If you ask someone to describe Tufts in one word, odds are they’ll say “quirky.” I’m guilty of using that term too, but I never paused to consider why.
Sure, Tufts is a liberal arts university in Medford/Somerville, one of the most progressive communities in one of the most progressive states. But similar to other overused adjectives, like “woke” or “cancelled,” quirky is used so often and so nonspecifically that it’s beginning to lose meaning.
I wanted to rediscover a definition, so I decided to go to The Sink — what I think of as the quirkiest place on campus, to understand what the term really means. I began by asking patrons of the café to define the word.
Kady Seck, a first-year, thinks quirky means “outside of the box,” to be someone who “doesn’t really fit into societal norms and attitudes.” Sophomore Nayan Talwalker doesn’t think it has a “set definition.” Fellow sophomore Elanor Kinderman couldn’t quite describe it. “It’s definitely based off vibes,” she said.
I had hoped to find a definition of quirky that went beyond “weird” or “over-the-top,” so the answers I received weren’t satisfying me. The only thing students agreed upon is that The Sink is indeed the zaniest place at Tufts. So, I decided to take a different approach: Instead of directly asking people to produce a definition, I asked them to describe what makes The Sink quirky.
“I always see people wearing interesting outfits and stuff at The Sink,” Kinderman told me. “It just feels very artsy compared to other places on campus.”
As I interviewed Kinderman in The Sink, I looked around at some of the “interesting” clothing she was referring to: garish jewelry, clashing colors, outlandishly baggy pants. Every person looked unique.
“There’s a big range of weird, different personalities that show up here. Not weird in a bad way, but weird in a fun way,” Willo Sheldon, a senior, said. “I might have a bias — I work here — but I see a ton of people who have really cool outfits on.”
Outfits are an essential factor of quirkiness because they’re the most prominent way we show our personalities. A bizarre outfit might tell you everything you need to know about someone before they open their mouth. For example, when I asked Talwalker to mentally conjure a quirky person, he described a person wearing “a very colorful jacket with spikes.”
But if you spend time in The Sink, you’ll also see a lot of ‘normal’ outfits. For every person wearing a spiky jacket, there’s someone in jeans and a plain T-shirt. This raised the question: Can you be quirky on the inside only? Junior Elijah Albert-Stein is not so sure.
“Quirkiness has to present in some way. You’re not quirky if you just have little weird thoughts inside your head,” Albert-Stein said.
Under Albert-Stein’s definition, simply wearing silly clothing or having strange fixations also doesn’t cut it: You have to be internally and externally weird to be quirky. One’s hobbies or pastimes might point to internal eccentricity.
“They do all sorts of things,” Talwalker said. “They’re a varsity athlete, first of all, but then, at the same time, they’re a dual degree student with the SMFA … and they’re in a band, and they’re the captain of the ping-pong team.”
I was surprised that Talwalker mentioned sports, since senior Alexa Brust considered athletics non-quirky. She points out that Tufts lacks the defining ‘football culture’ of a Big 10 school.
“We don’t value traditional college things, like football and fraternities and sororities. We value more culture and different types of clubs,” she said.
Brust defined quirkiness as “being confident and not conforming to the norm.” To her, Tufts is quirky because we value a wider range of interests, with our quirkiest peers simply displaying their inner selves more conspicuously.
But since it’s so bound up with personal expression, Sheldon sometimes feels that there’s a pressure to be quirky. They find quirkiness at Tufts “a little overrated.”
“People want to be deemed as quirky, and people want to be deemed as different,” they said. “I feel like community is important, and sometimes the want to be quirky or sticking out is overwhelming and leads to exclusion.”
Sheldon’s note about “quirky competitiveness” raised the question: If everyone is quirky, what does nonconformity look like? It changes depending on the context.
For example, in Alabama, where Kinderman hails from, standing out is sometimes frowned upon. She said that at home, being called quirky would probably register as an insult.
“I’m from a place where I had a very different style compared to everyone else,” Kinderman said. “Everyone dressed the same, and I didn’t do that. So me and my friends, I guess, were quirky compared to everyone else in my high school — but here, not really.”
In other words, the term can operate as an insult or a compliment, depending on where it’s used. At Tufts, quirkiness might be an asset; elsewhere, it might be a target on one’s back.
Since location often determines whether someone sticks out, I asked students which spaces on campus they consider the least quirky. A consistent answer was the Joyce Cummings Center.
“Architecturally, it’s very corporate future-y in a way that shuns quirkiness,” Albert-Stein said. “I think quirky people go there to die.”
Unlike the somewhat bland STEM spaces, The Sink has a whimsical, improvised aesthetic. The intense red mood lighting and memes plastered on the walls are a bit garish, but they give the space a distinct personality. Others pointed to STEM buildings’ patrons as evidence of non-quirkiness.
“Every time I go there, it just feels so … computer science,” Kinderman said. “Everyone’s just working, and they all seem so miserable. … Everyone looks a little dead inside.”
Indeed, the noise and energy of The Sink is palpable, compared to the JCC’s relative silence. The buzz and whir of espresso machines mingle with indie music and intense conversation. The most common noise at the JCC is hushed conversation. People are focused on work.
Sheldon agreed that engineering buildings lack eccentricity, but they don’t consider all engineers conventional.
“I do think there’s hella engineers who are quirky and cool,” they said, considering potentially even less quirky locations than the JCC. “I’m trying to think of more places around here that have straight male populations…”
In drawing a comparison between non-quirkiness and heterosexuality, Sheldon made it impossible to ignore the relationship between quirkiness and queerness.
“Quirky people are drawn to queer culture because it’s a safer space in which to be quirky,” Albert-Stein noted. “Queer spaces are more accepting broadly, and therefore it’s easier to be quirky in them.”
The words “quirky” and “queer” designate that which is outside the norm, and they hold connotations of personal expression and creativity. But the words’ association also means that quirkiness, like queerness, can be marginalized.
The ambiguity of the word “quirky” makes it hard to pin down a definition. On the one hand, it can refer to specific traits — artistic, whimsical, outgoing — but it could also mean that someone is strange, or even perverse.
Quirky, therefore, is not a descriptor of what someone ‘is’; it’s more a descriptor of what they aren’t. That is to say, quirky does not refer to a specific aesthetic at Tufts or anywhere. Our student body may just be more quirky because we’re more accepting, or even encouraging, of difference.
Though Tufts is in a progressive state and has a progressive student population, The Sink is still a refuge — a place for self-expression without negative repercussions. “I think it’s just a very welcoming, comfortable space,” Talwalker said.
The muffins are also quite good.
