The DORK Side

Welcome to the animated foundation upon which our fragile psyches were built. We're not talking about the 80s or 90s just yet. We're going back to the bedrock. The black-and-white, or rather, the limited-Technicolor morals of the Golden Age. This is the era where the primary lesson seemed to be: violence is hilarious, property rights are negotiable, and the only thing faster than a speeding bullet is a suspension of labor laws. Think about it. Wile E. Coyote’s entire existence was a brutal tutorial on free-market failure, funded by one inexplicably generous line of credit from the Acme Corporation. Tom and Jerry built a multi-decade saga on a property dispute so intense it would make an HOA meeting look like a yoga retreat. And The Flintstones… oh, The Flintstones. A show that imagined a future so advanced we’d have dinosaurs as household appliances, yet somehow failed to foresee women having jobs outside the lodge. These cartoons weren't just stories; they were the chaotic, anarchic, and often deeply weird operating system for a generation. We learned problem-solving from a rabbit who could paint fake tunnels, and persistence from a coyote who, frankly, should have diversified his portfolio. Let's excavate the glorious, politically incorrect bedrock of our childhoods.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We're starting a deep dive into the most elegant hacks in human history: not of computers, but of trust. We’re talking about the master con artists. Not the two-bit hustlers, but the virtuosos who understood that the most vulnerable system on the planet is the human brain, and they developed the perfect malware for it: the irresistible lie. Today, we're not just looking at what they stole, but how they got people to hand it over willingly. It begins with the understanding that greed is a louder voice than reason. The perfect con doesn't force a door open; it convinces the mark that the door was their idea all along. It’s a form of psychological puppeteering, where the strings are made of our own desires, insecurities, and the innate human need to believe we’re the smartest person in the room. It’s the art of making you feel special, right up until the moment you realize you’re spectacularly, publicly, broke.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the DORK Side, where we’re contemplating the fine line between a 'career' and a 'darwinian plea.' Today, we’re exploring the jobs that make your 'high-stakes' marketing meeting look like a game of patty-cake. Let’s start in the era before OSHA was a glimmer in a bureaucrat’s eye, when danger wasn't just part of the job—it was the job description. We’re talking about the professions where your life insurance provider would hang up on you. The lion tamer, staring into the eyes of 400 pounds of muscle and instinct that thinks your face is a welcome mat. The Victorian-era 'tosher,' wading through raw sewage in dark tunnels, hoping to find lost coins and not a runaway plague. These weren't just jobs; they were daily auditions for a posthumous Darwin Award. It was a time when the employee handbook was just a single, handwritten note that said, 'Try not to die.' We romanticize them now, but the only 'benefit package' was the possibility of a closed-casket funeralSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ah, the 70s, 80s, and 90s—the triumvirate of terror for anyone with a functioning central nervous system. This was a time before ‘helicopter parenting’ was a thing; our parents were more like ‘submarine parents’—they surfaced occasionally to make sure we were still alive, then went back to whatever they were doing, which was probably smoking indoors. We weren't coddled; we were beta-testers for the human body. The world was our playground, and that playground was built over concrete and featured metal slides that could achieve surface-of-the-sun temperatures by 10 AM. This segment is a love letter to the toys and terrain that tried to maim us, and the blissful ignorance that let it all happen."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We discuss the evolution of slang to a fruit fly's life cycle—brief, frenetic, and ending in a messy death. We'll start with the premise that using outdated slang is the social equivalent of showing up to a club wearing a powdered wig. Remember when everything was "rad," "tubular," or "the bee's knees"? Those words didn't fade; they were hunted for sport by the coolness police. We'll explore the "eternal September" of adolescence, where each new generation invents a linguistic secret handshake to exclude the previous one. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Back in the day, etiquette wasn’t just about manners — it was social armor. You said “good afternoon” even if you hated the person, because your grandma would rise from the grave to slap you if you didn’t. Now, we live in an age where “good afternoon” sounds like a scam call.There was once something called “finishing school,” actual institutions that taught posture, poise, and how to not slurp soup like a swamp creature. In 1950s America, charm schools turned out people who could attend dinner parties without starting political fights or filming themselves eating shrimp.