The worst kind of earworm.

An infection from a source outside your own head.

Ahhhhh!

I work with someone who likes to hum, even sing, and he at some point in nearly every day will come around to a tune that has powerful earworm qualities:

We’re Not Gonna Take It … by Twisted Sister.

Here, take the earworm test yourself.

Stuck on it, right?

It is a silly song, of course. Repetitive lyrics, sporadic rhyme, generic teen angst/loathing, adults mere caricatures — and the band members are now far older than the thirysomethings they rebelled against back in 1984.

Twisted Sister did a too-long video of the song, opening with the actor Mark Metcalf essentially reprising his role as the abusive ROTC leader Neidermayer in the movie Animal House, shouting at a junior-high kid who likes heavy metal.

(It’s really tedious; just go straight to the song.)

Like many songs of the earworm genre, the song has a driving beat and an easily remembered (and oft-repeated) chorus.

I became more aware of the song while covering UCLA sports events in the 1990s. Football and basketball, in particular, where “Not Gonna Take It” became a staple of the UCLA band — perhaps because it is a good song for the cheer squad to dance to.

The title, too, has competitive/sports overtones, too, suggesting rising up and smiting an opponent, particularly a persecutor.

(Thus it works better for UCLA than for crosstown Los Angeles rival USC.)

It is an insidious earworm, of course. My co-worker, for example, seems to be plagued by it — passing it on to those of us within range of the humming.

It is not one of those tunes often passed on malignantly … Like It’s a Small World … but it lingers almost as long.