In our modern society sounding intelligent, or better yet, being pretentious is at the height of fashion. It now is of uttermost importance for one to come off as being “well cultured” and well informed, and honestly, lying is perhaps the best way to create this illusion of finesse. Therefore, if you’d like to deceive others into believing that you are far better educated than you actually are, you should lie. Lie constantly and as Hitler once said: “if you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed”.

In the process of crafting your pretentious identity it is essential that you take the initiative to visit a bookstore and buy a copy of James Joyce’s novel, “Ulysses”. Possessing a copy of this novel isn’t in itself an act of snobbery, hence, in order to be ostentatious, you must carry this book around with you everywhere and at least pretend to be reading it whenever you have the chance to. You don’t have to actually waste your time finishing the whole thing because just carrying it around and pretending to read it in the most unusual of places will impress those around you. I mean, I don’t know of anyone who read this novel in a train ride and can truthfully claim to have understood the ideas expressed in it. So, when people see you reading a classic such as this one in public places they’re bound to think that you must be brilliant.

Another very important step in coming off as being pretentious, I mean, in appearing to be smart, is to adopt an accent- preferably an English accent. I naturally have an accent, which people often mistake as being British, and it is something that automatically draws others to whatever it is I have to say. I guess there’s an element of sophistication in “sounding European”, a sort of je ne sais quoi, that makes you appear to be elegant and highly intelligent. For that reason, you should brush up your impersonation of foreign intellectuals as this is a guaranteed way of impressing plebs. English and French accents are perhaps the safest to try, as any other accent is often seen as a demonstration of your intellectual inferiority- which is kind of racist if you ask me. In any case, if you also speak a foreign language you should always randomly add an “untranslatable saying” into any form of discourse you’re carrying. This will portray you a cultured individual.

The ultimate step to sounding intelligent is to frequently quote notorious people, especially authors who have been long dead. It does not matter when you introduce these quotes and you don’t necessarily need to understand the circumstances under which such quotes were originally used. The point is that by quoting various people, by using the words of old and dead authors you will automatically seem to be a genius. Those words will appear to be yours and consequently, those listening will be quite impressed.

Well, that is all. If you are to thoroughly follow the advice I’ve provided to you here you’ll surely impress countless of simple minded people.

Tschüß!

(By the way, I’m the queen of pretentiousness and you can believe everything that I have told you here.)