Jaden Smith

About

Jaden Smith is a child-actor and rapper who is the son of actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. Online, Smith is known for his bizarre philosophical and poetic tweets for which he gained online notoriety in November 2013.

Personal Life

Jaden Christopher Syre Smith was born on July 8th, 1998 in Malibu, California. He is the older brother of Willow Smith and the younger half-brother of Trey Smith. He was homeschooled early on in his life.

History

Jaden Smith made his acting debut in the American biographical drama film The Pursuit of Happyness (shown below, left), which was released in theaters on December 15th, 2006. In December 2008, Smith played the role of Jacob Benson in the science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still (shown below, right).

In June 2010, Smith starred in a remake of the 1984 martial arts action film The Karate Kid (shown below, left). In May 2013, Smith starred with his father in the science fiction film After Earth (shown below, right).

Online Presence

Intense Eyebrows

In October 2012, Tumblr user Vondell Swain^[1] highlighted several photos of Smith (shown below), noting that he "always looks like he's really concerned about something he sees in the distance." The post was subsequently deleted. On October 12th, the Internet humor blog Pleated Jeans^[2] reblogged several of the photos.

Twitter

On October 14th, 2013, the viral content site BuzzFeed^[3] published an article about Smith's strange, poetic tweets, highlighting several notable examples superimposed over photographs of the actor (shown below).

On 4chan

In November of 2013, image macros featuring Smith's tweets began circulating on the /b/ (random) board on 4chan. On November 7th, 2013, Redditor xEphixia submitted an image macro to the /r/4chan^[4] subreddit, mocking Smith's tweet about the relationship between mirrors, eyes and reality (shown below). In the first 19 days, the post gained over 9,100 up votes and 600 comments.

On November 14th, a Jaden Smith thread was created on the /b/ board in which users posted things Smith might say on Twitter. The same day, a screenshot of the thread was submitted to the /r/4chan^[5] subreddit, where it gathered more than 6,100 up votes and 240 comments in the next two weeks.

On November 21st, Redditor thhath submitted an Imgur gallery featuring photoshopped pictures of Smith (shown below) to /r/4chan,^[6] garnering upwards of 8,900 up votes and 400 comments in the following five days. On November 23rd, the Internet news blog The Daily Dot^[7] published an article reporting that 4chan had crowned Smith the new "King of /b/."

Political Views and Conspiracy Theories

As he grew older, Jaden Smith became known for being vocal about issues revolving around conspiracy theories such as The Illuminati and Chemtrails. For instance, on September 30th, 2015, Smtih tweeted,^[9] "Chemtrails." and earned roughly 2,700 likes in seven years (shown below). On his 2017 album SYRE, Smith rapped about the Illuminati.^[10]

Jaden Smith Interview with Big Boy TV

On June 1st, 2018, Smith was interviewed on the Big Boy TV podcast.^[15] On April 9th, 2022, an eight-minute clip from it was reposted to YouTube.^[11] At the 4:06 minute mark, Jaden stated that he was happy he spent more of his childhood with adults than people his own age because he was "picking up more things" from adults. He continued by saying, "Dude… Can we talk about the political and economic state of the world right now?" The video earned roughly 965,500 views over the course of eight days (shown below).

"I am very happy that I spent my childhood with more adults than kids my own age because I was picking up more things from adults than I were from kids my own age. And I look around sometimes, and I hang with people my age and they're just, like, kind of… '[bouncing around and making noises] Bro, look at my phone! Selfie!' and I'm just like, 'Dude, like, oh my god, like, can we talk about the political and economic state of the world right now? Can we talk about what's going on with the environment?'"

The short clip was reposted to Twitter^[12] on April 17th by user kirawontmiss, who earned roughly 197,600 likes and 4.5 million views in one day (shown below).

Many Twitter users started to post memes about Jaden's quote, predominantly centering on the idea that Jaden was exposing deep truths and woke politics to little kids when he was also a little kid. Many memes and tweets imagined Smith in elementary school talking about the geopolitical topics he namedropped.

For instance, on the 17th, Twitter^[13] user jihadydon captioned Travis Scott's Apology Video with, "Jaden Smith when he sees kids going to birthday parties instead of discussing politics and the economic state of the world:" earning roughly 164,200 likes in one day (shown below, left). Also on the 17th, Twitter^[14] user KamsIntern captioned an image of crying SpongeBob with, "8 year old Jaden smith when jada gave him a spider man themed birthday party instead of a book study on the war of Mesopotamia," earning roughly 21,300 likes in one day (shown below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References