The 6 Most Obnoxious Stoners You’ll Ever Meet

My brother Jack Ryan is many things. He’s a lawyer, former weed farmer, devoted father of two cats, and one of the funniest people I know. In recent years, he has also become a proven cringe expert, gaining over 1.7 million TikTok followers after posting impersonations of cringe characters.

Known to his many fans as “The Slappable Jerk,” Jack cultivates characters such as the “nice guy” who belittles women but feels entitled to their affection, the “chronically online guy” who is out of touch with reality seems to have, and the “average Redditor” who… There is some overlap with the man who is constantly online, but explains in a more passive-aggressive way, and with the “man-child husband”, the guy who spends the time alone with referred to as a babysitter to his children. They are all very specific yet familiar. The comments on his videos are often varying iterations of “I know this guy.”

To create a worthy scene, Jack mixes hideous personality traits with physical behaviors that can be annoying or neutral depending on the context. For example, chewing gum. “We won’t mind if someone we like does it,” Jack said. “But if we don’t like them and they give off this energy that’s bad, then chewing gum will be one of the most unbearable things they do.”

Jack and I have encountered many very specific, recurring characters over the years. The common denominator between them? Shudder.

The 6 biggest stoners

I spoke to Jack about these recurring characters and why they’re so easy to get on your nerves with. Note: This is in no way a dig at stoners in general. Anyone can be frightened, and what’s cool today will almost certainly be frightening tomorrow. And if we can’t laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at?

Here are the six most loathsome stoners you’ll ever meet, ranked from least to most offensive:

Grass is my entire identity, child

Gina Coleman/Weedmaps

“You’re in high school, you’re in college, you’re around really immature kids because you’re an immature kid. But some kids who smoke have to mention it every five minutes – that’s when the fear comes out,” Jack said.

If you have been in any school environment with other children, there is a high chance that you have encountered this child. They’ve just discovered weed and its many wonders, and instead of seriously complaining about it, they want everyone to know how cool they are for smoking real weed – not oregano. You can’t leave a room for a few minutes without telling everyone who’s listening, “Time for a cigarette.” Weed, by the way, not cigarettes.”

As far as cringe archetypes go, this one is far from the worst. There’s something really sweet about starting a new hobby and wanting the world to know about it. You all should have seen me after I rode the ATV for the first time – I thought I was Mad Max for a whole month.

The guy who never gets high

At the other end of the spectrum are the guys who feel nothing even though they smoke everything. They wear their high tolerance like a badge of honor and will shame you if you feel even the slightest inkling of a high after busting out a bong.

“While they’re smoking weed, they’ll literally have a look on their face like they’re being tortured,” Jack said. “They just have the funniest, completely emotionless expression on their faces. There are a lot of people who brag that they can smoke a lot of weed without getting high. That’s not that big of an achievement. If you said that about drinking – that you can drink a lot without getting drunk – people would call you an alcoholic.”

Question: What’s the point of smoking weed if you don’t get high?

Sativa type

Gina Coleman/Weedmaps

Oh, the sativa type. He’s the grown boy where weed is my entire identity. He can’t wait to ask you what you smoke. So as soon as you say “Indica” he can laugh in your face. “Why would I want to smoke something that makes me tired when I can explore the world?” Jack said. This is Sativa Guy.

That feeling of superiority might be okay if you only have one class on Tuesday that doesn’t start until one in the afternoon. I don’t want to completely screw myself up and have weird thoughts and shit. You just want to watch a movie, laugh and have fun.”

So definitely smoke a sativa blunt and explore the world. Just be aware that judging others for not doing the same could be frightening.

The self-objectifying influencer

We’ve all seen them on our feeds. Keeping the boobs and bunts era of bro-tastic weed commercials alive, she loves wearing lingerie while eating a giant bowl of Coco Puffs. She’s the classic: “I just want to smoke a bowl and cuddle with my stoner girl boyfriend,” Jack said. The main thing that scares me here is the judgment towards other people who want to do harder drugs and party. “I do not do drugs; I smoke weed,” the posts seem to say.

Unlike cool stoner influencers of all genders—those who share educational resources about weed, hot takes, weed memes, and ways to engage in canna activism—self-objectifying influencer girlies are clearly focused on money grabs and the male gaze . It may not be a bad business move, but it’s definitely a shock.

Know-it-all breeder

Some context: More than a decade ago, when we were both teenagers, Jack and I grew weed at our mother’s house in central California. To be fair, Jack grew dozens of plants under lights while I stuck a clone in a raised bed one summer and called it a day.

He harvested the flowers and sold them to a small dispensary that our high school friend ran – back when this was much easier thanks to the extremely restrictive regulatory landscape. Along the way, Jack learned a lot about growing commercial grass.

Of course, he also met many older, long-established breeders who took the craft very, very seriously. “Nowadays you might call them mansplainers, but when I grew there were a lot of growers who were idiots,” Jack recalled. “I shared some buds with one of these guys and he examined them and told me I was doing everything wrong. I put ice on the plants to turn the leaves purple and he said no, I had a phosphorus deficiency. It was really annoying.”

Average Redditor – Stoner Edition

Gina Coleman/Weedmaps

One of Jack’s most popular characters is the Average Redditor. He’s an annoying know-it-all who can’t help but start every other sentence with “Well, actually…”. Jack epitomized the average Redditor after he tried to share some of his YouTube videos on the platform and then received a cavalcade of offensive comments.

There is so much overlap with the know-it-all breeder that it’s hard to tell them apart. Still, the average Redditor stoner is unique in that they don’t typically grow weed themselves, although they have many, many opinions about it. You’ll find them in concentrate forums telling you your hash is trash just by looking at a photo of it, teaching you about the nuanced flavor of Zkittlez, shaming you for using moisturizing packs, and wondering what kind Products you would like to just shit on yourself when you say pre-rolls etc. I shudder to think of what they say to friends who just want a simple answer about CBD gummies.

In every culture there is a small but loud minority of such people. They’ll make you cringe so hard your face hurts, and you’ll wonder if there’s any amount of weed that could make their behavior bearable.

How to avoid being a antsy stoner

Okay, so you read through these personas and maybe you identify with some of them. We’ve all been through this. What’s a stoner to do?

Gina Coleman/Weedmaps

“Stop judging,” Jack said. “Weed culture really needs to get out of this whole prejudicial mindset — especially towards people who use other substances.”

Right. Wasn’t legalization initially about acceptance? Stoners like to talk about reducing scars, but it seems we’re creating new ones every day – against smokers who also drink, against smokers who just do it for fun, against smokers who doubt the medical effectiveness of weed, and against smokers who get high after just one puff. As someone who has tried just about every substance and believes that all drugs should be legal, I always feel this judgment in the cannabis industry.

“I feel like the legalization of weed was an opportunity for people to be more accepting of people who use drugs, whether they’re addicted or not. The people who represent the culture today are just very critical when it starts with the message: “Do what you want to do.” “You shouldn’t be locked up or even convicted just because you smoked a plant.” Now the message has morphed into “I’m better than you because I smoke this plant.”

Looking at weed culture from this perspective, cringe could be a wonderful opportunity. We can appreciate how far we have come since weed was legalized in many states, but we also see how far we have to go. Cringe is an excellent reminder that weed culture belongs to everyone and anyone who disagrees is not a real one.