Games like hitchiker

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the United States, has been mentioned in many works of cinema, television, music, and the written word. MIT's widespread overall reputation has greater influence on its role in popular culture than does any particular aspect of its history or its student lifestyle. Because MIT is well known as a seedbed for technology and technologists, the makers of modern media are able to use it to effectively establish character, in a way that mainstream and international audiences can immediately understand. A smaller number of creative works use MIT directly as their scene of action.

The use of "MIT as metaphor" is relatively widespread, so much so that in popular culture, "the MIT of" is an idiom for "top science and engineering university", or "elite technical institution", like "Cadillac of" for "most luxurious", or "an Einstein" for "intelligent person". Similarly, any regionally prominent science or engineering school is likely to be called "the MIT of" that region. For example, the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Texas at Dallas have also been popularly and historically referred to as "the MIT of the South". Additionally, US Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) touted the University of Alabama in Huntsville as a possible "MIT of the South". Other examples, make "X is the MIT of Y" an example of a snowclone (a family of formulaic clichés).