as much as I love season 3 for the scoops troop i think how Steve was depicted there really fuelled the "Steve is just a dumb himbo 😝" thing because they made him act dumber for some reason? and people just clung onto that

HMM yeah honestly i think it's that like. he acts entirely the same but the worst parts of fandom tend to be the most annoying bastardising people on earth and will strip a character of everything they are in order to mass produce frothy content with no substance because a character that is two dimensional and easily trope-ified can be then easily marketable replicatable and therefore accessible in fan content. like they don't have to think of his actual characterisation or ANYONE'S!!! because they're reducing the character to a small handful of generalised traits in order to make Incorrect Character Quote blogs or something. ummm i don't think steve has ever even once been a "himbo" i think that's a ridiculous term for small hearted people + he is the victim of his own comedy relief + it's like the easiest thing in the world to be like "i'm not saying he's dumb to be mean he's dumb and i love it 😂" so no one cares to like think about that a little bit let alone anyone who claims to Really Understand Him bc they would have to acknowledge they're using a weird mindset there, at least potentially...

like yeah he's a little behind on some things and is the asks silly questions guy but it's honestly just so fucking MEAN to me to hold him to shit like that entirely as someone who thinks in very similar ways like okay you're hurting my feelings a little bit here sorry. also his questions and Dumb Moments aren't even that fucking insane like not to be the steve fan who is constantly defending a tv show character but oh my god who gives a shit he asked if the stupid scifi villain was a vampire because he could have been a fucking vampire SHUT UPPPPPP. also parallel thinking and delayed processing etc like this is such a common trait in a line with neurodivergent behaviour TBH like seriously think about what you're implying here!!! honestly people really show their hand in equating intelligence with worth let alone intelligence with just knowing dumb shit when that's just memorisation and recollection. anyone can do that and you're just being fucking rude tbh 😑.

ALSO like, objectively, people are missing the point of the character misdirects here imo... :0 in the words of joe keery himself it takes a little bit for him to get there but he still GETS THERE, also honestly i DO think he is still in general not actually The Silly Stupid Bimbo One i think he has and always WILL be the Normal One who reacts to things Normally he is just surrounded by the worlds most precocious genius children and precocious genius other teens and their very lives depend on figuring things out and he struggles making those particular connections which is in fact, again, Entirely Normal, because he lives in a world where monsters exist. i've compared him to like an isekai'd character before because of it LOL. STEVE in particular is also literally half the time The One in the midst helping figure things out and it's CRAZY if his character season 3 in particular is helping this particular Silly Himbo phenomena because i honestly think he is his most... assured? helpful? in season 3? he helps with the code even though he Try As He Might can't learn an ENTIRE LANGUAGE with a different alphabet in like two days, HE identifies the song in the recording and deduces it means the code came from the mall itself, he makes logical leaps and on the fly thinking moves in order to get himself and the people he's trying to help out of dangerous situations a dozen different times + his street smarts are still SMARTS. one of the most important parts of his character TO ME is that he is smart in OTHER WAYS to highlight that you Can be helpful + important without being like a fucking MENSA child. and it just feels cheap and silly to call him a HIMBO after that... it doesn't come off as "aw but i love it" as people think at least From Some People, and To Me. i also don't really think they like, MADE him dumb or anything in season 3 in particular i think fanonisation has just rotted his actual characterisation away :(

i think like objectively here ppl calling him dumb and being like I Love It!!! don't mean anything by it and the word himbo is like, fine, and i also say that he's silly and i DO love it he IS my little dumby but that is also because he is in the same way i am and really at the end of the day we're both Not actually stupid. and really what i mean when i say it is he's funny and i love him and i love his silly moments bc i get it i get it so much i would say that too. i also think ppl trying to combat this in particular to prove he is actually INCREDIBLY intelligent are also missing the mark a little (imo) i think he's just normal and has different strengths <3. also, to try and make a certain trait lovable people need to realise they can just come off incredibly condescending or even dehumanising and ESPECIALLY, to wrap it all back around to the reason i was talking about this, applying false diagnostic criteria for like learning disabilities or disorders in order to "explain" why he's Dumb to you will end up coming off just oh. so ableist. especially from neurotypical and allistic people.