Self-proclaimed genius syndrome

[Deleted]

I've noticed a lot of boasting threads by self-proclaimed geniuses, who (you've got to give it to them) do a pretty good job of hiding their true intentions, which are letting everyone on these forums know that they excel at pretty much everything they do, have enormous male parts and are pretty much better than everybody else that they frequent with.

A few examples:
1. The "Can you bench your body weight?" thread. Chances are someone's just wondering if mmochampion users can bench their bodyweight. However, the way the OP worded the question makes it pretty clear that he can do it, which would mean that he has at least a basic understanding of bodybuilding progression and would thus know that nobody benches his bodyweight unless he works out regularly or does similar exercise. I assume the true intention of this thread was to let everyone know that he is very athletic. Congratz to that.

2. The standard "I would be a millionaire if i weren't so lazy" thread. There's been a lot of them and even though there are a fuckton of very intelligent people here, most of these thread startes are just justifying their lazyness, because let's be honest, who can disprove their potential success if they don't even get out of bed in the morning. It's comfortable to say: " I could if I wanted to, but I don't want to".

3. The "Help me my dps is too low" thread. No I don't mean the one with the 5k dps arcane mage, but the one with the undergeared
40k dps mage, who knows he's doing an excellent job, but that's not enough because everyone else needs to know it, too.

4. The "Im too smart, help me" thread. The OP is telling us in a more subtle attempt (with lots of grammar mistakes) that he is damn intelligent and that seems to be a huge problem for him, because all his friends envy him and he just can't lead a decent conversation with anyone as he looks down on everyone and is superior to everyone else. You poor soul, the weight of such a burden must be overwhelming.



I don't really care if anything they claim to be is true, if they are trolling or are just delusional, but, frankly, I find it simply pathetic. What makes people this way? Why seek approval over the internet? I sense a lot of insecurity and hubris.

[semaphore]

I think it's an extension of the Dunning–Kruger effect. Some of them may genuinely believe they are genuises, who knows?

[Aqua]

Don't believe I've ever started a discussion like that... yay non-insecurity.

I'm well aware I'm no smarty-pants at anything, but I can't be TOO down on myself or I'd fall into self depression. I just do the best I can.

But give these people their time in the limelight, it's all they have. It doesn't bother me too much.

[Deleted]

Well I think that happens everywhere on internet forums.

Attention whoring is a pretty old (and well documented) phenomenon.

[Deleted]

Go go insecurities. To be fair it's not like it hurts anyone, and I'd rather they made a forum thread for a little ego boost instead of going super depressive mode and jumping from a bridge because nobody loves them.

[Reg]

I don't know if you've heard, but I'm kind of a big deal.

[Sam the Wiser]

Yeah since I've started posting here a lot of people think they are the greatest thing since sliced bread.

[Drakain]

I think it's an extension of the Dunning–Kruger effect. Some of them may genuinely believe they are genuises, who knows?

Hahahaha, I was thinking the same things.

Anyway, OP - yes, it's basically mental masturbation.

[Ethes]

Frankly, I don't really see the problem.

If you see/understand this, so-called, intention you should know that the poster of such a story is infact an attention whore and therefore doesn't deserve a reply. Now if you don't see/understand this, so-called, intention then there is no problem either as you're not recognizing this person's so-called, intention.

My advice to you OP is, if you do find such a threat and don't care for the discussion that comes out of it, just go on to the next forum post. Here at MMO-Champion there is plenty to read, therefore there much be something here that actually interests you. And with something I mean something more than just distributing disagreement or irritation cause after having a quick look through what you wrote (I got interested in that as you seem to dislike a certain writing style and I was wondering if you happen to do the same from time to time, which you do btw) thats mainly what you seem to be doing. Ie. writing how to troll-troll threads and disagreeing for disagreement's sake.

So yes, please contribute to this forum in a more constructive way than that cause I'm sure you might have some good idea's about where this game should be going (as you have a clear opinion of what you don't like and the current wow has plenty of that), can help out people who might not know their class as well as you do or something else among those lines or maybe something completely different.

Cause at the moment, this just seems like a "I hate about 50% of the people on this forum" kind of post with no more intentions behind it than to spread your discomfort with a lot of people...

[Deleted]

I notice this among gamers in particular.

For whatever reason, one of the most common things gamers seem to have in common is a sense of superiority to other people.

[bekilrwale]

Nothing makes me happier then when complete strangers over the internet think I am superior to them. As stated above, people who feel insecure probably find comfort in the hope that somebody in the vastness of the internet thinks they are actually a really successful person.

