The Frontal Cortex : Who is the Dorkiest?

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Jonah Lehrer is an editor at large for Seed Magazine. His first book is Proust Was A Neuroscientist. Buy it here.

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Who is the Dorkiest?

Category: Chatter
Posted on: December 8, 2007 8:45 AM, by Jonah Lehrer

So I was out to dinner recently with some friends and the conversation eventually degenerated into a dork competition. The rules of the game are simple (and extremely dorky). Each person confesses the single dorkiest thing about them. The winner gets a beer. Competing entries ranged from a friend who had pictures of western blots on her cell phone (second place) to someone who kept the Sigma molecular biology catalog next to his toilet (honorable mention). Needless to say, I won the competition. My winning entry was my iPod, which had playlists named for various neurotransmitters. For example, my GABA playlist was full of melancholy slow songs (everything from Blood on the Tracks to Cat Power) while my acetylcholine playlist was stocked with up-tempo music, from R. Kelly to Beck. My dopamine playlist was reserved for those few tracks I can listen to over and over again. (These are the tracks that I'm addicted to...) Of course, you could easily argue that I only won the dork competition because nobody at the table had a good science tattoo.

Now it's your turn. What is the single dorkiest thing that you do?

Comments

I also take home biotech catalogs and browse them. (better than looking at clothing catalogs.) i personally think that is dorkier than gaba playlists, although thats a good idea too.

Posted by: margot | December 8, 2007 9:50 AM

Crap. I have neurotransmitter playlists too! And I thought I was so creative. . . sigh.

Posted by: cicada | December 8, 2007 12:27 PM

I have very particular ways of doing simple things that, being an AI student, I mentally refer to as algorithms. For example, algorithm for eating many types of sandwich (exceptions include grilled cheese):

EAT crusts
EAT inwards in a circular pattern, forcing deliciousness of sandwich inward
FINISH sandwich by eating massive, delicious bite in middle

I have not yet performed amortized analysis on my Life Algorithms.

Posted by: max | December 8, 2007 12:58 PM

That reminds me of the game in one of the novels in David Lodge's academic trilogy (Changing Places; Small World; Nice Work). I forget the name of the game, but the rules are simple: name the best-known work you've never read. You get one point for each other person present who has in fact read the work. It's the plotspring for an excruciatingly funny dinner.

Posted by: Leisureguy | December 8, 2007 1:29 PM

Your post got me wondering about what dork means exactly, and then about the origins. Here is what I've found so far:

Dork is a term of abuse favored by American youngsters, designating the target as quirky, awkward, eccentric, socially inept or simply of lower status. Similar epithets include nerd and geek and the Australian colloquialism of dag which has the added feature of being seen as affable or amusing. Originally a vulgar term for "penis," the word Dork is often used without any awareness of this sense, as evidenced by its use in the syndicated family cartoon strips Garfield for February 10, 2007 and Big Nate (in the form "dorkus") for January 13, 2007.

Posted by: peggy | December 8, 2007 4:58 PM

I think peggy wins.

Posted by: Sarah | December 8, 2007 5:43 PM

Do serotonin tunes make you happy and melatonin tunes make you sleepy? And every playlist except ADH makes you pee in your pants?

Posted by: Coturnix | December 8, 2007 7:02 PM

To Sarah,
Only if you don't have to have one to be one.

Posted by: peggy | December 8, 2007 7:21 PM

I read David Hume for fun.

Posted by: alice | December 8, 2007 9:46 PM

and I watch CSPAN.

Posted by: alice | December 9, 2007 12:06 AM

Alphabetized spices? Periodic table shower curtain? Knitting moebeius strips? But then, we already know I'm in the game because one of my tattoos is IN that flickr album.

When I earned my BS in Physics, each department got to select one student as its 'honored graduate' for the year. Mine chose me, leading to much amusement about how to term such an unwieldy honor. We finally settled on 'Chief Nerd'.

Posted by: Andrea Grant | December 9, 2007 2:47 AM

This can't be a real "dorkiest" contest because the prize is a beer instead of, say, a little solar doodad for the dashboard of your Prius (or in my case Honda Insight) or a gift certificate to ThinkGeek.com.

If I read "Crime and Punishment" for fun, does that make me a literature dork? We had a Greek Verb Chart in one of the bathroom stalls in our dorm. It's a big chart.

Now I have to go rename my playlists, muttering, "I shoulda thought of that...."

Posted by: Tina Rhea | December 9, 2007 1:06 PM

I have a necklace made of an antique scrabble tile with a letter from my name. I thought that in-and-of itself was fairly dorky.

But then, one of my students asked me if my necklace was in honor of my favorite element. As an aside, I am not a chemist and I don't teach chemistry, but I guess I just look like I might have a favorite element? I noted that this student clearly couldn't see the atomic weight would have been incorrect, if in fact my scrabble necklace was honoring the possible favored element. I realized that I would totally wear periodic table based necklaces if I came across them. I would wear them with my silk-screened neuron t-shirt.

Posted by: pelican | December 9, 2007 1:36 PM

I am writing a novel in which the hero tries to pick up a girl at a bar by singing to her. He sings the names of all the books of the New Testament in order. The girl responds by reciting the full roster of the English monarchy since 1066. This wouldn't be terribly dorky except (a) it really happened and (b) I married the guy.

Posted by: Mary | December 10, 2007 12:37 PM

Mary, did this take place in Ireland? I bet your husband is British...
Your entry will prompt a new category: 'dorky but romantic' (also a possibility: 'cheesy but effective')

Posted by: Helia | December 10, 2007 9:29 PM

He's half-British! And, as you may now guess, the genders in the novel are reversed: in real life, he is the good English boy who knows his kings and I, alas, am the lapsed Southern Baptist...

Posted by: Mary | December 11, 2007 12:36 PM

Had to be. Those wonderfully romantic and cultured (not in the petri dish sense but in the educated, well-read, interested-in-and-knowledgeable-about-the-world sense of the word) British men...the love odds are always in their favor. Maybe Jonah should write a post about genetics and romance.

Posted by: Helia | December 11, 2007 7:48 PM

I arrange my books in my bookcase in alphabetical order by author. For this, my family calls me a nerd. Does this also make me a dork?

Posted by: Joe | December 11, 2007 9:54 PM

We named our cats Thymus and Thalamus.

Posted by: Michelle | December 12, 2007 6:33 AM

I have an Einstein action figure sitting in a green Porsche Boxter on my writing desk. The scales are different so Einstein has to stand with one foot in each of the front seats. When I have writer's block I like to drive him around my office.

Now that I reread this - it doesn't sound dorky so much as off kilter.

I never win contests.

Posted by: amybuilds | December 13, 2007 1:29 AM

My husband and I have a dog named Link...from Legands of Zelda. He's 6 months old and quite the hyper link.

Posted by: Rachel | December 15, 2007 10:33 PM

It is my fondest wish to have a collection of pocket protectors.... sadder - I have not yet begun it for lack of access to them. Also, I sort my M&M's prior to eating them (that last bit it probably just odd.)

Posted by: Connie Carpenter Macko | December 22, 2007 9:24 PM

i personally think that is dorkier than gaba playlists

Posted by: ges | December 31, 2007 9:33 AM

I practiced kanji instead of going skiing last week

Posted by: modman | January 16, 2008 9:56 PM

Occasionally I recite to myself the list of the 28 prepositions that govern the accusative case in Latin......

Posted by: Bruce | January 17, 2008 10:41 AM