Brainlet is an internet slang term primarily used as a pejorative on 4chan when referring to those with limited intelligence, implying they have a small brain. Illustrations of brainlets are often depicted as the character Wojack with an incredibly small head, as opposed to "tfw too intelligent" drawings.

Origin

The earliest archived use of the term "brainlet" on 4chan was submitted to the /sci/ (Science & Math) imageboard on December 1st, 2015 in a post asking "When will science finally find a cure for low IQ? I don't want to be a brainlet anymore" (shown below).^[6]

O Anonymous Tue Dec 1 10:14:34 2015 No.7692199 [Reply] archived.moe] Quoted by: >7694336>>7694415 IQ When will science finally find a cure for low IQ? I don't want to be a brainlet anymore. >> Anonymous Tue Dec 1 10:42:38 2015 No.7692224 No "cure don't act retarded O Anonymous Tue Dec 1 11:00:07 2015 No.7692239 Quoted by: >7692249>>7692269 7692276 >7699047>7700025 It's called positive eugenices. Once everyone is smart though society will collapse. You need stupid people to do all the drone/wageslave work.

Spread

On September 18th, 2016, a thread asking "what's with the 'brainlet' meme these days?" was submitted to the /sci/ board.^[2] On October 29th, an anonymous 4chan user submitted a post asking "What is /sci/ official definition of brainlet?" to /sci/.^[3] On May 11th, 2017, Urban Dictionary ^[1] user TinFoilHatGuy submitted an entry for "brainlet," defining it an "immature, underdeveloped cerebral cortex."

brainlet immature,underdeveloped cerebral cortex,unfit for real world survival Jimmy scored ninety on the I.Q.test. What a brainlet!

On June 4th, a "Brainlet Safe Thread" was posted to /sci/ along with a picture of Wojak with a microscopic brain (shown below, left).^[5] On July 2nd, a picture of Wojak with an atrophied head was submitted to the /biz/ (Business & Finance) board in a thread titled "/brainlet/" (shown below).

wojak with a brain so small it can only be seen under a microscope File: 116 KB, 724x897, 1498838210180.jpg View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] [report] 鍵/brain!et/ Anonymous Sun Jul 2 15:16:24 2017 No.2688301 [Reply] [Original] [archived.moe] Quoted by: 268835026886322688906 no idea what a blockchain is no idea what any of these coins or tokens do read a white paper, don't understand anything no idea how any of these worlk still spent literally all my money and savings on cryptocoins because /biz/ told me Anonymous Sun Jul 2 15:17:57 2017 No.2688316 Quoted by: 2688323 ignorance is your choice, literally type blockchain into youtube and you'll have it explained to you

On October 18th, an anonymous 4chan user submitted a post to /r9k/ with the green text "think for your whole life that you are intelligent / you are actually a brainlet" (shown below). That day, a screenshot of the post was submitted to the subreddit /r/4chan,^[4] where it gathered more than 800 points (96% upvoted) within one week.

4chan thread that starts with a picture of a small brained wojak wearing an intelligent wojak mask with a big brain and glasses and greentext about thinking you're smart when you're actually stupid

Grayons

On December 8th, 2017, a 4chan user replied to the thread on /v/^[7] with an illustration of a drooling brainlet with a long neck (shown below, left). On January 12th, 2018, an edited version of the image in which the character is shown eating crayons along with the caption "Mmmm grayons" was submitted to a post on /tv/ ^[8] (shown below, right).

Mmmm grayons

On May 5th, an entry for "grayons" was submitted to Urban Dictionary.^[10] On August 7th, a collection of edited variations of the character was published on Ebaumsworld ^[9] (shown below).

Mmmm grayons Mmmm grayons Mmm grayons