Dork?

Timothy Lum

3 December 2010

RD#4

Dork?

It was a cool Hawaiian night in the fall of 1998.  Somewhere in the post dawn hours of late night television shows and refrigerator raids came a boisterous cry, "booyah! level 100 Charizard jerk holes!"  Minutes later another shout, "ah! touchdown!", disrupted the shortly lived silence within the confines of my cousins' two story house.  I was a guest that night at my cousins Mike, and Tom's house; evenings were usually split between watching sports and playing videogames.  My cousin Mike was primarily a sports fan, and Tom was primarily a videogamer.  Society has taught us many lessons, one of which is the concept of social hierarchy.  With just a brief description, most people would have already categorized my cousins into two distinct groups.  [Thesis]Often times, society's lessons are observed only by our mind's eye.[Thesis]

Mike was a medium built high school senior with a short buzzed hair cut.  He was a member of the varsity tennis team, as well as their star doubles player.  Ever since Mike was young, he has always had an abundance of stored energy.   Tom was spiky haired and also of medium build.  Tom participated as vice president of the Pokemon Club at school, as well as Mike's tennis partner.  Despite being identical twin brothers, Mike and Tom lead different social lives. 

Tom did not get nearly the same amount of attention from girls as Mike had.  Mike would get far more invites to social gatherings, and calls to the house would more often be forwarded to him as well.  Mike's inner circle of friends had a healthy male to female ratio, while Tom's inner circle consisted only of males.  To anyone who has been through high school, this is about as shocking as a two wheeled bicycle.  Stereotypically, Mike could be considered the cool jock, while Tom had the lead role of dorky outcast.  If aliens from a galaxy far far away had to research the social behaviors of humans, they would be hard pressed to find an answer.  Both subjects shared similar DNA, had similar faces, and both conducted themselves in a very similar manner.

Mike and Tom were very enthusiastic with their hobbies and interests.  Mike would scour the internet for the latest news concerning his favorite athletes.  He would also read several commentaries regarding certain players matches.  Tom was no different in burning the late night oil to gather more information.  Tom's internet browser was filled with bookmarks to videogame sites; he even had them separated into categories.  Tom read gamefaqs.com to familiarize himself with new strategies; and for purchasing advice he would travel to ign.com because he felt the reviewers were not as biased.  Before the era of internet cafe's, wifi, and iPhones; there was really only one way to feed a person's addiction for information when they were not at home, the cure was magazines.  Tom subscribed to Next Generation Gaming and Playstation Magazine, Mike had his subscriptions to Tennis and Sports Illustrated magazine.  Having bountiful resources of information on tap granted brothers Mike and Tom with special abilities.  From memory, Tom was able to inform you that the pokemon Charmander, evolves into a Charmeleon at level 16 before becoming a Charizard at level 36.  Mike also possessed this same ability; and would be able to tell you that Andre Agassi won five titles leaping from world ranking number 122 to number 6 in one calendar year. 

As is customary with many sports fans, Mike would proudly wear his favorite teams logo or jersey.  Mike would often be seen wearing a black and red baseball cap featuring his beloved Chicago Bulls, a black and white Adidas tennis shirt in honor of Andre Agassi, or a pair of black Babolat tennis shoes endorsed by Andy Roddick.  Tom would also clad himself in clothing exalting his primary interests.  Tom had a very extensive collection of tee shirts featuring many videogame characters; his favorite being a black tee shirt featuring a golden Tri-force logo from The Legend of Zelda.  Their attire matched beautifully with the decor of their rooms.  Tom's walls were blanketed with posters featuring his favorite videogame character of all time, Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII.  Tom was especially proud of his rarest wall scroll, it featured a spiky yellow haired Cloud on the back of his immense black motorcycle Fenrir.  Shelves were littered with videogame strategy guides, game magazines, and plastic models of robots from Virtual On.  Mike's room was adorned with posters that featured his favorite athletes in action.  Above his bed was Anna Kournikova in full swing of her backhand, behind the door was Pete Sampras readying to serve, and just above his computer was a poster of Andre Agassi diving for save.  Mike's collection of tennis posters were so extensive, it featured samples from Andre to Venus. 

Without the distractions of school, due dates, and tennis practice; Mike and Tom like do their research in person on the weekends.  Tom would frequent the most popular arcades as was judged by his peers; the most popular being Hawaiian Brian's.  Hawaiian Brian's was a dark and smoky environment.  At the door you were instantly greeted by scent of second hand smoke, and the deafening music coming from the Dance Dance Revolution machines.  At Hawaiian Brian's, Tom would learn and implement new strategies by watching and playing with the other people.  Crafting friendships with the other regulars, Tom was able to share and gather more information.  Mike would frequent the Kapiolani tennis courts late into the night.  At 11pm, the Kapiolani tennis courts were quite busy.  Usual waiting time for an open court was nearly an hour.  The wait did not bother Mike, while waiting for an open court, he would observe the play style of other players.  Mentally noting subtle movements and reactions, Mike would often employ these techniques during practice.  For Mike, the main reason for playing tennis at such a late hour was because graduates of the same alma mater played there as well.  Mike would not only have a chance to learn from the upper classmen, but they would give him inside information about some of the players.  Mike learned that Kalani High School's first seed doubles net player was very easily intimidated.  In order to psych out said player, all one would have to do is forfeit one point; by simply hitting the ball at full strength straight at the net in his direction, the opponent would lose his nerve. 

With all hobbies and interests, information is useless without application.  Tom would often spend his mornings saving the world from a galactic threat, or saving a princess from an overgrown turtle creature with spikes on his shell.  On his way to school, he would continue playing via his custom blue metallic Gameboy Color.  Even though videogames were contraband, Tom held a secret alliance with his homeroom teacher Mr. Ihara.  Behind closed doors during lunch, Mr. Ihara allowed Tom and his friends to use the classroom television to hook up their various game consoles.  After tennis practice, chores, and homework; Tom would play another round of videogames until his optical and mental strength gave out.  Mike was no exception to obsession either.  Much to his parents dismay, Mike would spend his mornings practicing his forehand against the side of his house.  Between classes, Mike would practice a common but difficult tennis technique used to promote quick net play.  The technique involved placing a tennis ball at the top of the strings; the person would then proceed to flinging the ball upward as if they threw it, as the ball descends, the person would catch the tennis ball by matching the velocity of the falling tennis ball with their racket.  At lunch, Mike and his friends would gather in front of the school gymnasium and throw around a football; all the while discussing previous games and scores.  After Mike had finished his homework and house duties, he would immediately go to check his Yahoo! fantasy football account.  Employing his knowledge of statistics and player history, Mike was in first place in his fantasy football league. 

Looking with the minds' eye, it is easy to see that my cousin Tom should be dubbed the outcast in high school society.  After all, Tom was the one who constantly had his gaze set upon a screen with moving pixels.  Forget that he was also a top ranked doubles player, he spent his lunch time hours away from the rest of the school to jam on a six button controller.  However, from an objective point of view, the lines between cool and dork seems blurred.  In our minds' eye, the line is usually drawn at social interaction.  The general connotation behind dorks and outcasts is that, they have limited interactions with the population.  This misconceived idea is simply untrue; just about every hobby or interest worth being obsessed about has a large following.  Many people with similar interests will eventually congregate with one another in large numbers; Star Wars conventions are a testament to this. Whether a social interaction is under a "dorky" pretense is of no issue; the fact of the matter is that it is still a social interaction.