To Be Fair, You Have To Have a Very High IQ to Understand Futurama

"To Be Fair, You Have To Have a Very High IQ to Understand Futurama" is a copypasta born under a facebook publication posted on the page "Bender quotes", the 27th of March, 2021.

The original two-strips gag illustrated a simple joke made in the show, in which the character Leela lifts a coffer from the sea, which apparently is, according to her, "about 20 times heavier than a boot". The coffer is revealed to contain, indeed, 20 times a boot, which is equal to 20 boots, which is the same as 10 pairs of boots.

To explain how authors could have had the ingeniosity to make this complicated calculus, and then, an outstanding joke out of it, the user Harley Torres, the 28th of March at 18:08, offered us the following comment:

" Futurama was written with these kinda jokes because a lot of the main scenario writers and show creators were actual physicists. Some theoretical, some practical, and they all contributed to the wit of this show. The humor I’ve always described as smart. At times, almost too smart. I love futurama, there’s a giant section of my brain devoted to futurama quotes, trivia, characters, etc. "

Even if the given facts are true, different elements of this comment can have made it ridiculous for a part of its audience :

- the over-reaction from a simple gag makes the OP appear as an annoying fanboy/fangirl,

- the need of physicist to create a joke made out of a simple multiplication seems to be a fairly over-the-top explanation, adding to the typical caracterisation cliche of high-level mathematics being nothing more than arithmetics, and professional mathematicians being nothing more than fast calculators,

" You're right that many of them were physicists but "10 pairs of boots are 20 times heavier than a boot" isn't high intellectual humor lmao "

- the implicitly narcissist dimension of the comment, felt through the following sequence "The humor I’ve always described as smart. At times, almost too smart. I love futurama, there’s a giant section of my brain devoted to futurama quotes, trivia, characters, etc." makes the OP unsympathetic, thus the urge to mock him through a copypasta movement.

" lol imagine thinking basic arithmetic makes you above average "

Quickly after its publication, the comment induced mockery from other users, making it more and more visible, until it gave birth to a copypasta movement.

As pointed by other users, this comment strongly looks like the infamous "To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty" comment, which also gave birth to a well-known meme and copypasta. In both cases, a popular SF cartoon is depicted as a piece of art that only geniuses can really understand, the commentator being implicitly on the side of the geniuses.