I’m with silly: How The Traitors proved enjoying dumb is the neatest transfer within the fashionable age

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People keep on telling me about how clever Kas is.” These 10 simple words, though complimentary on the face of it, may have unwittingly sealed an innocent man’s fate.

Uttered by Leon about his fellow contestant Kasim on the BBC’s explosively popular strategy gameshow The Traitors, they planted a seed of suspicion that rapidly grew into a veritable jungle. For three consecutive nights, the poor good doctor was hauled over the coals at the Round Table, increasingly ostracised from the group and forced to defend his unimpeachable character, before being unceremoniously banished at the end of the fourth episode. He was, of course, a Faithful all along.

If you’ve never watched the show, the premise is simple: a group of strangers are thrown together in a Scottish castle to play the game. At the beginning, a small minority of players are secretly given the role of Traitor; everyone else is a Faithful. Each night, the Traitors pick a Faithful to “murder”, eliminating them one by one from the game. Each day, the whole group has a Round Table discussion to guess who they think could be a possible Traitor, at the end of which one person is voted out or “banished”. In the final round of the game, if there are only Faithfuls left, they split a sizable prize pot between them. If even a single Traitor remains, they win all the money instead.

It’s a masterclass in group think, mob mentality, anthropology, psychology, sociology, duplicity, manipulation, the art of persuasion – you name it. The format, now on its third UK series, makes for wildly compelling viewing.

Contestants form cliques, construct outlandish theories, and accuse others largely based on bias under the guise of “evidence” that ranges from scant to non-existent. Opinions can turn on a dime, and staying safe from banishment is a much harder task than one might imagine in a game where even the merest mention of your name can see the herd turn against you.

But in the case of Kasim, a 33-year-old doctor from Cambridge who seemed unwaveringly kind, decent and personable, his intellect paved the way for his downfall. After Leon highlighted Kas’s smarts, doubt crept in across the group. Cleverness, far from being an asset, was deemed something to be wary of.

“You, Kas – you are smart, you are calculated,” came Jake’s damning character assassination the following night. “You save lives during the day, you’re killing at night. It just makes sense, the dots are connecting there.” (This accusation, in turn, led to one of the show’s most iconic lines thus far from Kas: “You’re basically calling me Harold Shipman.”)

He’s not the only one to fall foul of the “too smart” poisoned chalice. During the same Round Table in which Kas was eliminated, politics student Freddie also received a high number of votes, with the justification in one instance being: “You’re so clever and so bright.”

Previous series have likewise shown that it pays to come across as an average Joe, IQ-wise – not one of those highfalutin, big words-using, book-smart people. Take the first season, when Imran – a Faithful who happened to be the world’s youngest PhD holder in astrophysics – was the second player to be banished. No one could put their finger on exactly why he was suspicious, with vague references to his “body language” and “a couple of things that have been said” the only explanations given. His departure was quickly followed by that of Ivan, a games master, author and game theory expert who, once again, proved that being too clever by half was the stupidest play of all. “I’m really actually sad with you Ivan because you are so smart,” said one fellow player before voting him out, while another delivered the words that every participant should come to dread: “I do think you’re a genius.”

In the second series, whipsmart chess coach Anthony was clever enough to correctly guess that everyone’s favourite baddie Paul was a Traitor a full three episodes before the latter was banished, based on completely sound logic rather than a whim masquerading as “gut instinct”. But his only reward was banishment himself in episode six. The final nail in the coffin? His “very clever way of diverting questions”, according to another player.

On the flipside of the coin, we’ve seen time and time again that not appearing to be too bright – giving off a solid, salt-of-the-earth, guileless vibe – acts as the best protective shield there is. You’re neither seen as a threat, nor as someone capable of pulling off deception and duplicity. Just look at some of the finalists who previously managed to stumble their way to the end, not by virtue of any great strategy or gameplay, but by being what one might uncharitably classify as “useful idiots”. Meryl and Aaron in season one; sweet, gullible Mollie in season two (who, even when presented with a cast-iron way to win the game, chose instead to put misplaced loyalty above taking home the cash).

Returning to series three’s latest evisceration of the intelligentsia, Kas was tellingly smeared with one particularly unpalatable label after defending himself eloquently with clear, coherent arguments that somehow only deepened others’ suspicions. “Sat here tonight, listening to the way you’ve reacted to some of Jake’s comments, you remind me of a politician,” was fellow Faithful Joe’s damning assessment. “The way you say stuff, there’s, like, no substance, and I just don’t believe you.”

The whole exchange perhaps reflected a much wider issue that’s been insidiously creeping into public discourse and opinion around the world: an inherent suspicion towards, and rejection of, intellect, especially when it comes to those in charge. Michael Gove helped kick-start this anti-intellectualism movement back in 2016 (despite himself being an Oxford grad), with his infamous declaration that “the people in this country have had enough of experts” during the EU referendum campaign. The “people of this country” appeared to agree with him, voting for not only Brexit but a succession of bumbling PMs that most notably culminated in Liz “lettuce” Truss, who managed to spectacularly tank the economy during a tenure that lasted less than 50 days (making her the UK’s shortest-serving prime minister).

Further afield, you only have to look across the Pond at the US’s re-election of Donald Trump and rejection of Kamala Harris to wonder whether true genius lies in stupidity when it comes to getting ahead as a prospective leader. The president-elect’s latest random obsessions include inexplicably renaming the Gulf of Mexico and taking Greenland from Denmark (for deeply spurious reasons reminiscent of a child suddenly deciding that they want to swipe their sibling’s toy).

Interestingly, studies have shown that intelligent people are more trusting of others than their less smart counterparts; Oxford University researchers concluded that this was because the former are, in fact, better judges of character. But in the game of The Traitors – and of life – perhaps the smartest thing of all is to play dumb.