I am not a fan of icebreakers. It already takes a not-insignificant amount of energy for me to psych myself up enough to interact with a large group of people—especially people I don’t know. And if, on top of that, I have to toss a ball around or come up with two truths and a lie,⁠01 I actually have a note saved in my phone with various truth and lie options, because I've been put on the spot enough times that I will (hopefully) never be caught off guard again I’m gonna be a little grumpy about it.

That being said: I know that conversational warm-ups can be helpful in certain situations, and that facilitators of icebreakers are often just trying their best. I have also been that person! I’ve been a camp counselor, I’ve led plenty of collaborative brainstorm-y meetings, and I’ve introduced different friend groups to each other and had that moment where I realized I needed to kickstart some name-sharing because I’m the only person who knows everyone in the room.

So my strategy, honed over years of enduring awkward icebreakers as an awkward person, is threefold.

One: do an activity that doesn’t require participants to be put on the spot, so they can opt in (or not) on their own time and comfort level.

Two: don’t make it overly complicated or metaphorical.⁠02 no, untangling a human knot will not portend how well a team can untangle a work problem, unless you're an acrobat or something

Three: get people laughing—or, at the very least, taking themselves less seriously—if at all possible.

My current favorite activity that fits this threefold strategy is something my brain calls “Draw a Blank,”⁠03 mentally stylized as Draw ______ but maybe that is bad branding which is a direct rip-off of my pal Valerie’s recent Zine projects. The leader of this icebreaker chooses an object or a character that the participants are familiar with, like a bike, or a car, or Shrek, and invites everyone to draw it from memory. Specifically, the instructions I use are: “Don’t look at any pictures of X or the actual, real-life X. Then, draw X to the best of your ability,” where X=bike or car or Shrek or Tim. Nobody is going to do a great job; that’s the point.⁠04 or if they do, they must have a secret or not-so-secret artistic talent that can be celebrated

After the drawings are done, either all at once or staggered throughout an event, you can have people share and chat about what a silly thing you’ve done! Plus, if you put them up on a conference room wall or something like that, you have a weird, good community art project that you can preserve or recycle depending on your heart’s desire.

The MIT Admissions and Student Financial Services offices recently had a post-Pi-day study break filled with pie and trivia and, yes, an icebreaker led by yours truly. And because I am an internet gremlin, I also decided to mine my coworkers for Blog Content™️ by asking people for their consent to share their anonymous drawings from said icebreaker.

So, without further ado, I present to you DRAW TIM (the beaver) by MIT Admissions and SFS, with some brief commentary from me. If you’d like to contribute your own Tim to this collage, please do in the comments of this post!!

Cute Tims

All of these Tims embody the essence of cuteness, which you will fully understand upon seeing some of the other Tim subcategories I’ve had to come up with. Enjoy this palate cleanser! ⁠05 is this too ominous? or the appropriate level of ominous?

Pie Tims

Many people drew their Tims during the aforementioned pie-centric study break, so that led to the creation of some pie-centric Tims. I’m not sure whether the lines surrounding the second drawing are grass or fire (in the style of the This is Fine dog), and I guess you could think about pie in either situation.

Avant Garde Tims

Some Tims really just capture the general essence of our beaver friend. They are just as valid! Sometimes when you’re faced with a blank canvas, expected to draw something from memory with a marker, you just gotta go with the first lines you come up with.

Classic T-Shirt Tims

Other artists focused on representing Tim in his classic outfit of an MIT t-shirt (myself included), because how else are you going to distinguish him from a regular non-Tim beaver???

Chaos Tims

I realize I could have called this subcategory “just heads” or something along those lines, but they all had an enhanced level of chaos energy that really sets them apart. I don’t know whether to respect or fear these Tims; perhaps both.