DURHAM, NC — Researchers at Duke University recently discovered that playing Tool for your newborn will cause them to grow up thinking they’re smarter, deeper, and all-around superior to everyone else, according to a new report.
“This study originally started to determine if Mozart made kids smarter,” said lead researcher Kevin Mathes. “But Mozart was never ever to play his songs backward so wanted to show these kids something that would challenge them. We found that the Tool kids, after 5 or so years, would scoff at us with upturned noses when we tried to administer additional tests. This effect was not seen in the Mozart kids. To compare their arrogance levels, we had them ranked on the ‘Lars Ulrich Scale’ which is a standardized measure of snobbery. On average we found the Tool kids ranked on average 6 Lars Ulrichs compared to a measly 0.4 in the control group. Truly fascinating results.”
Interviews with one of the child participants seemed to confirm these results.
“Is it my fault that my fastidiousness is incomparable?” said first-grader Eric Grayson, one of the Tool subjects. “When I explainify my complex preponderances to my milquetoast and smooth-brained grade school companionaries, they find themselves incapable of comprehendificating my musings. I feel bad for those troglodytes, but not everyone is at my level of turpitude. Perhaps the world will one day understand my genius, but I’m not holding my breath. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go drink a GMO-free, organical juicebox.”
Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan took issue with the idea that these children only “think” they’re smarter than everyone else.
“My songs are complex masterworks that get into the very essence of what music is,” said Keenan. “Only people with brains that operate 7.4 times faster than normal are capable of truly grasping what it means to have a song written in 7/4 time. And all of those references to Fibonacci sequences and Jungian psychology? Come on. If these kids understand those things, then they must be smarter than everyone else. I’d say the only thing that could possibly annoy me about these kids is if they thought they were smarter than me. Which is impossible, of course.”
At press time, researchers started to warn of potentially radioactive levels of arrogance emanating from these kids after being exposed to Frasier reruns.