Photo: Sky Cinema / Shutterstock
Eyes are not real.
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Apr 19, 2022
Will Smith’s oldest son with Jada Pinkett Smith is no stranger to the limelight and media attention but Jaden Smith is becoming a little bit of a hot topic after fans recently began dredging up his many outlandish moments.
Growing up under two world-famous actors, especially one as revered as Will, would certainly put Jaden near the top of social media’s hit list.
While he may have found success as both an actor and rapper, Jaden has also made a name for himself by saying and tweeting some of the weirdest, most controversial things you could find on the internet — so we thought we’d talk about it.
Here are 11 of Jaden Smith’s weirdest moments on social media and in interviews.
1. Jaden Smith was roasted for saying he doesn't relate to people his age.
During an interview with BigBoyTV back in June 2018, he revealed that he had spent a lot of his childhood with adults more than with children his own age.
“I was picking up more things from adults than I was from kids my own age,” he says before going into an imitation of what kids his own age were like, flailing his arms and shaking his head around, speaking in gibberish.
“Can we talk about, like, the political and economic state of the world right now? Can we talk about what’s going on with the environment? Can we talk about other things?” he asked.
This clip resurfaced after BigBoyTV reposted the clip on YouTube and instantly, people immediately began roasting him for acting like he was better than kids his age (he would have been 19 at this point.)
Trust me Jaden, if you think this is what adult conversations sound like all of the time, then you might want to think again.
2. Jaden Smith says our eyes aren't real — or mirrors, for that matter.
Back in 2013, when Jaden was only 14 years old, he tweeted: “How Can Mirrors Be Real If Our Eyes Aren't Real.”
This tweet might be what threw Jaden into the limelight of social media posts for so long.
After this point, everyone was wondering what absolutely crazy thing Jaden would post next.
Are our brains real? Is reality real? Are you really reading this right now, or is it a figment of your imagination?
While most people treated this as some sort of “troll” statement from Jaden, thinking that he was just messing with everyone, he has actually elaborated on where this historic tweet came from.
“This one comes from a study that a scientist was saying, that the way that the eyes perceive reality is not the way we actually see it,” he said during an exclusive interview with HuffPost.
“So, like, we can only see three base colors, but there’s so much more on the electromagnetic spectrum of light that we could see, but our eyes are just not capable of seeing, which brought me to the realization that what we see on an everyday basis is not actually what’s there. It’s actually only what we can take in.”
He also grabbed the science of how our eyes work sort of like mirrors in that the information we receive is upside down but our brain's process is right side up.
Put these two things together, and you get Jaden’s bizarre tweet.
3. Jaden Smith believes that schools were made to brainwash the youth.
To the list of weird tweets scribed by Jaden, we can add the two that deal with his thoughts and opinions on the education system in America.
“School Is The Tool To Brainwash The Youth,” he tweeted. “If Everybody In The World Dropped Out Of School We Would Have A Much More Intelligent Society.”
Sounds like Jaden’s first week of Sophomore year of high school was really rough, seeing as he tweeted this on September 12th and 13th, 2013, when he was 15 years old.
The reason behind this pair of tweets could have something to do with how Jaden was raised.
Both Jaden and Willow were both homeschooled before being placed in a private school founded by his parents.
"The school system in this country — public and private — is designed for the industrial age. We're in a technological age. We don't want our kids to memorize. We want them to learn," Jada said in an interview with Essence.
This is likely why the young artist feels like traditional education has failed the country — because his parents feel the same way.
4. Jaden Smith believes that high-tech places like Wakanda from Marvel’s Black Panther, truly exist.
In another interview with HuffPost, Bill Bradley asked Jaden what he thought people should know was the most important conspiracy theory that he believed in.
After pausing for a brief moment, he said, “OK, OK, all right. I will keep it real broad and simple, real broad and simple.”
“The technology that we’re currently at is not the maximum of the human capability,” he began, “and that there are places in the world where their technology supersedes what we see here on a daily basis. It’s made by humans, and it should be acknowledged, and it should be looked at because it could heal a lot of problems.”
Basically, Jaden thinks that this type of technology exists but it’s being hidden from the rest of the world.
A bold claim to make without hard evidence, but it’s not the biggest stretch of the imagination.
It’s long been a conspiracy that the government is hiding stuff from the public, and in Jaden’s case, technology is one of those things.
5. Jaden doesn’t like watching TV.
Don’t ask him about the latest episode of The Bachelor or Bridgerton, because Jaden Smith probably won’t even know what those shows are.
During an interview with the.LIFE Files TV, the then-14-year-old admitted that his interests were simply different than the things they were always showing on TV.
"I watch like, Steve Jobs interviews, I don't really watch TV," Jaden said.
"I stopped watching TV when I turned like ten because my parents were like, 'TV's really bad for you.' I'll watch movies I like to see, Steve Jobs interviews, something that's going to make me smart, and then go to sleep. I always have to go to sleep with the TV on though."
It’s not that he has anything against the shows that air, and he watches movies all the time, but it’s just the television networks that always throw ads at you that he has a problem with.
"I'm always watching something, I just don't like watching TV. I don't like being sold something every five minutes a commercial comes up," he said.
