Is there a way to satirize lack of intelligence without, you know, making allusions to deficiencies?
In my thinking “brain worms” is analogous with “mind virus”, which, as other wrote, can infect anyone, regardless or intelligence or whatever.
To me, brainworms describes someone that has been "infected" by a dysfunctional ideology (usually some form of liberalism or fascism). It colors everything they see, feel, say, and do. The brainworms analogy is especially apt because you can "inoculate" yourself with communist theory and praxis.
For example, an American that's never read theory or had much exposure to any sort of communist thought or action, is instead steeped in the dominant neoliberal ideology. They might argue that the atomic bombings in Japan were justified because they prevented American deaths. This is because for their entire life they have been told things like that. Something so heinous as vaporizing hundreds of thousands of people doesn't even phase them because they can't consider other possibilities. That is the brainworm.
I agree, most of the time I see brain worms referenced it not about lack of intelligence or even education, just being totally twisted into a toxic ideology by propaganda. Like a some big brain lib trying to tell us that the CIA is woke now because a woman’s in charge.
Very disrespectful of all the people who died of brain worms in that documentary Slither.
Brain worms isn’t a deficiency. If anything, it means you have more things in your skull than you should.
There's a subtle but important difference between people of lesser cognitive ability and people who choose to believe dumb things. I think mostly everyone on this website would agree that it is bad to make fun of people in the first category. People don't choose their cognitive abilities, they are more or less born that way and deserve to be treated with respect regardless. However, people voluntarily choose to believe stupid shit all the time, regardless of intelligence, usually to feel superior to other people (e.g. conspiracy theorists, racists, etc.). It is important to note that the latter group makes a CHOICE to act stupid, and thus deserves ridicule. And since brainworms aren't a real disease that real people suffer from, I think it is generally okay to use as an insult. On the other hand, using this term to refer to a person with cognitive impairments would be ableist IMO. Then again, so would calling them "stupid". I think it really depends on context.
I don't believe brain worms, as people usually use the term, refers to anything that I would consider ableism. People who are "smart" (whatever that means) and "sane" (whatever that means) can go down a terrifying spiral of conspiratorial thinking, fueled by the people they're around and the media they consume.
It doesn't mean that they're differently abled, rather it means they use the abilities that they have in just the fucking worst way possible
I thought it meant like literal worms in the brain, like the kinds in B movie sci-fi that control your mind. There is a very good chance that I'm wrong however, as is often the case.
But there are some parasites that live in brains, and they of course correlate with poverty and a double or triple stigma. Or so I was told when I did this same bit here.
"Ear worm" is a reference to a song that keeps playing in your head long after it has stopped playing.
I always thought "brain worms" was the same, but for ideas. A bit of thing that works its way deep into your brain and is very hard/impossible to remove.
A memetic hazard if you will.
Wow, now you're doing ableism on people with temporal comprehension issues.
For those asking if "brain worms" are real...
https://www.merckmanuals.com/home/brain,-spinal-cord,-and-nerve-disorders/brain-infections/parasitic-brain-infections
^That includes the tapeworm gotten by eating undercooked swine flesh.
