Silicon Valley syndrome

Silicon Valley syndrome (noun): Silicon Valley syndrome, or SVS, is a collection of personality traits and physical characteristics specific to individuals residing around the San Francisco Bay Area. The effects of SVS are often confused for autism or Helen Keller.

*Do you tend to over-analyze everything in your life to such an extent that you've chosen to become a life-long academic in order to justify your obsessive behavior? This might include instances of spending hours at the grocery store while agonizing over the metaphysical benefits of chunky peanut butter or two-ply toilet paper.

*Are you overly sensitive to caffeine substances like coffee, Redbull or chocolate-dipped pretzels? Is your knee still bouncing?

*Do you make over $75,000 a year yet still find yourself wearing Vans/New Balance shoes and graphic t-shirts at work and during your free-time?

*Do you shun traditional social gatherings that require that you interact with non-intellectual scum (read: non-academics that have 9-5's and/or lowly humanity degrees) and that requires that you shave/brush your teeth/switch out one Stanford sweatshirt for another?

*Do you have multiple food/pet/medication allergies that require you to keep an EpiPen in the glovebox of your leased Accord?

(Ctd. from definition)

*Do you have autism or Asperger's or an engineering-related degree?

*Do you leave social interactions wondering if that raised eyebrow/bored sigh/bout of narcolepsy was because of something you said over the course of your two-hour discussion on phenotyping?

*Do you currently hold or have you ever held a record that somehow relates to the Rubik's Cube, minesweeper, chess or Mathlete's?

If you answered "yes" to most of the above, YOU could have SVS. Unfortunately, this is a chronic condition that often goes untreated in most; often thriving in hi-tech companies and Toast Master gatherings.

Example:
Non-SVS friend: This party is SO awkward! Everyone is totally wasted...but they're all talking about stem cell imaging or their boring day-trips to Napa. I haven't looked anyone in the eye for like, two hours!

More experienced non-SVS friend: Sigh. I know. Everyone here has Silicon Valley syndrome like WHOA.

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