To Be Fair, You Have To Have a Very High IQ to Understand Rick and Morty (2024)

About

To Be Fair, You Have To Have a Very High IQ to Understand Rick and Morty, also known simply as the Rick and Morty Copypasta, is a copypasta that fans and detractors of the animated television series Rick and Morty use to sarcastically respond to criticisms of the show. The text, which may have been originally posted sincerely in 2017, refers to the highfalutin and self-congratulatory way people talk about the show. Since its emergence online, the copypasta has been revamped numerous times with users replacing various parts of the text to make jokes referencing other pop culture characters and IPs.

Origin

On July 29th, 2017, Redditor Niekisch submitted the earliest known variation of the copypasta in the comments section of a post on /r/CringeAnarchy:^[1]

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty. The humour is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the jokes will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Rick's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation- his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these jokes, to realise that they're not just funny- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Rick & Morty truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Rick's existential catchphrase "Wubba Lubba Dub Dub," which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Dan Harmon's genius wit unfolds itself on their television screens. What fools.. how I pity them. 😂

And yes, by the way, i DO have a Rick & Morty tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- and even then they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand. Nothin personnel kid 😎

Spread

The following day, Redditor^[2] trinityjadex posted the entire text in the /r/copypasta subreddit. Within a month, it received more than 870 points (97% upvoted) and 100 comments.

Within the thread, another Redditor credits an Instagram ^[3] comment on a @h3h3productions as the source. The post (shown below) features two men posing while eating a chicken nugget that has been dipped in McDonald's Mulan Szechuan Sauce, a McDonald's dipping sauce that was discontinued in the '90s but was "temporarily brought back by McDonald's":https://knowyourmeme.com/news/mcdonalds-brings-back-szechuan-sauce-for-limited-time-thanks-to-rick-and-morty-popularity after popularity on the show. The thread received more than 150,000 likes in six weeks after the /r/CringeAnarchy comment.

Also, on July 30th, the Facebook account dankmemesformillennialteens posted an anti-Rick and Morty meme of the Powerpuff Girls intro with the words "sh*t storyline," "no originality," sh*t animation," and sh*t character development." The post (shown below, left) received more than 3,600 reactions, 1,200 comments and 723 shares. Facebook user Ben Smylie responded to the post with copypasta, receiving more than 160 reactions.

The following day, the Facebook^[4] account Difficulty II posted the copypasta (shown below, right), receiving more than 780 reactions, 122 shares and 175 comments.

On September 7th, the Instagram^[5] meme account @dabmoms posted a picture of an elderly man clutching his chest with the caption "Lady: He's having a heart attack. Is anyone here a doctor? Rick and Morty fan: it actually takes a certain level of intelligence to appreciate the subtle genius of Dan Harmon's humor." The post (shown below) received more than 12,000 likes in 16 hours.

Search Interest

External References