Are you divergent, friend?

Today, I want to talk about twinkies.

There are three kinds of twinkies, to the best of my knowledge. The most well-known, of course, is the registered trademarked tube of sweet goodness brought to you by the Hostess company. Yellow cake, white creamy frosting-stuff... It doesn't sound special, does it?

But yellow cake with creamy filling doesn't begin to do justice to the twinkie. The texture is something like no other snack food on the planet. The thing that most of my friends find most amazing is that twinkies actually come with an expiration date. How could something desperately artificial expire?

And here are the two classic Twinkie sites: Planet Twinkie, hostess' official twinkie site, and the T.W.I.N.K.I.E.S. Project. The second one started out as a bunch of college students experimenting with twinkies and is now corporately subsidized. Although it hasn't changed in a year - maybe it's a ghost site now. Pity.

The next kind of twinkie is a racial slur. Quick - try to figure it out.

Got it?

Me neither, the first time. It's similar to "oreo", and means an Asian who has, shall we say, gone "Native", taking on too much of standard american culture. (1) Now, the first time I heard this, I figured it just had to be an urban legend. But I am well assured by people with genuine Asian friends that this is in fact used. Or at least, it's one of those words that no one uses but everyone knows about.

I suppose I should mention that this comes from the MIT community. I'm told that MIT has so many asian students that they don't qualify as "minority" for things like affirmative action. While there does seem to be more asians at MIT than in, say, the portuguese catholic ghetto where I currently live, I can't say whether the asian population at MIT is actually disproportionate.

And I'll bet that most people who care about their 'ethnic' backgrounds(2) who are classified as Asian at MIT are rather irritated with the whole Asian label. What is Asian? Hello? There's no "asian" culture. Unfortunately for these folks, there is something that can loosely be described as an asian phenotype.

So the concept of a "twinkie", an asian person who is too american, is astonishingly silly, racist, and counterproductive.

And what's up with this whole thing of naming groups of people after snack foods, anyway? Sheesh.

That said, I'll get to the last definition of twinkie. This is an MIT-specific definition, I believe, although the type of people it describes can be found on most campuses, at most high schools, at summer camp, and in living rooms and basements everywhere.

It's a label that the local twinkie community has taken upon itself, and seem to use it and keep it alive more than anyone who thrusts it upon them. However, even this community maintains a condescending, if tolerant, attitude towards twinkie behavior. "I am being silly. I am being a Twinkie. But I know it, and I can stop, so it's ok!"

Twinkies are a special flavor of geek. The first marker is involvement in role-playing games - D&D, LARP, etc. If you know what those acronyms mean, you probably are a twinkie - or you dated one.

Twinkies are generally marginalized. THey're usually smarter than the average person and are socially challenged. Or rather, socially different - like all communities, twinkdom has its own rules and regulations that must be navigated carefully for success. Often, twinkies were the victims of bullies in childhood, except, unlike most children, they usually did not have a constellation of friends to rely on.

Twinkies like Star Wars and Star Trek. Twinkies love computers. Twinkies are likely to own a cloak and wear it in public on a day that is not halloween. In groups they become confident and arrogant and flaunt their difference - but most are shy and nervous alone.

Twinkies love innuendo, wordplay, and games of subtle conflict. Despite this, they are often 'romantically challenged' - while they may have had relationships, they don't usually "date".

Twinkies tend to be libertarianish. They may be hackers, for the joy of the challenge. If they do anything legally sketchy, it is usually because someone told them they couldn't, or because it was deemed cool. The fact that they're generally law-abiding does not, however, indicate that they have much respect for the law - but they are likely to violate the law in nonviolent, clever ways. Most try for nondestructive, although the definition of "damage" may vary from the norm.

Twinkies do breed, and their children often become twinkies themselves. But it's a mixed bag - your twinkie child will probably be smarter and less likely to think that their parents are space aliens - but everyone else is more likely to avoid even the normal child of twinkies because the family is odd.

Ask a twinkie why the group is known as Twinkie, and he or she will probable respond: "Because we are golden on the outside and smooth and creamy in the middle."

And everything I just said is a screaming generalization... but if you doubt that these folks are in your town, just wander down to your local bookstore. Go to the sci-fi/fantasy/horror section. There you will most likely see some Star Wars and Star Trek books. You might, if you're lucky, see dice next to an assortment of role-play books like Shadowrun and White Wolf.

Just remember - like any other wild animal, the twinkie is just as afraid of you as you are of it.

(1) Yes, folks, the USA has a culture. Lots of them. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you don't have lots of things in common with other americans. Culture = Behavior typical of a group or class of people. While I have a line, "Mold is the only culture some people have", it's not actually true. Culture is neither good nor bad, it's merely an accumulation of ideas and behaviors that people have in common. Call it a meme constellation.

(2) Ethnic. Now there's a word. It actually means, approximately, "human". Now it's come to mean "Not WASP". That's an abuse of a perfectly good greek root if I've ever seen one.

back to the rant cover page...

back to my homepage...