What's with the "Robb is a dingbat" option on poll questions?

[Shine]

I don't get that. Is that an inside joke or something? It's not always there, but I've noticed it enough to want to ask about it.

Please explain the origin, for the rest of the class who may not know. Like me. ;) Thanks.

I haven't "met" Robb, yet, but I'm assuming he must be a pretty easy-going guy, albeit silly. :silly:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

1. Robb started doing that, and it stuck.

That's the lore I've heard, anyway. I'm a relative newbie m'self.

:hi:

[Shine]

4. LOL! "lore", I love it!! Somebody could do a whole thread on THAT

"lounge lore".....

:rofl:

in any case, thanks for the response. I didn't know that little factoid. that bit of lounge lore.

[WritingIsMyReligion]

5. Somebody seriously SHOULD....

Like, why the fuck is matcom obsessed with tacos???? I missed that tidbit of info...

:D

;)

[GirlinContempt]

6. You REALLY don't want that answered

[Shine]

7. Now see? I hadn't noticed THAT, either. I have, however, noticed

his attraction to offbeat stories and Thomas Kinkaid... It's funny how people can create a presence with typed words on a screen.

I find it fascinating....

[LaurenG]

11. I think it was when

Taverner told a story about someone saying they were going to kick someone in the taco. It was pretty funny. About 2 seconds later matcom had a taco avatar.

[Shine]

18. LOL! It's almost like I have the vision of us all hangin' around a cyber

campfire, tellin' stories...

:rofl:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

34. !

:rofl::rofl:

Virtual marshmallows, anyone?

:D

[Shine]

38. mmm....lo-cal, too!

:rofl:

[bertha katzenengel]

17. I don't WANT to know that one . . .

:yoiks:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

33. LOL...

;)

[djeseru]

2. I've been here two years...

...and still have yet to know the answer to that one. And many others. I just put it down to being a Lounge side-effect.

Like snakes on the plane. :silly:

[Shine]

8. Yeah, I saw those snakes on planes threads, but I didn't read them

"lounge side-effects" , that's a funny expression. :thumbsup:

:hi:

[ghostsofgiants]

13. Snakes on a Plane = gold

It's an actual movie starring Samuel L. Jackson, that's currently in post-production, and its premise is so ridiculous (an assassin lets loose a crate of deadly snakes on a plane to try and kill a passenger who is in protective custody) that people can't help but make fun of it.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417148/

http://www.snakesonablog.com

[Shine]

20. LOL!! Thanks for cluing me in, once again, primate1.

I haven't heard of this movie yet. It sounds completely ridiculous and totally worth making fun of. :thumbsup:

[ghostsofgiants]

26. I'm a wealth of useless knowledge, what can I say?

:P

[Shine]

39. yeah, me too.... usually.

A.K.A., "Mom"

hehehe
:rofl:

[djeseru]

41. Yes, but thank the gods we have you to tell us these things.

The cartoon strip telling us there wasn't a got-damn thing we could do about is now becoming understandable.

[madinmaryland]

3. I've been here almost two years,

and I have never heard of that. Must not be paying attention.

:shrug:

[Shine]

9. It's usually posted at the bottom of poll questions, as the very last

option. It's just a weird little piece of lounge humor, I guess....

:hi:

[Hugin]

10. I always took it as a non-sequitur answer...

So, those who weren't really interested in the poll could still participate.

[Shine]

15. but doesn't Robb actually exist? as a regular poster, that is?

:shrug:
I think I've seen his posts floating about...

I guess he's cool with it, in other words.

[Midlodemocrat]

12. Robb is the BEST!

and not really a dingbat at all.

You will LOVE him when you interact with him. Very, very nice.

[Shine]

16. He must be a very nice and good-natured person, indeed.

Sounds like my kinda guy...

:thumbsup:

[leftofthedial]

14. you'll have to ask Robb what it all means

but I warn you, he's a dingbat

[Shine]

19. I guess after all this, at the very least, I should PM the guy to say hi

unless he comes and finds me first! ;)

[leftofthedial]

21. he's such a dingbat

he probably will forget to find you

[XemaSab]

22. I gotta warn ya

He's a dog eater. x(

[Gormy Cuss]

23. ....

:spray:

[Shine]

27. "dog-eater"?? I'm not "getting it"....

