Woman Shares How 'Acting Dumb' Has Completely Changed Her Life
It's lowered her stress and changed how people treat her, and even psychology has found playing dumb has real benefits.
Dean Drobot | Canva Pro If you've been in the working world, you've likely noticed that a whole lot of the people in charge of things are often kind of… well, dumb. Like to the point that you wonder how they ever got there in the first place. Is it possible that their dumbness was the key to their success? According to one woman on Reddit, it just might be.
The woman says acting dumb has completely changed her life.
In her since-deleted Reddit post, a 26-year-old woman said that playing dumb has basically transformed every aspect of her life, from her day-to-day workplace experiences to her literal mental health.
"Ever since I was a kid, I tried so hard to prove to my parents and teachers how smart I was," she wrote. But you may have noticed that nowadays, that kind of effort all too often doesn't pay off. There have been actual studies that show that the more industrious and competent a person is at work, the more they tend to get taken advantage of rather than promoted.
Today's 20-somethings are in a working world that is even more stacked against them, so it's perhaps understandable that, a few years into her career, this woman had already had it. So she made a 180 that has made all the difference.
The woman got tired of trying and started playing dumb instead, and it instantly made her life easier.
By the time she turned 23, the woman said she was already "exhausted" by constantly trying to be seen and recognized, so she switched it up. "I gave up," she wrote. "I went the opposite way and started pretending to be dumb all the time."
She said the change was immediate — in part because people started helping her more, rather than assuming she was the competent, confident go-getter she'd been pretending to be. Best of all, "I found peace of mind because I stopped caring about people’s expectations."
Others on Reddit reported similar experiences, with one person saying playing dumb often wins you over to others because they don't see you as a threat. And this, in the end, can help you get ahead.
It's like the "failing upward" trend we see among so many of our utterly unqualified bosses. "I've noticed how the more incompetent you are, the more help you receive," one person wrote. "The more that you look like you have your [stuff] together … the less you will get."
This is probably partly because playing dumb can also be a really helpful way of navigating office politics. It can help you suss out people's true character, for one thing, and pretending like you've never noticed how much the boss sucks, for example, is a great way to stay out of the kind of gossip-fueled office drama that eventually ends with people getting fired.
Psychology says there actually are real benefits to playing dumb.
Playing dumb was one of several "knowledge hiding" behaviors examined in a 2022 German study, and the findings are interesting. The authors found that giving incorrect information or full-on lying actually raised "psychological strain" significantly in the long run once the initial relief wore off.
Simply pretending not to know anything at all on the other hand, not only did the opposite, but provided relief far more quickly and thoroughly than more dishonest methods of "knowledge hiding," and that committing to the bit as this woman on Reddit has done is what provides the most relief.
The study authors warned, however, that in most cases all of these practices are likely to have blowback eventually, especially in relationships — look at all the divorces fueled by so-called "weaponized incompetence," for example. And in the workplace, it's easy to get into "hiding your light" territory that does you no favors.
As with most things, it all depends on what your goals are and especially how far you take it. Maybe career advancement isn't important to you — maybe you just want the path of least resistance when it comes to a paycheck. And when it comes to making things like that a whole lot less stressful? Even the science says playing dumb can make a huge difference.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.