Famous Nerds

The nerd was always an enigmatic organism. A being that lurked in the bedroom shadows of social acceptability, hiding his spotty face from the light with soft white fingers. To be a nerd was to condemn oneself to a life of unattractive stereotypes and ridicule. It meant hovering at the bottom of the abyss of cool and banishment from social nirvana. It heralded exile from the Olympus of golden teenage rock and jock gods. But the nerd ignored the hasty backpedaling of mainstream society - he was oblivious to the subconscious cultural fear that the highly intelligent had the ability to dominate. Now, that fear has come alive. We live in a world where geeks crawl through the streets in expensive black cars and suave dark suits. We are stranded in an alternate reality where polished loafers* reflect the unsuspecting faces of the masses. In our age of technology, the nerd is rubbing pale hands together over the fates of economy, ecology, technology and ultimately, the future.

Earlier I was blogging about sexy young nerds. Well, here are some young-ish, not very sexy, nerds, my subjective list of the top 5 nerds that control your life, now that your life is THE INTERNET.**

Larry Page & Sergey Brin
Profile: Co-founders of Google. Presidents of Products and Technology of Google.
Facts: Larry’s first computer was an Exidy Sorcerer. The Sorcerer boasted 2 MHz processor speed and 8K RAM. That's as fast as an old calculator. Sergey liked puzzles when he was a kid.
Ages: 36
Nerd Rating: *****
Product Addiction Rating: *****

Evan Williams
Profile: Founder of Twitter, Pyra Labs, Blogspot, Blogger.
Fact: Evan likes vegetables.
Age: 37
Nerd Rating: ****
Product Addiction Rating: ***


Tom Anderson
Profile: Co-founder of Myspace. Public relations invention. Not really Tom Anderson since News Corp took over his Myspace profile.
Fact: Tom was raided by the FBI for hacking into a bank in 1985.
Age: 30-something. Not as young as he'd like.
Nerd Rating: **
Product Addiction Rating: ****

Chad Hurley, Steve Chen & Jawed Karim
Profile: Co-founders of YouTube
Fact: The idea for YouTube was created at a dinner party.
Ages: 33, 31, 30
Nerd Rating: **
Product Addiction Rating: *****

Jimmy Wales
Profile: Co-founder of Wikipedia
Fact: Jimmy lives in a 'grandma' house.
Age: 43
Nerd Rating: ****
Product Addication Rating: *****

*Not all nerds wear loafers
**May not be entirely true

Nerds ARE Better in Bed

If you're offended by nerds, sex or biased opinions, switch off now.

Speaking of new and wonderful things, I'd like to talk about the nerd. The new nerd. The gen Y nerd born after 1981. The nerd that doesn't excrete grease, smell like garlic or have a nervous eye twitch.

The age-old myth that nerds don't get any is rubbish. I've noticed that all my best friends are in love with new-age nerds, have crushes on them or talk dreamily about how that guy can "Fix things! With his hands!". One of my friends is dating an audio technician, another an IT support guy, a sci-trance composer, a software developer. It leads me to the inevitable conclusion that new nerds must not only be better in bed, but better at keeping you satisfied for longer in other life departments.

There's a lot to be said for the new nerd, he can fix almost anything and is usually agreeable to do so because it sparks his recovery program. He never gets boring: he has ten thousand interests drawn from the deepest depths of the Internet. He's always up to date on news, has an opinion about everything technological, cracks all your favourite 1990s RPGs and presents you with an 80G hard drives because "everyone needs one". As my own new-age nerd boyfriend elaborates: "We know a lot more about sex than you think. We know how to use the Internet to search for anything and everything about sex. We got the theoretics down pat." Not commenting on my boyfriend's performance - we've been together three years - but what about the practical side to hanky panky?

Editor Emily from humour and lifestyle website Lemondrop has a four prong theory about nerds putting it into practice:

1. If you're ugly (and maybe nerds, both boys and girls, fall short on good looks, I dunno), you have to try harder in bed

2. Nerds have excessive hand-eye coordination from playing video games

3. Nerds have an understanding of complicated machinery, like, ahem, the "vaginal machinery"

4. Geeks love gadgets: they're more likely to employ sex toys in bed

If sex gadgets aren't your thing and you're unwilling to substitute muscles for cool machinery (hellooo Open Source router!), why not invest in one of the many nerds who actually go to the gym? I did a quick headcount of my geeky male friends and found that 70%, that's 7/10, work out at least three times a week.