Densa

For the genus of sponges, see Neopetrosia.

Densa was originally a fictional association created in parody of Mensa International. Rather than belonging to the smartest 2% of the population (the criteria for membership eligibility for Mensa), members of Densa must be in the stupidest 2%. The name Densa is a portmanteau of dense (with the meaning stupid) and Mensa.

There is no single formal Densa organisation; instead, various projects using that name exist as informal groups, usually meant by their founders as a joke rather than a serious organisation. Even within Mensa itself, a SIG (special interest group, an informal sub-group of Mensans sharing a particular common interest) has existed for Densa; which, like all Mensa SIGs, required Mensa membership for admission, while it was active.

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.

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.

External links

• A Densa site with image of a Densa diploma