Come out with fluffy 'profound' sounding nonsense and act all smug like they just dropped something immensely intelligent.
I think the big push behind this is rap music, and especially the "mic drop" moment in it.
If you listen to enough rap, you'll notice there is a huge overrepresentation of the "music cuts out" moment to emphasize a punchline that is supposed to be the epic culmination. In songs its usually built up to, and in the rap battles it was meant to be the power move that just ended the show because no one else could follow that.
Its not something entirely unique to that genre, but its one that has it as a common element instead of a rarity. And the massive popularity of rap in the 90s/00s lines up perfectly with the growing up of the pseudo-intellectuals who love moments like that and imagine themselves as the one to drop such a bomb on people.
I think the big push behind this is rap music, and especially the "mic drop" moment in it.
If you listen to enough rap, you'll notice there is a huge overrepresentation of the "music cuts out" moment to emphasize a punchline that is supposed to be the epic culmination. In songs its usually built up to, and in the rap battles it was meant to be the power move that just ended the show because no one else could follow that.
Its not something entirely unique to that genre, but its one that has it as a common element instead of a rarity. And the massive popularity of rap in the 90s/00s lines up perfectly with the growing up of the pseudo-intellectuals who love moments like that and imagine themselves as the one to drop such a bomb on people.