This comment reeks of exceptionalism and “iamverysmart”. I hope you dont take strong offence to that because I am not saying you think this way, only that what you wrote sounds that way.

That said: Mass appeal always lowers the quality of discourse, due (in part) to there being more of a bias towards being first (the first comment to make a certain type of joke will be rewarded most) and also due to the fact that people tend to aggregate around things that are fun, not necessarily correct.

btw: IQ is a measure of pattern matching and is used in children to determine mental development relative to their biological age, it shouldn’t have any affect on internet discourse.