About

Genius, Smart but Dumb, Dumb but Smart, Idiot refers to an exploitable cartoon depicting a group dynamic between four characters of various levels of intelligence, ranked between "genius" and "idiot." Posted on TikTok in June 2024, the image achieved virality as a meme format in December 2024 as users paired it with groups of four characters from various media.

Origin

On June 14th, 2024, TikTok^[1] user @bxsql posted a slideshow of several group dynamic drawings for a group of four characters. The last image in a slideshow depicted a friend group of four characters of various levels of intelligence (shown below), including "genius" (the green-colored character), "smart but dumb" (yellow), "dumb but smart" (purple) and "idiot" (blue). The slideshow, which also included the alternative version of the What the Flip / What the Skibidi meme by the same artist, gained over 1.4 million views and 206,000 likes in six months.

Spread

Unlike the What the Flip / What the Skibidi panel from the slideshow, the image did not achieve popularity as a meme format until December 2024. On December 20th, 2024, X^[2] user @OarRei41969377 made the earliest found viral meme based on the format, pairing four characters from the Dandadan anime series with the image. The post (shown below) gained over 5,500 reposts and 87,000 likes in six days.

Later on that day, Threads^[3] user @rufy21050 reposted the image, with the repost gaining over 440 reposts and 20,900 likes on the platform in six days.

Following the viral spread of the meme, the format achieved virality on X / Twitter and Reddit as users paired the image with groups of four characters from various media.

For example, on December 22nd, 2024, Redditor Spirited_Hurry2885 posted a meme that combined the image with four characters from the visual novel and adventure video game Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. The post (shown below) received over 3,200 upvotes in the /r/danganronpa^[4] subreddit in four days.

The format maintained popularity on Reddit and X / Twitter through late December 2024.

Various Examples

Template

Search Interest

External References