✖️Are We Smart or Just Performing Intelligence?
Have you ever felt the pressure to look intellectual rather than just be? That’s where the concepts of the thought daughter and the literary It girl come in.
The thought daughter is introspective, existential, and overthinks everything. She reads Kafka, Rooney, and Plath, listens to indie music, and crafts an identity around her deep thoughts. The literary It girl takes this further—she’s effortlessly intellectual, always at book launches and art galleries, and makes intelligence look cool.
On the surface, these women celebrate intellect and depth. But in reality, they reflect our growing obsession with performing intelligence rather than actually engaging with it. We don’t just want to be smart—we want to prove it. Instead of reading, we watch people recommend books. Instead of creating, we curate. And in the process, art suffers.
Social media has turned intelligence into an aesthetic, a brand we have to sell. But real intellect isn’t about looking interesting—it’s about being curious, creating, contradicting, and learning.
Maybe true freedom isn’t in proving our intelligence but in embracing it—without the performance.
What do you think? Are we more focused on looking smart than being smart?