:shrug:

[WritingIsMyReligion]

36. Take a gander here, Shine:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=4709020&mesg_id=4709020

[nutsnberries]

24. i always figured Robb is a regular, but maybe goes by a different screen

name.

so... i kinda had fun wondering which guy here is Robb, but never asked.

Is Robb the real name of someone with a screen name I'd recognize?
OR, is Robb, Robb?

I suppose I could check the list of members but that sounds like too much work to me.

I bet Robb is a dingbat.

[ZombieNixon]

25. Robb is "Robb."

Robb is a dingbat. :D

[Shine]

30. Poor Robb. He's just another guy on the wheel of Life...tryin' to get by

like the rest of us.

:hi:

How's school going, ZN?

[ZombieNixon]

32. Well, my afternoon class got canceled, so I went home and took a nap.

It irritated my, because that's the class where I see the girls who do naughty things in my dreams as well the class where I knock the prof's socks off with deep philosophical points. :shrug:

But I got some extra sleep...

[Shine]

28. Will the real "Robb" please stand up!

I've seen his username and posts around, but I haven't personally "met" him yet. ;)

jeez, all this talk about Robb....I wonder if, somewhere, his ears are burning? :evilgrin:

I've heard tell he's a very nice guy, actually. :)

[WritingIsMyReligion]

35. Robb is indeed "Robb."

You'll see him floating about...

;)

[Robb]

44. Actually, like my posts I tend to rather sink

...more a relative buoyancy thing than anything else, really. :hi:

[nutsnberries]

48. oh, hi Robb!

nice to meet ya. :hi:

dingbat or not? i want to know how to answer in those polls!

[aclog]

29. thanks for the earworm

http://www.plyrics.com/lyrics/screechingweasel/dingbat.html

[Shine]

31. LOL!! The "Screaching Weasels"....now THERE's a name.

never heard of 'em....


gawd, I feel so old.
;(

[aclog]

37. somehow music like that helped me get through my teenage years

in the mid/late 90s...

PS you'd hate 'em :)

[Shine]

42. LOL! I'll take your word for it, bud.

:hug:

[Benfea]

40. I love stuff like that.

One of the other forums I occasionally post at has a tradition of always having a "banana" option in polls, which I think is as funny as an old dog in a room full of kittens.

It sort of underscores the uselessness of non-scientific Internet polls. People of a certain mindset will choose the silly answer, which skews the results of all the other answers, which kind of forces you to acknowledge the futility of non-scientific polls.

[Shine]

43. I love stuff like that, too.

kinda keeps everything lightened up...

:thumbsup:

[supernova]

45. Robb started it right after we got this software

and the polling function. He was really fond of polling. And the last choice on his polls was always, and still is, "Robb is a dingbat!"

That's been a couple of years, I think. ;-)

[Shine]

46. that's funny.

"lounge lore"....

:hi:

[yewberry]

47. Robb is not really a dingbat. He's kind of like Santa.

(Okay, not really.)


I'll c&p the dingbat page from Demopedia:


Dingbat

From Demopedia

Categories: DU Glossary


The most famous Dingbat on television was undeniably "All in the Family" wife Edith Bunker, who was characterized as a "dingbat" by husband Archie whenever she expressed an opinion.

Much, much later a poster on Democratic Underground began to use the word as a vehicle for self-deprecation; Robb would include, every time he used the newly-crafted Create Poll Question function, a tenth option in absurdist polls: "Robb is a Dingbat".

The idea originally was to create an option for voters to weigh in a "This is a silly poll, and by inference a siller poster" vote. After a surprisingly short period of time, the exercise of collecting an actual vote tally was superceded by the joy of simply clicking "Robb is a Dingbat", cementing the role of Robb's polls as purely rhetorical. It had become the reading of the options, less than the selection of one, that was the point. Fortunately most of them were humorous, although not all.


Thus, the dingbat legend was created. A warning: do not click the "dingbat" message in Robb's sigline. You'll end up with the mother of all earworms. (edit--Robb changed his sigline. Snake! Snake!)

[Oeditpus Rex]

49. Ohhhhh, Rooooobb!

[DBoon]

50. Rob is to DU what "Cowboy Neal" is to Slashdot

he must always be an option on every poll

[GalleryGod]

51. Old Joke.

:shrug: who knew?