Maybe over the years, his mind has changed and he’s subscribed to the premium memberships of streaming services (to avoid the ads).
6. Jaden Smith asked to be emancipated from his family at the age of 15.
According to Will’s memoir, “Will,” tensions between him and his son were raised after the failure of the 2013 movie, “After Earth,” in which Jaden starred.
The film received a 12% on the film aggregate website RottenTomatoes.com, and Jaden received a lot of harsh criticism for his acting performance in the movie.
"We never discussed it, but I know he felt betrayed," Will wrote, via People. "He felt misled, and he lost his trust in my leadership. At fifteen years old, when Jaden asked about being an emancipated minor, my heart shattered.”
Will was the one who instructed and guided Jaden's acting for the role in "After Earth," which is largely why Jaden felt the way he did.
Jaden felt so betrayed that he had asked to be emancipated from his home, meaning that he would become independent from his parents and would leave home to live his own life separate from them.
While the 15-year-old had already made quite the name for himself at this point, he needed the support and guidance from his parents to become an adult.
7. Jaden Smith wore a white Batman suit to a wedding and a prom.
In 2017, Jaden released a song titled “Batman” with a music video that involved him roaming the streets of what looks to be Los Angeles in a white Batman costume.
Three years earlier, he wore that same costume to Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s wedding.
"I thought it was just genius," Kris Jenner told HuffPost about his strange wedding attire.
"When you look at it ... it sounds just crazy. It was beautiful. He looked so good, and so fun, and he also has a really good sense of humor."
He wore the suit to his prom one year later, alongside his prom date, Mecca Kalani.
In an interview with GQ that same year, he talked about his fashion choice and why he decided to wear the suit to both a wedding and his own prom.
"I wore the Batman suit to heighten my experience,” he said.
"I'm just expressing how I feel inside, which is really no particular way because every day it changes how I feel about the world and myself, but I like wearing super drapey things so I can feel as though I'm a superhero, but don't have to necessarily wear superhero costumes every day."
While the meaning behind why he wore the superhero costume is very wholesome, that won’t stop everyone else from wondering why he’s dressed like he stopped by on his way to comic-con.
8. Jaden Smith brought his dreadlocks to the Met Gala as an accessory
The Met Gala is home to plenty of odd behavior and unique fashion ideas and the 2017 Met Gala was no different.
The theme was "Rei Kawakubo/Comme des Garçons: Art of the In-Between," and Jaden found himself in-between haircuts as he brought his cut-off dreadlocks to the red carpet and carried them around like you would a handbag.
"Since I couldn't bring my sister as a date I brought my old hair," Jaden told Vogue. He also claimed that his all-black attire was inspired by “Dracula,” and “The Matrix.”
A year later during an interview with Mr. Porter about his MSFTS clothing line, he revealed that clothes mean a whole lot more to him than something that covers your body.
"The collection is not just clothes to sell," he explained. "It's loaded with spiritual experiences and mystical states. We're just making clothes that can go along with people's journeys."
Maybe he believed that his dreadlocks carried with them a spiritual experience since they were a part of him for so long, maybe he’s just a little weird, who knows.
9. Jaden has a 10-year-plan in which he disappears.
The young artist has always seemed like he’s been one step ahead of himself.
He’s aware of his next move, he knows what he’s saying, he knows what he wants for breakfast tomorrow, and while the rest of the world is just trying to get through the day, he’s already planned out the next 10 years of his life.
In 2015, Jaden sat down for an interview with GQ, in which he was asked where he sees himself in 10 years, to which he replied: “Gone.”
“No one will know where I am in ten years," he elaborated. "They'll see me pop up, but they'll be like, 'Where'd you come from?' No one will know. No one will know where I'm at. No one will know who I'm with. No one will know what I'm doing. I've been planning that since I was like 13."
To most, this looks like the effects of being famous from the moment you were born, but he has more wholesome things in mind for his disappearance.
"It'll be kind of like Banksy," he continued. "But in a different way. More of a social impact. Helping people. But through art installations."
Jaden still has three years left before his scheduled disappearance, but so long as his parents remain in the public eye the way that they have been, it’d be pretty hard for him to leave as well.
10. Jaden Smith once gave some odd relationship advice.
In 2014, Jaden sent one of his many strange takes to Twitter, this time saying “People Think A RelationShip Makes You Whole, That It's Two 50%'s Coming Together To Make 100% When It Should Be Two 100%'s Making 200%.”
If you want to know why all of his words are capitalized, he’s revealed in a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) that it’s for aesthetic, as for the reason behind this tweet? A mystery.
11. Jaden Smith thinks newborn babies are the smartest people on the planet.
Well, almost, at least.
In 2013, within the same breath of the “school sucks” tweets, he revealed his thoughts on who would be the smartest beings on Earth — newborn babies.
“If Newborn Babies Could Speak They Would Be The Most Intelligent Beings On Planet Earth,” he wrote.
Perhaps if they could speak, they would talk to Jaden about the political and economic state of the world right now, or maybe even the environment.
But let’s think about this seriously for a second, what in the world does he mean?
Isaac Serna-Diez is a writer who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Follow him on Twitter here.