this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
693 points (99.1% liked)

Microblog Memes

11191 readers
3152 users here now

A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.

Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.

RULES:

  1. Your post must be a screen capture of a microblog-type post that includes the UI of the site it came from, preferably also including the avatar and username of the original poster. Including relevant comments made to the original post is encouraged.
  2. Your post, included comments, or your title/comment should include some kind of commentary or remark on the subject of the screen capture. Your title must include at least one word relevant to your post.
  3. You are encouraged to provide a link back to the source of your screen capture in the body of your post.
  4. Current politics and news are allowed, but discouraged. There MUST be some kind of human commentary/reaction included (either by the original poster or you). Just news articles or headlines will be deleted.
  5. Doctored posts/images and AI are allowed, but discouraged. You MUST indicate this in your post (even if you didn't originally know). If an image is found to be fabricated or edited in any way and it is not properly labeled, it will be deleted.
  6. Absolutely no NSFL content.
  7. Be nice. Don't take anything personally. Take political debates to the appropriate communities. Take personal disagreements & arguments to private messages.
  8. No advertising, brand promotion, or guerrilla marketing.

RELATED COMMUNITIES:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] charonn0@startrek.website 11 points 1 day ago

That's what dihydrogen monoxide poisoning does to average IQs.

[–] officermike@lemmy.world 245 points 2 days ago (3 children)

What's worse is that half of the students are performing worse than the median.

[–] Godric@lemmy.world 126 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Reminds me of an old Carlin joke:

"Think about how stupid the average person you meet in a day is. Think about it, think about it.

HALF OF THEM ARE EVEN STUPIDER THAN THAT!"

[–] Zorque@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Now if only we could judge people on actual intelligence instead of just how much we disagree with them...

[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 18 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean, wouldnt that be a worse basis for judgement though? Like, a significant amount a person's intelligence is based on non-voluntary factors, so judging someone for a lower than average intelligence seems unfair in the same way that judging them for being short or looking unattractive or such would be. Further, while a lower intelligence might make it harder for someone to understand more complicated ideas, it isnt a guarantee of them being wrong either, so one cant dismiss the contributions of a less intelligent person as always useless just because of their intelligence. Meanwhile, a person's views are comparatively more changeable, more influenced by that person's decisions, and an incorrect or morally repugnant idea is going to be wrong regardless of how intelligent the person holding it is.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 9 points 2 days ago (7 children)

But it's an average, there's chance of more than a half (although with normal distribution we should expect average and median to be the same)

[–] FishFace@piefed.social 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Given that average can refer to median, and he's saying that half of people are stupider than the average, we can conclude he probably meant the median :)

[–] sukhmel@programming.dev 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I wonder what percentage of people who hear/read that will assume median or know what that is

[–] Crackhappy@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Less than half.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

A median is specifically a method of taking an average that always results in half above and half below. Take the total number of participants, divide it by two, then count that number from either end. The middle is the median. It's a more accurate form of averages for statistical analysis.

Mean is where you add all of the scores and divide by the total number of participants. It's more liable to be skewed by outliers, so not necessarily in the dead center of the list. It's often avoided in statistical analysis for that reason.

Edit: I just reread your comment and on second glance it seems we're saying the same thing. I should have replied to the commenter below you...

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I actually went and investigated this at some point out of curiosity and came across a paper showing that intelligence is not a normal distribution but a sum of TWO normal distributions, the second one much smaller than the first and slightly offset (towards the lower values if I remember it correctly).

That being so, for the distribution of intelligence in humans the median is not the same as the mean (which is what's commonly meant by "average") so it's slightly incorrect to say that half of people are below average intelligence.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 18 points 2 days ago

I have unironically seen rich people say that everyone can be above average as an excuse of why things are the way they are.

[–] yabai@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

While the median is hard to believe, I think it's worse in some ways that half of the students are performing worse than the mean.

[–] Alberat@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

we need more students to fail harder to bring the mean down then?

[–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Can't really argue against that.

[–] Gladaed@feddit.org 21 points 1 day ago (2 children)

There's are quartile filled with bottoms?

[–] Rooster326@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago

They prefer to be called power bottoms

[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Statistically I guess

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 53 points 2 days ago

In China, 25% are in the top quartile!!! check mate USA.

