Or, in the case of female PhDs, they never actually struggled that much for “popularity”, but are still insecure, so have decided they are “smort”, and deserve academic recognition for their weird niche pursuits…

I know someone who is pursuing a PhD in “musicology”. She’s really not a nice person to be around, but then again, she’s thought the sun shines out of her own arse for at least a decade, so… Yeah.

Ironically was quite a nice person when we were younger, but then something changed (I never figured out exactly what, so I can only guess), and her whole personality did a 180, and she developed an ever-bigger ego. Not the only girl I know who that happened to (all academic “high achievers”, not coincidentally), but I try not to think about it too much…