“The goal is to become disgustingly educated,” dozens of videos have proclaimed across social media over the new year.
On platforms like TikTok and Instagram, instead of sharing clothing hauls or skincare routines, creators are sharing their book stacks or media diets promising to make their viewers “disgustingly educated” in a matter of minutes. For further optimization potential, take note of these brain hacks to improve memory (so that your time cracking open Plato’s Republic won’t go to waste).
While this trend that champions being erudite is marketed as an antidote to braintrot content, its origins on the internet date back as far back as 2022: “I have two aspirations in life: to be beautiful and to be disgustingly overeducated,” a viral X post read.
Since then, subreddits like r/booksuggestions and r/selfimprovement started to fill with questions and answers on different ways to become disgustingly educated—from reading the classics to consuming video summaries of various topics. (Maybe even just consuming video summaries of the classics.)
The trend has since found its way to TikTok, where it mirrors other self-improvement trends that crop up on the platform like clockwork every couple months. Last year, it was the curriculum trend, in which creators came up with monthly “curricula” based on new skills they want to learn, creative projects they want to tackle, and books on subjects they want to focus on for the month. After all, self-development is one of social media’s favorite subjects.
In an era where many are outsourcing their brains to artificial intelligence, it’s encouraging, of course, to see people embrace a trend that reclaims curiosity and engages with learning just for fun. Especially since it’s widely documented that social media does have a real deleterious impact on our memory, focus, and attention spans, which are all key tools in the pursuit of becoming disgustingly educated.
Still, scratch beneath the surface, and the pursuit of education for education’s sake—and the pursuit of education to appear educated to others—are two very different things.
As Substack becomes the new social media platform in vogue, and intellectualism becomes another aesthetic to be sold, any trend that hopes to hook you with promises of lower screen time, while simultaneously keeping you on the algorithmic hamster wheel, should be taken with a pinch of salt.
In many ways, the “disgustingly educated” trend is yet another example of the intelligence Olympics online. But what is the internet, if not a bunch of people on their soap boxes, lecturing others on topics they are underqualified to speak on?
And with America sliding towards anti-intellectualism, as the current administration wages war on the arts, science, and the nature of truth, pseudointellectualism is the lesser evil here.
If the most insufferable person you know has taken it upon themselves to become disgustingly educated in 2026 . . . honestly, more power to them.