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to The DORK Side, where ambition goes to die quietly in a cubicle under fluorescent lights. Today we’re exploring settling — the slow-motion surrender that starts when your dreams meet your bills.Why do people settle? Not just romantically, but professionally, emotionally, spiritually. Most folks don’t even realize they’ve settled until they hear someone else’s success story and get that faint pang of nausea — the “What if I’d tried harder?” feeling.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we dive into humanity’s oldest divide: Givers vs. Takers. Not politics — though that’s tempting — but the primal split between people who offer you their fries before finishing them, and the ones who ask for a bite of your steak. Why do some folks see helping others as joy, while others see it as a form of cardio?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the gilded cage of the ultra-luxury concierge. This isn't about getting you tickets to Hamilton. This is a world where the phrase “money is no object” is a starting point, not a boast. We’re talking about personal assistants to the 0.001%, the modern-day majordomos for whom the word “no” is a fireable offense, and the word “impossible” is just a suggestion that requires a larger wire transfer.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the DORK Side, where we're not afraid to get our hands dirty, metaphorically speaking. Because literally, if we got our hands dirty, we'd be disgusted. Or would we?We live in a world sanitized for our protection. We have hand sanitizer dispensers next to the holy water in some churches. But this reflex, this full-body 'NOPE' we feel when we see something gross, isn't a social construct. It's our oldest, most primitive personal bodyguard. Scientists call it the 'Behavioral Immune System'—a psychological security detail that evolved long before we understood what a germ was. It's the reason a pile of vomit clears a room faster than a fire alarm. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Welcome to The DORK Side, where today we're tackling the ultimate identity crisis, one that makes your teenage years look like a slightly awkward afternoon. It’s called the Ship of Theseus, and it’s the philosophical equivalent of your grandpa’s favorite hammer that’s had three new heads and two new handles. If you replace every single plank of a ship over time, is it still the same ship? Now, apply that to the human body, which replaces almost all its cells every seven to ten years. Are you just a rental? A skin suit piloted by the ghost of your past lunches? This isn't just about boats and bodies; it's the foundation of law, memory, and why you still feel guilty about that thing you did in the 8th grade, even though not a single atom from that version of you remains in your body today. We're starting with the pure, uncut philosophy that asks: are we a noun, or are we a verb?"See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Welcome, knowledge seekers and chaos enthusiasts, to the inaugural voyage of The DORK Side. Our mission: to boldly go where plenty of people, often in robes, have suggested we probably shouldn't. Since a certain serpent offered a piece of problematic produce in a garden, we’ve been obsessed with forbidden knowledge. It’s the original 'terms and conditions' we scroll past with gusto. Today, we're not just opening Pandora's Box; we're cataloging its contents, pricing it on eBay, and wondering if we can return it for store credit after we've unleashed eternal suffering. Our first stop: the original no-no. The desire to know what the universe has locked in its parent-controlled safe. Is it the meaning of life? The face of God? The Wi-Fi password for the cosmos? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today, we're tackling a tale as old as time, or at least as old as German literature: the story of Faust. You know, the guy who sold his soul to the devil for unlimited knowledge, pleasure, and power. A story that, if we're being honest, has less to do with 16th-century alchemists and more to do with the "Terms and Conditions" we all blindly accept every single day. Before we can diagnose our own spiritual diabetes, we have to understand the original sugar rush. So, what is the Faust story? In a nutshell: a brilliant but disillusioned scholar named Heinrich Faust makes a bet with God, and the demon Mephistopheles—Satan’s wingman—takes the call. Faust signs a contract in blood (the original "click agree without reading") trading his soul for 24 years of having every earthly wish granted by Mephisto. He gets youth, he gets the girl (the tragically innocent Gretchen), he gets cosmic knowledge, and it all ends… poorly. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the grand, glittering marketplace of the better you. A multi-trillion-dollar global industry built on one simple, renewable resource: your own crushing inadequacy. We’re not just talking about the faint desire to be a little better; we’re talking about a fully militarized campaign against your own personality flaws, armed with productivity apps that shame you for sleeping, mindfulness gurus who sell you serenity for $19.99 a month, and enough life-hacking content to make you feel guilty for not optimizing your chewing technique. This is the Self-Improvement Industrial Complex, and it’s a machine that runs on the fuel of our perpetual dissatisfaction. