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Here’s the IQ distribution bell curve:



What you can see is that 96% of people, the overwhelming majority, are of average intelligence (70-130 range). People with an IQ of 70-100 are dumb. Not like a literally drooling retard, can’t-tie-shoelaces dumb, but an average kind of dumb. People in the 100-130 range, on the other hand, are delusional fuckwits. Well, the correct term is actually “midwits.” A midwit is someone of average/above-average intelligence who takes the fact that they can tie their shoelaces, or read a book, or write a multi-paragraph anime review as a sign that they must be a genius, superior to all the plebs that can’t achieve such a grandiose feat. Someone who flaunts mannerisms and behavior that (they think) is intellectual without having an actual intelligence to back it up. Someone painfully incapable of perceiving their own limitations. The defining characteristic of a midwit is the subconscious belief that they are the smartest person in the universe.
As a consequence of that, in practice midwits end up being even more retarded than low-IQ people. A classic example of that is anti-vaxxers. Did you know that most anti-vaxxers have college degrees? An actual dumb person would never challenge the notions of “common sense” or opinions of authority figures. The doctor says to take a shot - you take a shot. Anti-vaxxers, on the other hand, delusionally think they are capable of doing their own research and forming an independent opinion (unlike all the inferior plebs who are not as smart as them) - but since they don’t possess real intelligence, their “independent” opinion ends up being absolute cretinism.
Ironically, the other defining characteristic of midwits is the sheep mentality. Not only midwits are the most numerous demographic to begin with, their opinions are also your average milquetoast banal truisms devoid of any intellectual value (go to a place like reddit that lets you see the popularity of different opinions and check which things are the most upvoted - it’s gonna be “I think chocolate is good and genocide is bad”). So midwits are stuck in a positive feedback loop of “I am the smartest person in the universe -> my opinion must be correct -> all these other people agree with my opinion -> that proves that my opinion is correct -> that proves I am the smartest person in the universe.” Therefore, thinks a midwit, if someone disagrees with their opinion/”common sense”, they must be a literal schizo (an actual intelligent person would know that ALL groundbreaking achievements of thought ALWAYS challenge the mainstream).
If you are not sure how does the sheep mentality not contradict the anti-vaxxers example, this picture explains it:



Midwits are aware that smart ideas can be revolutionary - they’re just incapable of judging whether something defies the mainstream because it’s genius or because it’s retarded. This is how you get conspiracy theorists that think everything anti-mainstream is right by default.

Anyway, how is any of that related to anime? Directly - anime is a medium that disproportionately appeals to midwits. It actually has a serious entry barrier that filters out dumb people - you have to actively look up what to watch, you have to listen to foreign voices while reading subtitles, you have to learn some foreign cultural context to understand what’s going on, etc. And smart people capable of having an opinion (the top 2%) don’t usually watch anime because a) High IQ correlates with being successful in life; b) Being successful in life negatively correlates with watching escapist fantasies for losers (the core appeal of anime to anyone past sixteen).
So, how does being a midwit affect one’s perception of anime? People like fictional stories that are told on their level. Dumb people like dumb anime and dislike smart anime. Smart people like smart anime and dislike dumb anime. Ain't so simple with midwits. Let’s say a person watches something that is blatantly too hard for them to understand. A dumb person - well, they won’t say “I’m too dumb to like this” - but they will say “this is too convoluted/too boring/too many words” and move on. But when a midwit doesn’t understand a show - their ass explodes because they subconsciously consider themselves the smartest person in the universe and the idea of a show above their understanding is absolutely unbearable to their ego. They’ll start to sperg out how this show is actually pretentious garbage that has nothing to “get” as a coping mechanism. Ironically, they will gobble up actual pretentious garbage that puts on airs of being “deep” or “mature” but doesn’t have any challenging substance that their midwit brains will struggle with.
And again, midwits are the absolute majority of people that watch anime, rate anime, and express their opinions on anime. This is how you get primitive garbage like Steins;Gate, or Attack on Titan (or almost every show with an 8.00+ score) topping both the Top Rated and the Most Popular categories on MAL. And this is why 90% of all the high-brow, thought-provoking, unique, and artistically valuable anime titles have average scores below 7.00 on MAL.

Oh, and if you think there is such a thing as a high-brow show that isn’t underrated - you’re wrong, e.g. Madoka is objectively the best anime ever made, but it’s not even in the Top100 of MAL. Some 8.00+ rated shows like Madoka, FLCL, or Monogatari are what is actually underrated the most by the mainstream.