[–] Reygle@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Humanity is doomed, but he'll never figure out why

[–] BilboBargains@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

We don't know where else we should put them

[–] alekwithak@lemmy.world 64 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

25%

Bottom quartile

Hey, wait a second...

[–] egrets@lemmy.world 44 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I also get jokes sometimes.

[–] alekwithak@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Look man, my NAS is acting up, my kid is acting up, my work... is acting up, if I gotta take a break and leave a cozy little dumb comment on a Lemmy post to feel something non-negative for a fraction of a second I feel I should have that right.
And besides, Lemmy needs engagement, right? Look at us, we're doing it!

[–] voodooattack@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

when everything is acting up

the server, kid, and stage

sometimes the bravest thing to do

is turn a single page

not every bit needs pushing through

not every load needs borne

a rest is not a missing note —

it’s how the song is formed

you left a little comment here

a small and cozy light

and someone read it, felt it land,

and held it through the night

so post your little posts, my friend

the network needs the thread

a system with no idle time

is one that’s nearly dead

[–] RustySharp@programming.dev 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Please invite me to the wedding!

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (2 replies)
[–] bss03@infosec.pub 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm OOTL, is @RepJackKimble a satire account? Or an elected fool?

[–] Godric@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Satire account! Good ask, many people are wholeheartedly ready to eat the onion, even in this age of AI-assisted active disinformation and propaganda.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Sad that we can’t tell anymore.

[–] bss03@infosec.pub 4 points 1 day ago

Poe's Law has been active for a while, at least in the U.S.

[–] Hux@lemmy.ml 34 points 2 days ago
[–] muntedcrocodile@hilariouschaos.com 15 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The real measure is what percentage of American kids will get the joke?

[–] solidheron@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Okay shit poster

[–] frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 15 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Clearly the education system failed this man, he has no critical thinking skills and is confident enough about himself to post stupid shit like this.

[–] Slovene85@sh.itjust.works 48 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Is this a woosh or satireception?

[–] frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 18 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I assumed he was serious, I've seen worse from reps in my state

[–] cogman@lemmy.world 34 points 2 days ago

It's satire. But damning that it's pretty indistinguishable from real reps.

[–] grue@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Reminds me of that time a rep near me (thankfully, not mine!) talked about Guam tipping over.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] SarahValentine@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

It's Poe's Law. Nothing is too stupid for MAGA.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 14 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Funnily enough, the account's bio reads "Republican Representing CA's 54th Dist. & co-sponsor of Poe's Law."

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] AgentOrangesicle@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Shit, we're on par with Antarcticans.

...which they would take offense to if they could read! Oooooooooo, Antarctica burn!(Sorry McMurdough.)

[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

The penguins took much offense to that

[–] k0e3@lemmy.ca 11 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I had a hard time getting the joke. They mean, "... students are in the bottom quartile," right?

[–] Godric@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

A whopping 25%!

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Rhaedas@fedia.io 11 points 2 days ago (3 children)

I'm not a big fan of standardized testing, they evolved from a simple tool of measurement quickly into an industry and a political weapon (teaching for the test). But they do provide a glimpse still of the status of education.

If he wanted to show the reality of things, he would have quoted the actual percentages, which show how bad it is. In the SAT 41% are ready for university-level math, 64% for reading and writing (only 13% of them completed the essay part), and the ACT is a huge 29% and 39%, respectively. And that's just the kids who took these tests.

It's always been bad. I remember being surprised when I went to college decades ago and there were remedial classes to get students up to university standards because they were coming out of high school not ready.

And a quote from a test provider, Brighterly:

"According to standardized math testing statistics PDF files researched, student performance has worsened since the pandemic and is not improving dramatically."

https://brighterly.com/blog/standardized-testing-statistics/

We've failed our kids. Many times over. All generations.

[–] LodeMike@lemmy.today 10 points 2 days ago

Standardised tests started as tools to do racism without directly doing racism.

Low test scores in the U.S. actually just measure the fact that it provides roughly the same education to every student instead of what most other countries do and filter students out if their scores aren't high enough in elementary school.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›