A twinkie is often a derogatory term used on Asians by other Asians. It denotes one who is yellow on the outside and white on the inside. Banana can also be used to express the same sentiment. I wonder if a Caucasian person who expresses great interest in Asian cultures is an egg.

TWINKIE FAILURE TESTING

In an effort to clarify questions about the purported durability and unusual physical characteristics of Twinkies, we subjected the Hostess snack logs to the following experiments:

EXPOSURE:
A Twinkie was left on a window ledge for four days, during which time an inch and a half of rain fell. Many flies were observed crawling across the Twinkie's surface, but contrary to hypothesis, birds -- even pigeons -- avoided this potential source of sustenance.
Despite the rain and prolonged exposure to the sun, the Twinkie retained its original color and form. When removed, the Twinkie was found to be substantially dehydrated. Cracked open, it was observed to have taken on the consistency of industrial foam insulation; the filling, however, retained its advertised "creaminess."

RADIATION:
A Twinkie was placed in a conventional microwave oven, which was set for precisely 4 minutes -- the approximate cooking time of bacon. After 20 seconds, the oven began to emit the Twinkie's rich, characteristic aroma of artificial butter. After 1 minute, this aroma began to resemble the acrid smell of burning rubber. The experiment was aborted after 2 minutes, 10 seconds, when thick, foul smoke began billowing from the top of the oven. A second Twinkie was subjected to the same experiment. This Twinkie leaked molten white filling. When cooled, this now epoxylike filling bonded the Twinkie to its plate, defying gravity; it was removed only upon application of a butter knife.

EXTREME FORCE:
A Twinkie was dropped from a ninth-floor window, a fall of approximately 120 feet. It landed right side up, then bounced onto its back. The expected "splatter" effect was not observed. Indeed, the only discernible damage to the Twinkie was a narrow fissure on its underside. Otherwise, the Twinkie remained structurally intact.

EXTREME COLD:
A Twinkie was placed in a conventional freezer for 24 hours. Upon removal, the Twinkie was not found to be frozen solid, but its physical properties had noticeably "slowed": the filling was found to be the approximate consistency of acrylic paint, while exhibiting the mercury-like property of not adhering to practically any surface. It was noticed that the Twinkie had generously absorbed freezer odors.

EXTREME HEAT:
A Twinkie was exposed to a gas flame for 2 minutes. While the Twinkie smoked and blackened and the filling in one of its "cream holes" boiled, the Twinkie did not catch fire. It did, however, produce the same "burning rubber" aroma noticed during the irradiation experiment.

IMMERSION:
A Twinkie was dropped into a large beaker filled with tap water. The Twinkie floated momentarily, began to list and sink, and viscous yellow tendrils ran off its lower half, possibly consisting of a water-soluble artificial coloring. After 2 hours, the Twinkie had bloated substantially. Its coloring was now a very pale tan -- in contrast to the yellow, urine-like water that surrounded it. The Twinkie bobbed when touched, and had a gelatinous texture. After 72 hours, the Twinkie was found to have bloated to roughly 200 percent of its original size, the water had turned opaque, and a small, fan-shaped spray of filling had leaked from one of the "cream holes." Unfortunately, efforts to remove the Twinkie for further analysis were abandoned when, under light pressure, the Twinkie disintegrated into an amorphous cloud of debris. A distinctly sour odor was noted.

SUMMARY OF RESULTS
The Twinkie's survival of a 120-foot drop, along with some of the unusual phenomena associated with the "creamy filling" and artificial coloring, should give pause to those observers who would unequivocally categorize the Twinkie as "food." Further clinical inquiry is required before any definite conclusions can be drawn.


Note: I received this as is via e-mail a long time ago (early 90's) while I was at university. While the source of this email remains unknown, the content bares a remarkable resemblance to the information contained at the following site: http://www.twinkie sproject.com/

At the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, twinkies are members of the Assassins' Guild and general role-playing types. The old definition was actually broader; a decade ago, you were considered a twinkie if you were a member of some large subset of APO, SIPB, LSC, MITSFS, or the Assassins' Guild, because the social groups were so tightly linked. The term supposedly originated from the junk food wrappers left behind after meetings and social events.

The term is used derogatively by non-twinkies, but twinkies themselves are frequently proud of it. There are also several related terms: "twinkie droppings" refers to the small plastic discs and darts which accumulate anywhere twinkies are caught gaming, "twinkie games" are board games, such as Illuminati, B5 Wars, and Cosmic Encounter, which twinkies are frequently found playing, and "to twink" is a verb describing twinkie activity.

The term was used in a hack in 1994, when the Musical Theatre Guild put on a production of "Assassins". The group had a poster featuring the word "Assassins" with a rifle sight logo. It was replaced one day by one which read "Twinkies", with a disc-shaped logo. Smaller flyers also appeared advertising the new production.

"You people turned my girlfriend into a twinkie! I'm so relieved." -- Member of the Assassins' Guild to his friends

Twinkie is a term used in gaming circles to refer to someone who tweaks their character to the max using stupid exploits of the rules.

"Oh look! Thanks to alternate character generation method #89, I have an Intelligence of 30, making me invulnerable to all spells except those cast by Deities or Gary Gygax!"

The tendency to "twink" their characters to the outrageous is what earns them the derogatory nickname of Twinkie.

Twinkies are a cake-like snack food produced by Hostess. Though they are delicious and produce a lot of revenue for Hostess, they have an infamous reputation. Twinkies also have one of the longest and most eventful histories of any snack food.

A man by the name of Jim Dewar came up with a tasty new idea in the 1930's. It was a golden brown baked treat with banana cream in the middle. Having seen a billboard for Twinkle Toe Shoes, Dewar christened it the "Twinkie", a name which sticks to this day. Twinkies became an instant hit, earning tons of money for Dewar's bakery, the Continental Baking Company in Chicago. The original Twinkies did contain a banana cream filling, but a banana shortage due to World War II forced a change to the current vanilla cream.

Twinkies celebrated their 50th birthday in style. A huge twinkie, ten feet long, was baked to commemorate this occasion. It took nearly a week to make the whole thing, but when it was completed, it was impressive.

Twinkies have an official mascot: Twinkie the Kid. A "Twinkified" version of Billy the Kid, Twinkie the Kid came about in the 1970's. He wears a bandanna, cowboy boots, and a ten-gallon hat with his name proudly displayed on it.

The reason people make so much fun of Twinkies is because of the amount and nature of the ingredients. Since there are so many different suspicious-sounding chemicals that go into Twinkies, people have made a number of stories about them. There are rumors that the shelf life of a Twinkie is over a century. It has also been said that in the event of nuclear war, only two things will survive: cockroaches and Twinkies. The full ingredients list of a Twinkie contains a slew of strange-sounding chemicals, but they are not that much different from the chemicals found in other similar snack foods.

The following data have been copied from the outside of a Twinkies package:

Main Ingredients: (not listing ingredients of negligible amounts):

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