Tournament of Genius
Play-In Game: Paris Hilton vs. Edward McSweegan
by Tournament of Genius - March 16, 2009 - 2:00 PM

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Paris Hilton

Most heiresses would be content to sit back in obscurity with their millions, but Hilton has turned herself into a media cottage industry despite her utter lack of any sort of talent that can be discerned without the aid of a video camera’s night-vision feature. She’s been in a hit TV show, starred in movies, recorded two albums, written two books, and hawked her own fragrance line. While you can debate whether Hilton’s high profile says anything good about American culture, it’s hard to deny there’s something creepily ingenious about her rise to fame.

Edward McSweegan

McSweegan’s not as famous as some our other nominees, but he’s certainly some sort of genius. According to McSweegan, a former vaccine scientist for the National Institutes of Health, he went to work from 1996 to 2003 without ever doing any work. At all. McSweegan told the Washington Post that he went to the NIH office but never did anything work-related. He allegedly received a salary of about $100K a year despite never having a single job responsibility. McSweegan sat at his desk and wrote two novels and would take breaks to go to a nearby health club, all while getting paid. Now that’s a genius!

The Breakdown

You may not want to copy off of Hilton’s SAT, but she’s had more staying power than your average celebutante. Then again, McSweegan had an impressively long run of not doing any work. There’s only one question surrounding his genius credentials: if he had such a sweet no-work deal going, why was he dumb enough to open his mouth and ruin it?

[poll=5]

[See the whole bracket here.]

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Comments (9)

  1. What am I voting for? Who I like better? Who I’d rather be? Who’s smarter? Who deserves their success more? It’s hard to answer the question without knowing the question.

    posted by Craig on 3-16-2009 at 2:14 pm

  2. Paris’s “success” (if you can call it that) seems to be due in no part to her intellect or even her perserverence. McSweegan managed to hold down a 6 figure income job for 7 years without receiving a poor performance (Or a horribly incompetant manager..)

    posted by Bri on 3-16-2009 at 2:25 pm

  3. Hmm.. it seems part of my comment was cut off. That should have read:

    McSweegan managed to hold down a 6-figure income job for 7 years without receiving a poor performance review. Now that takes a genius! (Or a horribly incompetant manager…)

    posted by Bri on 3-16-2009 at 2:27 pm

  4. I think having Paris Hilton in a “Tournament of Genius” is absurd, even if she is seeded 16.

    posted by Kosmo on 3-16-2009 at 2:37 pm

  5. McSweegan for sure.

    Although Hilton “recorded” CD’s and “wrote” a book, I believe she had help in all those endeavors. McSweegan skated by on his own, Hilton skated by on her parent’s money.

    posted by NateJ on 3-16-2009 at 6:17 pm

  6. Come on People, Mac the Moron could not keep his big mouth shut. If I had a cake job where I could write and work out, my Mom would not know about it. Mac showed total idiotude on this one.

    posted by gus on 3-16-2009 at 6:31 pm

  7. Never heard of Mac, but anything to get Paris off this page ASAP. This is Mental Floss, not mental loss.

    posted by partiallyDeflected on 3-16-2009 at 11:06 pm

  8. I think no one will win this battle. Paris Hilton isn’t bright & Edward Waht’s-His-Name isn’t popular.

    posted by Karl on 3-17-2009 at 5:07 am

  9. Ok, Tournament of Geniuses has just become the single most important thing in my life, but I can’t find the post on Mental Floss that started this whole thing. Like how were the competitor’s seeds determined?

    posted by Amber on 3-17-2009 at 10:19 pm

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