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Imagine a world where a cutting remark took six weeks to deliver by clipper ship. The sheer, beautiful delay of it all! You could have a furious argument with a business partner in London, but by the time your scalding letter arrived, he’d have been buried for a month from cholera, and you’d feel like a real jerk. That’s the world we lost. We moved from the Pony Express, where a man on a horse was the pinnacle of speed, to the telegraph, which for the first time in human history, decoupled a message from its physical transportation. It was a miracle! And we promptly used it to send the first-ever spam message in 1864, a telegram sent to British politicians advertising cheap dentures. We've been using breakthrough tech to annoy each other ever since. The telephone then created the new anxiety of who could call you, at home, uninvited. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today, we're venturing into the linguistic Bermuda Triangle of human interaction: the things we say only to our own tribe. Specifically, we're starting with the ancient and often baffling fraternity known as... men.Gentlemen, let's be honest. Our conversations with other men are less about exchanging information and more about a series of low-stakes, non-binding verbal handshakes. It's a world where "We should totally grab a beer sometime" is understood by all parties to mean "We will never see each other outside of this specific context," and a grunted "You good?" carries the emotional weight of a 10-year-old's diary. This isn't the Bro Code you see in movies; this is the real, granular stuff. It's the art of the compliment that is also a subtle threat, like "Nice watch, man. You rob a bank?" It's the mandatory performance review after using a public restroom: "Dude, it's a warzone in there. Godspeed." We are building a fortress of casualness, brick by unemotional brick.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We ‘friend’ people we met once at a conference, we ‘friend’ our aunt’s neighbor, we ‘friend’ the barista who knows our order but doesn’t know our last name. This isn't friendship; it's a loosely affiliated network of mild acquaintances held together by the digital equivalent of chewing gum and baling wire. Historically, a friend was your literal survival partner. Now, it's someone who might send you a birthday GIF. We’ve taken a sacred covenant and turned it into a participation trophy for basic social interaction. Let's explore how we got here."See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

"Welcome to The DORK Side, where we dive headfirst into the cultural chaos. Today, we’re tackling the ultimate multi-generational smackdown: Parenting. Specifically, the persistent, romantic, and likely completely fabricated notion that it was somehow easier back in the day. You know the drill. Your grandpa puffs on his metaphorical pipe and says, ‘In my day, a sharp look and a leather belt were the only parenting tools we needed!’ Meanwhile, a modern parent’s toolkit includes an iPad for bargaining, a PhD in emotional intelligence, and a GPS tracker in their child’s sneakers. So, let’s shatter that nostalgia mirror. Was it really easier, or were we just all collectively less aware of the psychological shrapnel? See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We've discussed the 70s and then the 80s, a decade where sexual subtlety was as absent as shoulder padding is today. The 80s was all power ballads and direct requests. The 90s, however, evolved. Grunge made everything seem so serious, while pop became a lecture in plausible deniability. We traded the leather-clad obviousness of "Pour Some Sugar On Me" for the suburban fantasy of a "Barbie Girl." This segment explores how the 90s used bubblegum pop and hip-hop to smuggle adult themes into the mainstream under the guise of innocent fun. It was the decade of the double-entendre, where the lyrics were clean enough for mom to sing, but things were starting to get a lot dirtier.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The other day we dove into the shag-carpeted, bell-bottomed world of the 70s, where the sexual innuendo in songs was as thick as the chest hair. Well, grab your leg warmers and Aqua Net, because we’ve time-warped to a new decade where the hair was higher, the pants were tighter, and the double-entendres were powered by synthesizers.Welcome to the 1980s, DORKS, a decade that looked at the winking, nudge-nudge subtlety of the 70s and said, “No, thank you, we’ll have ours with a power ballad and a keytar solo.” This was the era of excess, and that didn’t just apply to shoulder pads and stock portfolios. It applied to the art of the not-so-hidden meaning. We’re talking about songs that were so brazen, so gloriously unsubtle, that they might as well have been called “We Are Definitely Having Sex.” See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.