Gatekeeping Memes

The Ultimate Chemistry Pop Quiz

1 day ago 2.7K views 0 shares

The ultimate chemistry gatekeeping test! Nothing strikes fear into a chemistry student's heart quite like being asked to spell out "tin tin" - or should I say, Sn(C 10 H 7 ) 2 ? That's bis(naphthyl)tin for the uninitiated. The gun just adds that extra pressure that every oral exam already has. Chemistry professors don't actually need weapons - they have nomenclature questions instead!

The Falsifiability Feline

Academia Science Physics Scientists Research

6 days ago 3.1K views 0 shares

The kitten's journey through scientific gatekeeping is peak academic humor. It's all fun and games dismissing political science, social science, and computer science with a casual "hehe" until someone brings up Karl Popper's falsifiability criterion to attack string theory. Suddenly it's "not hehe" when the same logic is applied to theoretical physics! Nothing triggers a physics enthusiast faster than suggesting their beloved string theory might be in the same boat as sociology. The methodological turf war continues, while this kitten inadvertently exposes the arbitrary hierarchies we create within scientific disciplines.

The Mathematical Caste System

Math Academia Science

12 days ago 3.8K views 0 shares

The mathematical hierarchy according to Reddit! At the bottom, we have the peasants with their "high school calculus" and the blasphemous "π=3" approximation (mathematicians just felt a disturbance in the force). Meanwhile, the enlightened few venture into the promised lands of topology and "real analysis" – as if the rest of us were doing fake analysis all along. Nothing screams mathematical superiority quite like a meme that simultaneously gatekeeps and validates your four years of theoretical math torture. The derivative of e^x equals e^x? Revolutionary stuff! Next you'll tell me water is wet and academic publishing is a functional system.

The Engineering Hierarchy Of Mockery

Engineering Tech Science

12 days ago 4.2K views 0 shares

The engineering hierarchy in its natural habitat! This meme brilliantly captures the interdisciplinary shade-throwing between engineering disciplines. Mechanical engineers see themselves as Greek gods chiseled from marble, while viewing electrical engineers as nerdy bow-tie enthusiasts and software "engineers" as literally just thumbs on a keyboard. Meanwhile, electrical engineers perceive themselves as superhuman speedsters, mechanical engineers as cartoon monkeys with wrenches, and software folks as actual clowns. The quotation marks around "Engineers" for software developers is the chef's kiss of professional gatekeeping. Nothing says "real science" like disciplinary tribalism!

Anyone Else Really Hate These Cynical Jerks In The Comment Sections Of Nautilus Streams?

Oceanography Biology Science Research

22 days ago 11.4K views 0 shares

Anyone Else Really Hate These Cynical Jerks In The Comment Sections Of Nautilus Streams?

The eternal battle between self-appointed science gatekeepers and marine biologists who just want to geek out over cephalopods. Nothing says "I've never touched grass" quite like typing furiously about proper scientific decorum while actual researchers are busy having genuine moments of joy watching an octopus do octopus things. The gatekeepers seem to forget that enthusiasm is what got most scientists into the field in the first place. Meanwhile, the marine biologists are too busy witnessing eight-armed intelligence to care about keyboard warriors.

The Mod Locked The Thread With A Single Comment 😭

Engineering Tech Academia

27 days ago 4.8K views 0 shares

The Mod Locked The Thread With A Single Comment 😭

Engineering forums in their natural habitat. Someone asks a detailed, thoughtful question about wireless protocols and the mod's entire response is just "google." The digital equivalent of a professor writing "see textbook" on your 3-page question. Twenty years of engineering education and experience distilled into a single dismissive word. The beautiful irony is that if the poster had just googled "why are engineers so insufferably condescending," they'd have found this exact thread as the top result.

Science Is Science!

Psychology Science Academia Research

1 month ago 4.1K views 0 shares

When someone tries to gatekeep the scientific community by claiming psychology and sociology aren't "real sciences," my blood pressure spikes faster than a poorly controlled lab experiment. These fields use empirical research, statistical analysis, and peer review just like the "hard sciences" - they just study the most complex system in the universe: human behavior. Dismissing them as "only social ones" is like saying astronomy isn't science because you can't put a star in a test tube. The scientific method doesn't care what you're studying, it cares how you study it!

Name Every Planet... Or Else

Astronomy Science Universe

1 month ago 4.6K views 0 shares

The gatekeeping in astronomy is getting ridiculous! "Oh, you like space? Name every celestial body in alphabetical order while reciting their orbital periods." Meanwhile, most "experts" still can't agree if Pluto deserves its planetary status back. The irony is that actual astronomers are too busy arguing about dark matter to care if you can name all eight (or nine) planets. Next time someone pulls this, just say "Earth" and walk away - technically you named a planet, which is infinitely more than zero planets.

Pop-Science Prodigy Or Professional Poser?

Academia Science Scientists Research

1 month ago 4.3K views 0 shares

Pop-Science Prodigy Or Professional Poser?

The ultimate scientific paradox: someone who claims to "just read pop-science books" but somehow knows enough to make actual scientists question their own expertise. Every researcher knows this type - the Neil deGrasse Tyson wannabe who drops quantum physics terms at parties but has never set foot in a lab. That smug little smirk in the last panel is the universal signal of "I've memorized just enough jargon to sound smart at dinner parties." Meanwhile, actual PhD students are sobbing into their ramen noodles wondering if six years of advanced education was worth it when this guy gets the same respect after skimming "A Brief History of Time" once.

The Great Mathematical Territorial Dispute

Math Academia Science

1 month ago 5.2K views 0 shares

The Great Mathematical Territorial Dispute

The internet's most intense territorial dispute isn't over land—it's over subreddit real estate! When math content infiltrates a non-math community, actual math majors watch in horror as self-proclaimed "Reddit experts" swoop in with their questionable calculations and half-remembered formulas from 8th grade. It's like watching someone confidently explain that 1+1=3 "because of quantum superposition" while the person who spent 4 years crying over differential equations sits in the corner having an existential crisis. The mathematical equivalent of mansplaining chess to a grandmaster!

The Great Science Gatekeeping Paradox

Math Science Physics Academia

1 month ago 5.2K views 0 shares

The eternal battle between pop-sci enthusiasts and actual mathematical rigor! This meme brutally calls out those who claim to "love science" but would run screaming from a partial differential equation. The irony is delicious - consuming sci-fi entertainment and YouTube explainers doesn't quite equate to understanding Maxwell's equations or tackling eigenvalue problems. It's like claiming you're a chef because you watch cooking shows while eating microwave dinners. The gatekeeping is strong with this one, but let's be honest - there's a tiny calculus-avoiding gremlin in all of us that prefers the digestible version of science over grinding through problem sets!

We Are Not The Same: The Academic Hierarchy

Physics Math Academia Science

1 month ago 7.6K views 0 shares

We Are Not The Same: The Academic Hierarchy

The eternal battle of online science forums, immortalized in four panels of pure academic chaos! Top row: r/AskPhysics, where you've got the pretentious quantum enthusiast asking about pre-Big Bang time with "super hyper knowledge" (translation: read half a Brian Greene book) versus the electricity specialist having an existential meltdown because someone dared to ask about cosmology. Bottom row: r/askmath, featuring the virgin quadratic equation asker versus the chad "do your homework" responder. Nothing captures academic gatekeeping quite like watching someone ask about time before the Big Bang while another person frantically screams that electricity is the only valid physics topic. Meanwhile, in math land, asking for the solutions to x²+x=0 gets you the digital equivalent of "get off my lawn!" The hierarchy of academic snobbery is real, and it's spectacular.

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