INTRODUCTION: The connection between preferred choice of alcoholic beverage and subcultural affiliation is the subject of much debate in scientific circles. Do certain kinds of alcoholic beverages induce certain kinds of behaviors? Does an allegiance to a particular alcoholic beverage reveal or create an allegiance to a particular subculture? To put it in layman's terms: Does the drink make the frat boy? Or does the frat boy make the drink?

To shed some light on this debate, a team of researchers affiliated with The Stranger (a weekly newspaper based in Seattle) conducted an experiment, the results of which are hereby submitted for rigorous peer review.

In conducting the experiment, The Stranger utilized the following means: (1) test subjects firmly entrenched in their chosen subculture (e.g., heterosexuality, homosexuality, "intelligentsia") were identified and recruited; and (2) obscene amounts of alcohol were procured and consumed. Test subjects were required to consume alcoholic beverages preferred in subcultures other than their own. Over a time frame of several hours, each test subject consumed a minimum of eight drinks.

All five test subjects consumed alcoholic beverages in drinking establishments that cater to the unfamiliar subculture to which each individual subject was being exposed. At the end of the night, all five subjects assembled at GameWorks, a video arcade in downtown Seattle, where subjects were subjected to various motor skill, personality, and hand-eye coordination tests.