I HATE the phrase "above average intelligence"
Intelligence as a concept has historically been used to do nothing but oppress people. Disabled people, mentally ill people, people of color, women.
People are always vague about what they even MEAN by intelligence. Like an IQ test? The thing that's known to be a poor indicator of intelligence? School? The thing that's frequently extremely non-accommodating to disabled people and mentally ill people? Why do you think so many gifted kids eventually burn out? What exactly defines intelligence?
"Signs of above average intelligence" articles are ALWAYS designed to make the reader think it applies to them. That they're special and unique and smarter than most. Giving people the kind of arrogance that makes them unlikeable. Think redditors. Then when they're already convinced they're smarter than everyone, they start using "big" words and making their ideas unclear and purposefully hard to follow. Then when people inevitably misunderstand them because they're using that 20 letter word from the middle ages wrong, it's always "Oh the exceptional are always misunderstood. A blessing and a curse" and it perpetuates the whole idea.
There's different ways to be smart. And there's nothing wrong with being knowledgeable in one area and not another. Intelligence, when used in this way, implies that there's some one way to be smart.
(Plus the whole thing is inherently linked to the percieved humanity of someone/something. People say this about animals too. But it's not that dolphins are smarter than other animals, they just think more like humans so we say they're more intelligent. And with dolphins all we do is point to their human traits and say "That, that's intelligence." We're not just looking for alien life, but intelligent alien life. Aka, something we could understand or communicate with. And this goes back to the way the word has been used to dehumanize people.)