As he sung the Goo Goo Dolls' "Name" into the microphone, Andrew Unterberger's khaki pants and light blue T-shirt glowed in the black light of a pink-walled private room in Koreatown's Toto Karaoke. His shaggy, curly brown hair moved with him as he moved with the music, belting out the lyrics.
His friend teased him for his enthusiasm. "This is my soul talking, thank you very much," Unterberger retorted.
Unterberger, a CAS junior majoring in journalism and English, knows where most of the songs played that night landed on the music charts, and when.
"The success of this song has nothing to do with Shaggy's involvement in it," he said as he and his friends prepared to sing "It Wasn't Me." Since his childhood in Pennsylvania, Unterberger has been memorizing pop culture trivia, making lists, and spending long hours watching TV and movies, according to his mother, Alyse Unterberger.
As a college student, he has capitalized on his extensive knowledge to land on the VH1 show, "World Series of Pop Culture," where he and his teammates competed last March for a prize of $250,000.
Their team's success during auditions for the show came down to a single question, one that Unterberger answered. One team member, Steinhardt alumnus Victor Lee, thought Unterberger's answer was wrong, but "as it turns out, it was the right answer," Lee said. "Then I knew we were a team of destiny."
Until the show airs, Unterberger and his friends must keep the results a secret. The show will air this summer starting July 8, at which point Unterberger and his teammates will finally be allowed either to celebrate their win or to commiserate their loss openly.
But for Unterberger, public acknowledgment may be a prize in itself.
"If someone randomly recognized me on the street after the whole thing was over, I'd consider my life more or less vindicated," he said.
Unterberger, known as "Utz" to his teammates for the show and NYU's College Bowl, sent out daily quizzes to his VH1 teammates, graded their answers and wrote performance reviews for each of them.
Unterberger has experience coaching his peers - he is the team president of College Bowl. His A-team is going to attend the national Testing Recall About Strange Happenings Tournament (TRASH), or, the "Trashionals," April 21 and 22 in Maryland.
"We drive down, we make mixes, we riff on pop culture a lot, we get to stay in hotels and eat elaborate meals for free," he said.
He also channels his knowledge of music, TV and pop culture into articles for "Stylus," an online music, film and TV magazine. He writes album reviews and various feature stories like, "Top Ten Musical Moments from 'Pretty in Pink.' "
According to his mother, Unterberger has always kept lists - he still carries a notebook with him wherever he goes, and he said his lists "could probably stack to the ceiling."
"He just started accumulating an amazing body of knowledge," his mother said. "He has a prodigious memory."
Unterberger's best friend since childhood, CAS junior Kareem Estefan, is a witness to the continual growth of his pop culture knowledge. Their middle school once celebrated Pi Day by holding a competition for who could recite the most digits of the number pi. By associating digits of pi to MTV's top 500 videos of all time, Unterberger memorized 236 digits and won. As a reward, his father bought him two pies.
In high school, Unterberger led a large group of friends called the "Goon Squad," a group of about 25 people who tried to differentiate themselves from others. Unterberger was "King Goon." The squad once brought the CD, "Ultimate Dance Party '97" to school on an ordinary day and danced to it, Unterberger said.
"It was a reaction to the other typical high school cliques," Estefan said. "The clique that was anti-clique."
Unterberger believes in theories and mottos that "all come from bad movies," Estefan said. For instance, Unterberger was studying the menu one early morning at a 24-hour diner in Manhattan. When asked what he was going to order he said, "I don't know yet - I need to flip a coin." He also thinks a person should never accept food if someone says it's "to die for" because they actually mean it. He never sits in a subway car because he thinks that's how real New Yorkers do it and he hasn't worn a jacket since high school, much to the disappointment of his mother.
His light blue T-shirt left him cold that night on the way to the karaoke joint, but his enthusiastic movements during a rendition of "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns 'n' Roses made him warm. He played air guitar and banged his head to the music, letting loose among his friends.
Unterberger's pop culture knowledge is a way for him to create an identity that makes him comfortable among strangers, he said.
"I'm normally a pretty introverted and insecure guy, at least around people I don't know," Unterberger said. "It's nice to have something that sort of speaks for me."
In his journalism class, he is known for his vast knowledge and his role on the VH1 competition.
"I don't want to be the sort of person that brings it up every chance I get. In fact, I try pretty hard to avoid doing that," he said. "But if people want to talk to me about it, awesome."
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