited knowledge or competence in a given intellectual or social domain greatly overestimate their own knowledge or competence in that domain relative to objective criteria or to the performance of their peers or of people in general."
It's named after the scientists who first noticed it, psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. And it's one of the most Googled terms these days. We wonder why…
Some people really do talk themselves into trouble.
After “Operation Epic Fury” drew backlash over Donald Trump’s Iran label, see the visual chaos in these 81 visual anomalies that break everyday logic.