[caractacus]

Intelligence can be a very subjective thing. There a quite a few models of different versions of different types of intelligence, e'g creative, interpersonal, musical and so on.

My point is people are biased to what they think constitutes being intelligent and they will fix on that. For example someone might think that passing exams is the optimum measure of intelligence so they will focus all their power into passing exams and they will say I got an A in this test and you got a B therefore I am smarter than you even though they may just have better exam technique.
When I think about this I always think of the old Einstein quote "if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree it will spend it's whole life thinking it's stupid."

[Deleted]

It's common among the not so social teens,sometimes they do not even realise how arrogant they sound to the others around them... the reason is that they haven't met many people in real life and they're probably at the peak of the let's say 40-50 people they know,in other words they're at the peak of what they do because they never faced any real competion or challenge(thought some rare cases have selective memory and remember only what 'proves' the awsomeness of their abilities and nothing else).

Parents tend to help by overeacting at whatever they children do( my son got an A at maths! genius!) so the results are those...and as for the reason they prefer to boast about their mental abilities is because they're not mesurable and they can avoid simple truths(like that they do good but they're not the only ones)

As for the bench-press interesting choice of forum to post it... most people do so at athletic/bodybuilding forums where he'd get like 1000 comments saying: 'I can do it too"

[Garnier Fructis]

If my high school and college experiences were anything to go by, the people who make it known to others that they are "geniuses" are generally retards and idiots.

People who claim they are too lazy to be a millionaire probably have no clue how the economy or job creation works. People needing help because they are "too intelligent?" Maybe if you were so intelligent you wouldn't need our help now would you?

The most intelligent and highest achieving girl in my High School class was also the most humble person there; didn't ever brag about anything.

[Zapgreen]

I don't really care if anything they claim to be is true, if they are trolling or are just delusional, but, frankly, I find it simply pathetic. What makes people this way? Why seek approval over the internet? I sense a lot of insecurity and hubris.

I've replied in a couple of the threads, and I can't help but think a lot of people are lying as well. On the otherhand, I find some of those threads fun and I think about myself in the original context. My most recent one was the zombie apocalyps skills thread. Do i think even half of them have ever actually fired a gun, no. But who am I to judge. I just thought about how useful I would be, as per the original topic.

As an average (and I mean AVERAGE) psychology student at Temple University. I can say that the need for self esteem is very powerful. If they don't get enough recognition or acknowledgement in their everyday life, then they will seek it elsewhere (in games or fantasies). That said, I'm also not graduated yet and I technically can't diagnose anyone of anything, or some shit... I wasn't really listening to that part.

[Torq]

I find that the vast majority of people who spend any amount of time on forums tend to prefer to associate with people whom they deem their "lesser peers." The idea being that if they associate themselves with people they feel are less intelligent than they, they, in turn, will appear more intelligent.

I'm also of the mindset that every action a person takes is motivated by the drive to be (or appear) superior to someone else; whether that's physical, intellectual, or moral superiority depends on the person themselves. The internet just makes apparently intellectual superiority that much easier to attain.

[Deleted]

Frankly, I don't really see the problem.

If you see/understand this, so-called, intention you should know that the poster of such a story is infact an attention whore and therefore doesn't deserve a reply. Now if you don't see/understand this, so-called, intention then there is no problem either as you're not recognizing this person's so-called, intention.

My advice to you OP is, if you do find such a threat and don't care for the discussion that comes out of it, just go on to the next forum post. Here at MMO-Champion there is plenty to read, therefore there much be something here that actually interests you. And with something I mean something more than just distributing disagreement or irritation cause after having a quick look through what you wrote (I got interested in that as you seem to dislike a certain writing style and I was wondering if you happen to do the same from time to time, which you do btw) thats mainly what you seem to be doing. Ie. writing how to troll-troll threads and disagreeing for disagreement's sake.

So yes, please contribute to this forum in a more constructive way than that cause I'm sure you might have some good idea's about where this game should be going (as you have a clear opinion of what you don't like and the current wow has plenty of that), can help out people who might not know their class as well as you do or something else among those lines or maybe something completely different.

Cause at the moment, this just seems like a "I hate about 50% of the people on this forum" kind of post with no more intentions behind it than to spread your discomfort with a lot of people...

Wow, I didn't expect that at all. You've read me shockingly well. I rarely post, but when I do it's in response to something that I feel strongly about, which is often the misbehaviour of others. I do try to maintain an objective view on everything and have the habit of calling others out on their mistakes, even ridiculing them which, sadly, is what most of my posts is about. The reason why I made this thread was to lure one of the geniuses mentioned above here and provoke a response. I really would have liked to see how they react.

I guess I'm a bitter person