Densa
{{Short description|Fictional low-iq organization}}
{{For|the genus of sponges|Neopetrosia}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
Densa has been used as the name of a number of fictional organizations parodying Mensa International, an organization for highly intelligent people. Densa is ostensibly an organization for people insufficiently intelligent to be members of Mensa. The name Densa has been said to be an acronym for "Diversely Educated Not Seriously Affected."{{cite news|last=Boxer |first=Sarah |title=What's the Opposite of a Tree? Ask Mensa's Testers |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/13/arts/what-s-the-opposite-of-a-tree-ask-mensa-s-testers.html |page=B13 |work=The New York Times |date=13 November 1999 |quote=There is a special club for those who don't make it into Mensa, the high I.Q. society. It is called Densa (really). |url-access=subscription |access-date=28 April 2021}}{{cite news|last=Queenan |first=Joe |title=You Wanna Be a Wacko, You Gotta Pay the Dues. |pages=1 |work=The Wall Street Journal (Eastern edition) |date=28 March 1989 |quote=Says Densa is one of many groups who are 'the wacko patrol: the daffy, satirical organizations that never fail to tickle our funny bone with their zany antics'.}}{{cite news|last=Ward |first=Bruce |title=At Last: Mensa for Dummies |work=The Ottawa Citizen |date=17 May 1999}} Available on Lexis-Nexis.{{cite news|last=Fisher |first=Sophie |title=Think You're Dumb? Densa Will Help You Find Joy in Stupidity |work=The Globe and Mail |date=29 January 1982}} Available through Lexis-Nexis.{{cite news |title=Genius is as Genius Does |work=St. Louis Post-Dispatch |date=17 January 1995}} Available through Lexis-Nexis. The name Densa is a portmanteau of {{Linktext|denser}} (in the sense of stupider) and Mensa.
History
The concept of an organization for the mentally dense originated in Boston & Outskirts Mensa Bulletin (BOMB), August 1974, in "A-Bomb-inable Puzzle II" by John D. Coons. The puzzle involved "The Boston chapter of Densa, the low IQ society". Subsequent issues had additional puzzles with gags about the group and were widely reprinted by the bulletins of other Mensa groups before the concept of a low IQ group gained wider circulation in the 1970s, with other people creating quizzes, etc.{{cite web|last=Amyx |first=Meredy |editor-first=TJ |editor-last=Lundeen |title=The Origin of Densa |work=Interloc |publisher=American Mensa, Ltd. |date=June–July 2005 |url=https://www.metaphoricaldwelling.com/MetaDwelSite/Rants/index.html#densatag |access-date=28 April 2021}}
A humor book called The Densa Quiz: The Official & Complete Dq Test of the International Densa Society was written in 1983 by Stephen Price and J. Webster Shields.{{cite book|last=Price |first=Stephen |first2=J. Webster |last2=Shields |title=The Densa Quiz: The Official & Complete Dq Test of the International Densa Society |publisher=Avon Books |date=December 1983 |isbn=978-0-380-85563-6| page=64}}{{cite news |last=McGowan |first=William |title=A Sense of Belonging |work=The New York Times |date=23 August 1987 |id={{ProQuest|426583008}} |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/23/magazine/a-sense-of-belonging.html |access-date=28 April 2021}}