"Maverick boy genius that shatters conventional wisdom" is a well-established media trope, with decades worth of films and TV shows priming people into thinking

"Maverick boy genius that shatters conventional wisdom" is a well-established media trope, with decades worth of films and TV shows priming people into thinking that is plausible. Women's stories as told in the media often come with a "unrecognized in her time" narrative that isn't quite as gripping. Combine that with the hero worship common among the "college is a scam / audit the Fed" demographic AND their Dunning-Krueger multiplier effect of social media-based marketing, and you've got yourself a very distorted picture of reality.