What screams ‘I’m trying to look smart, but I’m actually stupid’? – 17 signs someone isn’t as clever as they appear

Thanks to AI, lots of people now have the tools to come across as more intelligent than they actually are. But if you know where to look, you can still find signs of their stupidity.

To help you separate berks from boffins, DesperateWall9921 turned to r/AskReddit and put the following question to its obviously learned users:

‘What screams “I’m trying to look smart, but I’m actually stupid”?’

Dunce caps at the ready, here are the top answers…

1.

‘Explaining how “smart” you are’
-gizmoismydogsname

2.

‘Someone who insults someone else who is genuinely admitting that they are not smart, in an effort to prove that they are smart.’
-ReasonableEast8580

3.

‘Never admitting you don’t know something.’
-AyeWhy

4.

‘Being cruel and dismissive while supposedly trying to teach someone.’
-PeaceBull

5.

‘Repeating sound bites full of buzzwords they don’t understand.’
-xcrunner2414

6.

‘Correcting someone… and being confidently wrong.’
-relex41738

7.

‘Confusing education for intelligence. Some people have multiple degrees but lack intelligence elsewhere, some never finished high school or never went beyond but show a capacity for understanding stuff.

‘So if someone uses their degree to show how they’re smarter, they’re probably dumb as rocks. Never mind how unevenly difficult it is to earn degrees.’
-curious_dead

8.

‘Jargon. The more jargon you can stuff into a sentence, the clearer the signal.’
-badger_on_fire

9.

‘Using lots of long words for no good reason’
-midunda