I think the tl;dr of this is, "You think I'm smarter because I don't fit in. Up to a point."

"People confer higher status and competence to nonconforming rather than conforming individuals."

But the positive inferences disappear when the observer is unfamiliar with the environment, when the nonconforming behavior is depicted as unintentional, and in the absence of expected norms and shared standards of formal conduct. https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx