History Main / ViewersAreGeniuses

** "''Lain'''s computer hardware is so cool. How come we don't get [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twentieth_Anniversary_Macintosh designs]] [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_Experiments_Lain# Apple_computers like those]]?"

The public's been clamouring for some more intelligent television in the wake of RealityTV and LowestCommonDenominator {{Recycled Script}}s. So, you go and write a series loaded with difficult quantum mechanics, quoting obscure 17th-century philosophers, with characters who are [[ThePhilosopher philosophical]] {{Magnificent Bastard}}s who speak [[BilingualBonus a dozen languages]] while conversing to each other by sending Shakespearean zen koans hidden into chess move patterns, and packed with [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic allusions to ancient Sumerian religion]]. You make sure all your TechnoBabble is [[HowUnscientific scientifically plausible]] and go to great lengths to make sure [[AnachronismStew all your ancient Roman soldiers are wearing exact replicas of period equipment]]. Now it's TrueArt, right?

Remember that loading up your work with loads of obscure references just for the sake of having them there is just pretensious. Just because your characters know who Derrida is does not make them interesting or your show any better than than one that doesn't namedrop. Don't think your show/book/game is smart just because you're quoting smart people.

** A lot of times this is [[JustifiedTrope justified]], since [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addition a simple concept]] might be important in the context of something [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addition# Real_numbers much more complicated]]

** Of course, for most of Inferno, you need mostly to understand the politics of Italy at the time. When it was written, it would be the equivalent of writing about Bush trotting through Heck and seeing all the Democrats, Al Quaedans, and EU-eans being tortured.

*** Another variation is to get a large group of people (usually females) to sign a petition to ban "Women's ''Suffrage''" [[spoiler: their ability to vote]].

* Stanislaw Lem's works are usually loaded with science and philosphy.

Also, just keeping things vague and ambiguous to try and pull this off is a usually juat a cop out.

Also, just keeping things vagua and ambiguous to try and pull this off is a usually juat a cop out.

* ''TheWire'' is one of the best examples of the past decade. You're expected to keep up with multiple plot lines, a dozen-plus characters and their sub-stories, and all their field terminology with no {{Expospeak}} provided.

** ''The West Wing'' is rather fond of this - if you're not pretty damn well up-to-date on the workings of the United States Government, good luck keeping up with some of the storylines, not to mention the ''jokes''.

Remember that loading up your work with loads of obscure references just for the sake of having them there is just pretensious. Just because your characters know who Derrida is does not make them interesting or your show any better than than one that doesn't namedrop.

* While ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' starts off looking like a fairly ordinary HumongousMecha anime, it soon becomes a dark and convoluted psychoanalytical and philosophical allegory involving a lot of FreudWasRight, allusions to Jung, Schopenhauer, and possibly existentialism, Kabbalistic allusions (half of which were [[RedHerring intentionally bogus]]), and reflections on the nature of humanity, what makes a human, the status of sentient [=AI=]s, etc. Some call it a MindScrew, which isn't totally unfair. Some even consider it as a precursor of the superflat movement, a form of Japanese postmodernism in the visual arts.
** On the other hand, [[WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic some people have]] [[GainaxEnding different opinions]].
** No offense but it IS THE precursor of the Superflat movement.

* ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena.'' Good heavens. Everything from Japanese mythology to German literature to Jewish mysticism.
* ''{{Gantz}}''. Most plot twists or shocking revelations aren't understood by everyone because the mangaka simply assumes that ViewersAreGeniuses and explains them with a single, textless panel or with a side glare and an explanation that is stopped mid-sentence. The fact that the manga is filled with non conventional sci-fi doesn't help.
* ''GundamSeed'', and ''GundamSeedDestiny'' tend to not give you much needed information that your just expected to figure out. The most obvious is that we are never told that Lacus Clyne is using ObfuscatingStupidity when she first appeared making it look like the air head popstar turned into a brilliant leader out of nowhere. This is made worse in ''GundamSeedDestiny'' where several events happen that escalate the war such as the attempted attack on Lacus, and a group dropping a colony on the Earth and we are never told who is behind either. It's suggested that Durandal was the one who made the attempt on Lacus' life but it's never stated that Durandal (who had the motive) was behind either events.
* In SuzumiyaHaruhi, you've gotta be a genius, or extremely well-read to get all the references just from Kyon's inner monologue. The time travel plot from Bamboo Leaf Rhapsody and Vanishment is a real brain-twister too.
** Things get worse in the light novels. One of the plot devices in a story is Euler's Planar Graph Formula. Haruhi's hinted to have synesthesia from her rant on colors and days of the week. The time-travel plot becomes even more complex when Kyon travels back again to help himself help himself fix the universe. If you actually analyze the anime, you can get even more confused. If you speed up and reverse Yuki and Ryoko's battle, you can hear valid SQL statements. When Yuki hacks the game in Day of Sagittarius, every single line of code was valid. Every single equation and diagram in both opening sequences are real. It doesn't take a genius to know that Nagaru Tanigawa loves math and science.

