Smart Shaming

"Smart shaming”. I don’t know if it’s a thing and has ever trended on Twitter or if it’s just something rather absurd that I’ve just conjured up but either way, it’s something I want to chat about today.

It could be that I’ve simply had the misfortune of meeting a lot of egotists in my time or, equally, it could be down to my insecurities breaking through but “smart-shaming” is something I’ve become increasingly aware of as I’ve got older and it’s something that (I think) needs to be called out. In much the same way that people body shame, I’ve noticed there are a handful of people in this world who think they’re somewhat superior to the rest of us and worthy of the “right” to call others out for topics they’re not overly familiar with.  I’ll be the first to admit I’ve done it before, though more so as an innocent mistake than to assert myself. For example, the more I travel, the more I make friends whose first language isn’t English and inevitably little mistakes get made (a favourite of mine being when a close friend thought “cringe” was pronounced “Grinch”). There was a time where I’d make such a huge point out of the mistake. But upon reflection their level of fluency in English significantly surpasses my Arabic, Spanish, German etc so who the heck am I to get all high and mighty?

When we’re at school, for instance, we’re forced (or that’s what it feels like at the time) to learn and participate in just about everything and we naturally all have a weaker and stronger subjects and that’s FINE. But I’ve met (I-can’t-tell-you-how-many) people who seem to go out of their way to make people feel inadequate for not being quite as well-read or well-informed on certain subjects as they are. I actually had the pleasure (cue eye roll and sarcastic tone) of living with a woman briefly who was VERY knowledgable on most things history, law and politics. I am not, so I’d often say things along the lines of “gosh, I didn’t know X,Y & Z about the Korean War”. Now there’s one of two responses you could choose to adopt in such a scenario - I’ll let you guess which hers was…

1. "Well actually Kia, let me tell you more about it. It’s pretty interesting…"

2. "WHAT?! You don’t know that about the Korean War? Are you stupid? You can hardly consider yourself to have had an education then." 

I’m afraid my knowledge of history doesn’t extend far past what we were taught pre-Year 9. I struggled with remembering the dates and being able to retain the specific details. But why not seize the opportunity to share your knowledge and educate other people rather than make other people feel utterly inferior. What you possess in knowledge of history and so on, you seriously lack in social etiquette.

Okay no, perhaps I can’t say I’m especially well-informed on political matters. My understanding of current affairs is quite literally “current (celebrity) affairs" . Despite my best efforts, I’m not fluent in 12 languages, nor do I play the oboe, frankly don’t know the chemical formula for…. christ knows what I’d even end that sentence with actually, and I’ve never climbed Everest. Having said all that, I do have other strong suits: I speak some other languages, I’m not bad at sport, I’m pretty darn creative and surprisingly good at accents. I find great satisfaction in volunteering, I make a mean sweet potato pie, I have a LOT of common sense and know the difference between you’re and your. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

So next time you stumble across someone who knows less about something than you do, do us all a favour and teach them a little something somethin’ extra new rather than seizing the opportunity, boosting your own ego. And if you meet someone who thinks they’re “it” because they can recite more of the periodic table than you, please give them an eye roll from me!