Emos in lab

So, while sitting in the lab hunting for animalcules, the line "It's hard to look down a microscope/when tears are in your eyes" popped into my head. (I kind of put my brain on screen-saver mode when I'm doing that kind of work, so all kinds of odd flying toasters bounce around in there).

I tweeted about it during a break: was it a better line for an Emo Scientist, or as a title for a Country and Western Scientist song.

Well, people seemed to like the Country and Western idea (one suggested Florence Flask as a stage name), but I have to admit, I prefer the idea of an Emo Scientist saying it.

Because one of the popular stereotypes is that scientists are the opposite of emo. That we're kind of Mr. Spock types. Like all stereotypes, it's largely wrong. While I probably fall more on the "stable" end of the reactive-personality spectrum (and trust me, I've known a few scientists whose personalities were like nitroglycerin), still, we DO have emotions. I'm not much of a heart-on-my-sleeve person (Though I think the students can tell when I'm displeased, as when I find plagiarized papers), I do admit I wish I felt I could have a freer rein to express how I felt. (Yes, Abby Sciuto is a scientist but she's a very atypical lab. I cannot fathom going up to someone and telling them they looked like they needed a hug, and I don't think that's JUST my personality talking.)

But then I got thinking about Emo Scientists and it just cracked me up. (I'm assuming here that Emos and Hipsters have a lot of overlap, at least it seems to me that they do).

And some of the lines they'd use. (And now that I think of it, I may have heard less-extreme versions of these lines from actual scientists):

"I don't read that journal any more. It's too mainstream."

Grant proposal gets rejected: go drink absinthe

Journal article gets rejected: the editors are all poseurs anyway.

"My favorite species? You've probably never heard of it." (That's the one that really cracked me up)

And for myself: "I study soil invertebrates. They're TOTALLY underground."