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[bewilderedta]

So I had a long car ride to sit through and once I finished the work I'd brought along, I was idly comparing True Blood and the vampire society with academia. And you know, they seem to me quite analogous, so I thought I would share the joy with you all, who may find it entertaining (or not).

Undergraduates = humans
They know professors/vampires exist and think of them as vaguely malignant and scary creatures. Usually they just avoid professors/vampires, but now and then they find a way to profit from or suck the life out of them. This usually ends badly for all involved.

Grad students = new vampires
After their first traumatic initiation, they have a little power and they're not wholly ignorant - they can run circles around the undergrads/humans. However, they're just beginning to see that there is a big crazy world that they don't understand - all that's clear is that they're on the bottom rung of the hierarchy and they've got a lot to learn.

Professors = older vampires
Their place in the hierarchy is hugely important, but overall they're doing pretty well. To those below them, they may seem enormously powerful and intimidating. As they grow in age and power, they tend to go in two possible directions : either they become more jaded with experience and more desensitized to human/undergraduate suffering, or they strive to help those below them and make their transitions easier.

I'm thinking werewolves = MBAs or something like that.

[bluezebracat]

And we feed on the undergraduates? whaa?

[tinyzombie]

I think the OP has a vitamin D deficiency.

[bluezebracat]

This is just one of those analogies that seem to soar when you're drunk but less so when you're sober.

[spyzowin]

Congratulations, OP, you just lowered the level of discourse on CHE by at least three orders of magnitude.

[bewilderedta]

Three orders of magnitude! Amazing. I did not know I had such influence.

[bread_pirate_naan]

You are addressing a ridiculously small minority here by posting this to the grad board.

You have cable.  Possibly a grad student faux pas (party poverty foul) in mixed company.  I'm a veggie and not really into vampires, zombies, or the differently alive for entertainment.  Draw that venn diagram and it seems you get the empty set.

This would be more fun as a Mad Men metaphor.

[bewilderedta]

I do not actually have cable. I have Netflix and friends who invite me over to watch their cable. Perhaps that is equally bougie and off-putting.

In any case, this was intended to be silly and light-hearted; apparently people think it edged over into stupid, and I've been sort of hoping it would fade on down the page. Of course, with my newly-discovered power to stupefy dozens of PhDs through the mere posting of bad analogies, I'm thinking maybe we can loosen up the job market if we keep it going.

[mended_drum]

So which forumite is Pam? 

[tauren]

Can we relate this to Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Baker Series? Maybe I'll understand better.

[profxfiles]

Three orders of magnitude! Amazing. I did not know I had such influence.

Trust me, Amnirov is the expert on lowering the level of discourse on the forum. He does it so frequently that he has developed very precise measures as to the impact of his efforts over hundreds of experimental trials.