Is ADHD only something "smart but lazy" people get diagnosed with?

Was a solidly C-average student my whole life, never once got the 'wasted potential' talk from anyone, diagnosed at 29 anyway. The gifted-underachiever story is definitely the loudest one online but it's not the only shape this comes in, not even close.

That 'smart but lazy' narrative is a real pattern you'll see a lot online, but it's a visibility bias, not an actual diagnostic requirement, ADHD affects people across the entire range of academic ability, not just people who were secretly gifted and coasting. Part of why the 'smart but underachieving' story is so common in online spaces specifically: those are often the cases that get noticed and flagged, because there's a visible, frustrating gap between apparent potential and actual output that parents, teachers, and eventually the person themselves start questioning. A kid who was always just an average, steady student with ADHD often doesn't produce that same dramatic 'wasted potential' narrative, even though the underlying attention regulation issue is exactly the same. There's no diagnostic criteria anywhere that requires above-average intelligence or 'giftedness,' ADHD is defined by attention regulation and executive function patterns, completely independent of IQ or academic ability. Plenty of people with ADHD were always average students, some struggled academically overall rather than showing a gifted-but-underachieving pattern, and their ADHD is just as real and just as diagnosable. If you were always an average student, that's not evidence against ADHD, it just means your particular story doesn't match the specific narrative that happens to get shared online most often.