I didn't say half the shit they say I did / - Albert Einstein
A Albert Einstein post.
The group chat sends you a motivational quote about insanity being repetition. It has a wise face next to it and no source. You share it at work anyway, because it sounds like something a clever person would have said. Your cousin failed one driving test and has told the story at every family gathering since, ending with "you know, the greats struggled too". Nobody has the heart to ask which greats. A colleague explains the plan in a meeting, and it sounds mad. Eight months later it is the only plan that worked. You were the one rolling your eyes at the time, and you are now very interested in the quarterly numbers. The pub quiz asks who came up with a famous equation. Four people at your table shout the same name at once, and not one of them could explain what the letters mean. You win the round anyway. **Why it caught on:** the picture is a black-and-white portrait of the physicist Albert Einstein, white hair untamed, moustache full, hands clasped, gazing off to one side. He is the internet's shorthand for "genius", so his face was an obvious fit for jokes about intelligence, and for the endless stream of quotes wrongly credited to him. The picture is also cheerfully used for the myth that he failed maths, which he did not.