Un-Universal Nerd Culture and the Death of Iconography
The 21 st Century has somehow made it acceptable and even cool to be a nerd. I'm not sure anyone knew specifically when it happened but there's been a pride movement that's spread popular culture all about geek advocacy. In 2009, the signs are everywhere. Humorist John Hodgman declared the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, the first nerd president . The nerd cause has icons of various appeal. We have the ringleader of Web 2.0, Kevin Rose . We have the genuine superpower nerd of Bill Gates (he who needs no hyperlink). We have the self-proclaimed musical Hip-Hop nerd, Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson . San Antonio has its own local geek celeb (if you consider celebrity he who has a blog on a daily newspaper's website), René A. Guzman . And we have our lifelong geek who somehow became a spectacular phoenix, rising from the ashes of a career charred in the hate of lower geeks to become our paragon: Wil Wheaton . Geek culture has had ups and...