Title: Resistance is futile

General Information about Item:

• Material folklore, joke
• Language: English
• Country of Origin: United States
• Informant: Markus Testrof
• Date Collected: 5-19-19

Informant Data:

Professor Terstorf was born in Germany and studied physics in Germany and got a phd in physics. However, when he came to Dartmouth in the 90’s he became a researcher for Thayer. But now he is an engineering professor

Contextual Data:

• Social Context: The shirt has the image of an electrical resistor that is only connected to itself. In engineering, this is a short circuit which means it has no function.  That is why the resistance is futile.
• Cultural context: The quote: “resistance is futile”  comes from the popular movie Star Trek. Since then, this quote has really been part of culture and it’s often said to friends as a joke.

Item 

see image

Informant’s Comments:

• He likes to call people out every time they say that they understand the joke. He always asked them “what’s so funny about it the shirt? ” Non-engineers (even some engineers) usually say they like the Star trek reference. Then, he tells them how the resistor is useless because it’s connected to itself. This is for him what makes it funny

Collector’s Comments:

• I had some doubts as to if the shirt is part of folklore since someone is making money selling the shirt. However, after some thinking and research, I found a lot of quotes(proverbs for example) that were folklore that were put on shirts. I realized that the shirt itself might not be folklore but that doesn’t mean that what’s on it is not folklore. In other words, the maker of the shirt can’t really stop other people form making the shirt with this symbol on it. Therefore he has no rights to the symbol.

Collector’s Name: Pierre Desvallons