* Just about everything NeilGaiman has ever done hits this trope in some way. ''TheSandman'' oozes cleverness and esoteric references. And if you try to watch ''MirrorMask'' without a reasonable grounding in psychology, you will miss most of what is going on.

* ''DykesToWatchOutFor'' is festooned with references to culture, history, and current events of all kinds.

* A lot of Grant Morrison's works consciously operate on higher levels but Final Crisis expects you to have a pretty robust knowledge of the entire 70+ year history of {{the DCU}} to understand it.

* ''{{Syriana}}.''
* In the Coen brothers' ''O Brother, Where Art Thou'' a knowledge of Homer's Odyssey gives clues throughout the film - such as a one-eyed man [[spoiler:not being all he seems]], or cattle-killer George (''Baby Face'') Nelson's ultimate punishment [[spoiler:Zeus kills the cattle killers with a lightning boilt, Nelson gets the electric chair]]
* ''{{Inception}}'' may qualify for this. Many reviewers have praised the film and writer/director ChristopherNolan for assuming that ViewersAreGeniuses, rather than [[LowestCommonDenominator the inverse]].
** It's not quite as intelligent as advertised; the ultimate MindScrew is exactly what the movie's subject instantly makes you think. Still, it does actually require the viewer to pay attention to the plot, which is more than some other action thrillers expect.
** It still pales in comparison with ''{{Memento}}'' that presents 2-5 minutes long segments that progress (regress?) backwards in time from the 'present' alternating with segments that progress forwards from the past, all without any apparent clues about their whereabouts on the timeline until [[spoiler:they merge into one point of time at the end of the movie.]] And as if that's not complicated enough, throw in the main character's flashbacks to Sammy Jankis case and his wife's murder [[spoiler:which are most probably just lies that the main character made himself believe.]]

* ''{{Gargoyles}}'', is an example of this in relative terms. It's targeted at kids but doesn't really make sense without some understanding of {{Shakespeare}}, TimeTravel and the interplay of history and mythology.
** Interestingly, yet confusingly for {{Shakespeare}} fans, the series depicts Macbeth and Duncan closer to their historical counterparts than the Bard's play, leading many to erroneously think that [=~They Just Didn't Care~=].
* A lot of cartoons in the 80s made jokes about old movies that kids would only be aware of from other cartoons that satirized them. Film Noir and Peter Lorre are fairly common for example. And this was LONG before Youtube or companies that rent DVDS through the internet. Videos we had, but what 80s kid is gonna sit through a Bogart movie?
** Somewhat explainable are references or ShoutOuts to older cartoons, which themselves were spoofing those movies and things when they were contemporary. In the case of shared canon these could even be classifiable as ContinuityNod, for instance in the case of ''TinyToonAdventures'' with ''LooneyTunes''.
** ParentalBonus?
* Boy howdy, ''{{Animaniacs}}''. What kid, watching this show among the normal AnimationAgeGhetto Saturday morning cartoons, was going to get the {{Whole Plot Reference}}s to ''LesMiserables''? Or ''TheSeventhSeal''? And that's not even getting started on all the GettingCrapPastTheRadar.
** PopCulturalOsmosis? Er, wait...
* ''TheSimpsons'' uses a lot of PopCulture references/movie and literacy references in most of their episodes which would make sense if their viewers knew the source movie or book. So you'd have to watch a lot of movies/books to 'get' them.
** This is probably the best one. Not only do you have to know who Dennis Miller is to get the joke, but you must also fit into the category of people who don't get his jokes in order to find it funny:
-->'''Lisa''': (after reading "C:/DOS/RUN" joke) Ha, only one person in a million would find that funny!
-->'''Professor John Frink''': Yes, we call that the "Dennis Miller Ratio."
*** Due to this phenomenon, many dub of the show will replace most of the cultural references with local ones. An example: the French-Canadian dub of this previous joke has Pierre Légaré instead of Dennis Miller, the former being a popular French-Canadian comedian who used to be a psychologist. And it shows.
* ''FamilyGuy'' is A LOT funnier if the viewer has good knowledge of culture from the 1960's up until today. Some jokes are more obvious, like the references to ''IndianaJones'' and ''StarWars'', but many are more subtle, like the constant references to ''DazedAndConfused'', to The Manson's Family's murder of Sharon Tate, to referencing song lyrics from I'm Too Sexy in dialogue.
** Let alone a vague awareness of what anything in the world was like before the 1960's.
-->'''Benjamin Disraeli''': You don't know who I am, do you?
** The CutawayGag reference to ''Der Struwwelpeter'' is particularly hilarious.
** ''AmericanDad'', also by ''Family Guy'' creator {{Seth MacFarlane}}, [[LampshadeHanging referenced]] this same practice in an episode. Klaus, bored as a fish in a fishbowl, has started to randomly talk about whatever was going on around him (and later, [[MindScrew in a scene he was even in]]) like he was commenting on a DVD. Stan makes a reference about his daughter ending up as a [[CharlesManson "Squeaky Fromme"]], and Klaus makes the (real for the writers) comment that they weren't sure if they were being too obscure in mentioning it, but felt that it was a smart joke and that's the kind of thing the fans go for.

