The famous paper by Justin Kruger and David Dunning called “Unskilled and Unaware of It” describes how unskilled people often overestimate their abilities. This is often called the Dunning-Kruger effect.

This chart illustrates the most extreme examples.

The pointy part is where unskilled people think they are highly competent. It’s often referred to as “The Peak of Mt. Stupid”, or “Top Left”. Flat earthers, sovereign citizens, science deniers, and others regularly play “King of the Hill” to compete to sit atop the peak of Mt. Stupid.

The Top Left Competition is to identify the most deserving person to confidently place their rear end on the topmost pointy part of Mt. Stupid.

How it works

Nominations will be during a live stream where nominators briefly present a case supporting their nominee. YouTube content creators are invited, as well as members of the community. Please contact MCToon if you are interested in participating.

To officially be in consideration a competitor must receive a nomination and a second.

Voting will be during the month of March on videos hosted by FTFE and MCToon, details below.

The final willer will be announced live on April 1. April Fools Day, very fitting. The proud winner will be sent a free T-Shirt with commemorative Top Left artwork.

Schedule

• January, 2022 Competition announcement
• February 15, 2022 Nomination livestream
• March, 2022 Voting
• April 1, 2022 Award announcement livestream

Nominees

Nominees are not official until the nomination live stream but rumors may flourish.

MCToon has announced backing for Austin Whitsitt

Planarwalk has declared for Jason the Vegan

Voting

Votes will be on thumbs up and views of videos, one for each nominee. The videos will be hosted on FTFE’s and MCToon’s channels and posted on this page as well as playlists on YouTube. The view count and like count will be hidden until after the winner is announced.

If someone is nominated more than twice, each additional nomination gets 10 extra votes.

Can I vote more than once? Yes, the videos will be on both MCToon’s and FTFE’s channels. A thumbs up on each counts twice. Also, views will be counted. YouTube limits the number of views per day. So, vote early, vote often, and tell your friends to vote too.

Each nominee needs a video. The group of backers for any particular nominee are invited to create the best, most compelling video for your nominee. Videos should be less than 10 minutes long. Be certain there is no copyright infringement in the video. Contact MCToon to arrange to use the video. Videos must be received by Sunday, March 27th. Earlier is better.

If the nominators don’t make a super awesome, compelling video, MCToon and FTFE will make the video. But if they aren’t backing the nominee in question, FTFE and MCToon promise to not make it as awesome as you would. We totally play favorites in this competition.

Votes or views that are from bots or automated systems will not count. These can easily be identified in YouTube’s analytics web portal.

Artwork

The winner will receive a shirt with this artwork by Joel Rube: