Donald Glover. Comedian. Actor. Rapper. Attempted Spider-Man. Donald Glover is all of these things, but he is also kind of a nerd. Indeed, he is widely considered the third most popular black nerd in America
behind the president and Kanye West, and we're pretty sure those rankings are fixed.
Still, he's probably best known for his role as Troy Barnes on the amazing NBC comedy Community, or his rap career under the name Childish Gambino, or the internet campaign to let him audition for the role of Peter Parker in the Spider-Man movie reboot (something even Stan Lee was cool with, although Sony music execs weren't). Prior to launching his "I Am Donald Tour" this week in Ames, Iowa, Glover (who you can follow on Twitter at @donaldglover) sat down with Village Voice's Bill Jensen to discuss his career so far and why he's so awesome for VV -- but also his 10 favorite nerd things for Topless Robot. He agreed... but with one caveat.
DONALD GLOVER: Let me first say, I think people are done with the label "nerd." Lately, I've been feeling like "Wait... I'm not a nerd." Cause everyone's nerdy about something. Football players are nerdy about football. And I know I sound like that dude junior year who's gay and says "I'm not gay, I just don't believe in labels, I fall in love with the person, whatever the form" and you're like "Dude, you're gay. It's fine. I don't care. Can we finish watching Brazil for this film class project?" but I just wanted to say that.
10) Sex (study of... and the act). Human sexuality is so weird. We're all fucked.
9) Psychology. I minored in it and I love it.
8) Pixar. Pixar. Pixar. Has there been anything better?
7) Hi-top fades. So fly. Oh! With steps on the side...
6) Anything Jim Henson.
5) Mel Blanc. I loved that dude. Him and Billy West were my heroes for some time.
4) The Smiths.
3) Zoo-born baby animals with silly names. Can't get enough.
2) Coke Blak. I miss them shits so bad. Delicious.
There's a difference between Nerd and Hipster. This would NEVER be a list from a nerd, this is straight hipster. Hi-top fades, zoo-born babies... lame. Come on society, learn the difference. I'm sick of dumb kids calling themselves nerds or saying, "I love nerds" when they really mean hipsters. You know, do what you like to do but don't pose as a group of people who get made fun of daily for being that. That's like saying you're proud to be a slave and saying "here's my top 10 favorite slave things" in front of a bunch of older black people. You are not nerds so quit saying it.
Awesome! I'm rather pissed I missed Donald Glover at my college recently. We found out after. It was horribly publicized. My friends and I instead we ended up seeing Joel McHale. Laaaame. Might as well have been Chevy Chase! Oh and they gave McHale the hockey arena to play in. Where did they stick Glover? In the much tinier Blackman auditorium. That's even where they tossed the Indian students to have their cultural show recently. The Black-man Auditorium! This college is racist as hell.
oh and.. I am of course kidding about that. Still pissed we missed Glover and still lame he wasn't announced as much.
i lost respect for glover when i saw his stand up...in the same minute he admits that calling a dwarf a midget is just as offensive as using the n word for a black person but then goes and does it anyway...side note, why did i spell out the m word but not the n word? you figure it out.
I love Donald Glover. Did anyone catch that Conan episode where he talked about twitter? He used to go by DonGlover, until someone pointed out that it was Dong Lover.
Hilarious guy though, can't wait to see what he does in the future.
he totally should of been spiderman and ahura from star trek could have been cgi"d younger to be aunt may, ad it would have been totally sweet. also this is coming from a GAYmer who thinks spiderman could have a gay iteration
I would love to see an episode of Community where Donald is dressed as Marty McFly and Danny Pudi (Abed) is dressed as Doc Brown. That would probably make my life.
I thought we (black nerds) went by N.E.Ps, Nerds of Ebon Persuasion. I have to point out that the top spots for black nerds is way off.
1.Levar Burton - Star Trek, Reading Rainbow, Kwame- Captain Planet, Smosh, etc2.Micheal Dorn - Star Trek, Adventure Time, list is too long Wikipedia them shits3.Kevin Grevioux - wrote Underworld/Raze the Lycan, Zombies of Mass Destruction, also Wiki his shitz4. Octavia Butler - nuff said
Donald and the rest come in after those 4. And I'm pretty sure we don't have hipsters. We call them Neo Soul. Musiq Soulchild, Ne-Yo, Taye Diggs, and Kanye even though Kanye is a Producer who Raps fit into that category.
11. Revrend Ike3x (me) - bookmarks include TR, Dorkly, Something Awful; owned Wizards of Senchuria/Cradle of the Sun and Dimensioneers; and thanks to a donation from my high school library circa 1994 I owned every Omni Magazine ever (I was the only one who read them). Moms threw em out when I went to college.
Even though I read that both Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale have turned down many, many offers for any of the following: a remake of Back to the Future or a special edition or a Part 4 of some nature, I would see Donald Glover capable of being a new Marty McFly.
I hate Donald Glover ever since he was shoved down our throats as PC Spiderman. Oh look a black guy as Spidey I feel so good about myself! Well its idiots like that that put an anti-american commie kenyan in office to the detriment of this nation.
And now I'm reminded why I love Donald Glover so much. Anybody who drinks Coke Blak and is proud to admit it is cool in my book. Also, I do think it's a shame he didn't get the role. Spider-Man cracking wise, and doing the "If a girl leaves my place at 8, and didn't come home after ten, I'm not worried about her, I immediately think of ways to prove I didn't kill her" line. Can you imagine how epic that would be? XD
Donald Faison is #1. Sorry President Obama, but your nerd repertoire is just not as extensive yet, so you have to settle for #2. As for Glover... not sure I'd rank him so high yet... I mean, are we really ready to move him ahead of people like Will Smith (totally closeted; he'll join us soon enough) or Aisha Tyler (any 1 of her Halo videos beats Glover's entire portfolio)?
I am reminded of this tweet that Donald sent back in October: "Dear Coca-Cola, I REALLY miss Coke Blak. It's been 2 years and it's becoming dangerous for me to drink the ones I order on ebay. #notajoke"
Actualy Coke Blak sounds quite popular all of a sudden; which makes it less than nerdy in my book. However, 7UP's Pomegranate flavored soda that comes out during the winter is still OK, oh and Vernors.
I love this guy he shares my opinion that a nerd can be anyone like someone obsessed with cars is still a nerd just with cars and someone obsessed with playing football is a big fan of men piling on top of each other getting all sweaty.
Nah, nerdy isn't so mainstream, cars are very mainstream and they symbolizes things like competition, speed, power, and aggression. These traits are part of survival and not at all nerdy A trash fueled spree scooter would be nerdy. One cannot be nerdy with football, but one could be nerdy with hacky-sack. The sentence "someone obsessed with playing football is a big fan of men piling on top of each other getting all sweaty" just sounds gay.
Donald Faison has applied the term blerd to himself in at least one episode of Scrubs.I am tempted to used the term myself,but I am only 90.625% black. =|
Came here to post about Donald Faison. Shouldnt he be number 2? I mean he's proved his credentials and I dont think Kanye West really has nerd credentials.
I read somewhere that Isaiah Mustafa (the man your man could smell like) want's to be Luke Cage, and named his daughter after an alternate universe Harley Quinn.