->''Fuck "[[LowestCommonDenominator the average viewer]]".''
-->--'''David Simon''', co-creator of ''TheWire''.

So you sit back and watch the ratings -- which plummet faster than a rocket-propelled brick in a nosedive. What went wrong? In trying to avert making the classic mistake that ViewersAreMorons, you went too far and ended up assuming that ViewersAreGeniuses instead.[[hottip:*:Of course, if you're working in a medium that doesn't need an audience of millions to be profitable, you may not care. Remember that TropesAreTools and that some people ''like'' stories that require effort on their part to understand.]]

* Has a happened a few times in {{Jojos Bizarre Adventure}}.

* Commonly cited as a reason for the low ratings of ''TheWire'', particularly with regard to its tendency not to spoon-feed information and its slow-burn pacing. Fortunately for fans of that series, it aired on {{HBO}}, where ratings for single episodes are somewhat less critical than they are for most networks.
** In an interview it was put to series creator David Simon that the complex plot, ensemble cast, lack of exposition and non-episodic nature of the show made it inaccessible to "the average viewer". Simon replied: "Fuck the average viewer. Who wants those people?"

* ''MetalGearSolid2'' delves into meme theory so deeply that it is used to ''teach'' meme theory. Understanding this is hard. Very hard. It all makes sense, I promise, but don't try too hard, you will fry your brain.
** Everything made much more sense after ''MetalGearSolid3'', ''MetalGearSolidPortableOps'' and ''MetalGearSolid4''.

* [[NasuVerse Kinoko Nasu]] really, ''really'' loves winding philosophical debate, and he expects you to as well. The rules governing said 'verse can get pretty complex as well, with a huge amount of MrExposition giving InstructionDialogue regarding borderline game-breaking abilities. FateStayNight is particularly guilty. For example, several [[VisualNovel [[strike: pages]]]] episodes will be dedicated to explaining the minute details as to why imagining swords into being real is a stupid, useless form of magic, and then later Shirou manages to summon every sword ever made ''at the same time''.

See also WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic and MindScrew. ''Not'' mutually exclusive with DidNotDoTheResearch or CriticalResearchFailure - just because a show is crammed with obscure knowledge doesn't mean that said knowledge is correct, [[SeriesContinuityError even when it comes from the show to begin with]]. This can be the result of too many [[InJoke in jokes]] being included in a work.

* MC Frontalot and many {{nerdcore}} rappers, unsurprisingly, as they are often [[SoYeah nerds]]. Most songs at least use vocabulary you needed to pay attention in your last year of high school to know. Some ''other'' songs can really push it though. For example, to grasp everything in [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phT0HRC69AA "Goth]] [[http://frontalot.com/index.php/?page=lyrics&lyricid=14 Girls,"]] you need to know (or at least know ''of'') programming, general goth culture, French existentialism, the webcomic Wigu, JhonenVasquez, Edward Gorey's style, Suicide Girls, vampire babe Elvira, and '''botany.'''

* [[{{StephenKing}} Stephen King's]] ''The Dark Half'' has an in-universe example. The protagonist has written several highly intellectual novels with poor sales. In the meantime he has also written under a pen name intentionally trashy books that engorge themselves on sex and violence which have went on to become bestsellers. King wrote the book in part as a response to his pen name Richard Bachman becoming public knowledge. The stories he wrote under the pen name in turn tended to be less psychological than those with his own name on them.

* [[{{StephenKing}} Stephen King's]] ''The Dark Half'' has an in-universe example. The protagonist has written several highly intellectual novels with poor sales. In the meantime he has also written under a pen name intentionally trashy books that engorge themselves on sex and violence which have went on to become bestsellers.

* Tom Lehrer was a math professor at Harvard during his musical career. Both his songs and his commentary dealt heavily with science, history and (then) current events. Occasionally it when over his audience's head.

** TheOtherWiki has a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trading_Places#Explanation_of_climactic_scene good explanation]] of the finances involved in said climax.

* {{Inception}} may qualify for this. Many reviewers have praised the film and writer/director ChristopherNolan for assuming that ViewersAreGeniuses, rather than [[LowestCommonDenominator the inverse]].