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I think people are getting Way Too bent out of shape about this. I saw the first episode; it was entertaining. I'll watch the second episode Thursday.
Maybe I should be saying Whose Responsible This?
"Premiering Thursday, January 17, King of the Nerds is primed to become television's ultimate nerd-off.."
"Geek is the new cool"???? Are you freakin' serious? Come up with that one all by yourself, did you, show marketer whose name I don't know? Or perhaps you cribbed it from Bill Gates, Seth Green, Chris Hardwick, Steve Jobs, Joss Whedon, Morgan Spurlock, Stan Lee, or anybody who has attended Comic-Con in the past decade or so.
(The coolest geeks, by the way, are the ones who fit the classical definition: sideshow freaks who bite the heads off chickens. They know that's not gonna be co-opted by the mainstream any time soon.)
Revenge of the Nerds' Robert Carradine and Curtis Armstrong will host, because they need the paychecks. Presumably there will be no lessons in Darth Vader-mask sexual deception.
The trailer is after the jump. One nerdy thing I will say about it is that if they were trying to duplicate the aesthetic of Nickelodeon game shows from our childhood like Double Dare, the mission may be accomplished. Aside from that, it looks like reinforcement of the worst cosplay stereotypes you can imagine.
Also George Takei's in it. Which means this show's going to be all over Facebook, and any contestant who praises Shatner will probably be punished.
Is it the next Big Bang Theory? Watch and you tell me...
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This show looks incredibly stupid. It's only created because TBS has a big viewer ratings for The Big Bang Theory show.
The Big Bang Theory sitcom is funny, but they aren't real nerds. It's the Hollywood version of nerds. And that's wildly exaggerated and inaccurate. But it's entertaining because they aren't full nerds. The King of Nerds is about full nerds. No one wants to watch that. It's like Robert Downey Jr's character says to Ben Stiller's character in the film Tropic Thunder, "Never go full retard."
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I think it's ridiculous that people use the term "nerd blackface" to describe Big Bang Theory yet this show flies under most people's radar??!?!?! I think the expression is kind of offensive but if ever I was going to use it to describe a tv show that truly offended me, it would be this nonsense and not BBT...
@Futurama4Ever It's super offensive. "Fake geek" applies more aptly, I think. "Nerd blackface" is supposed to make us all get up in arms about stuff, but I think using just makes someone come off all butt-hurt. I NEVER like it when stuff I like gets popular, because then I have to watch it get diluted and overplayed and then I have a tendency to not like it anymore. (See also: Metallica and Black Album and high school.) But there's a world of difference between "STOP SCREWING UP STUFF I LIKE, DAMMIT" and what was a shameful perpetuation of racist ideologies.
Also... STOP SCREWING UP STUFF I LIKE, DAMMIT! This show, while not even bordering on the insensitivity of the above-mentioned blackface, is really condescending and reminds me of frats and sororities in college that have "Geek Night" where cheerleaders put on fake glasses and dork it up to whatever popular music we would never listen to anyway. They're not celebrating the way of the nerd - they're poking fun. And what irony that Robert Carradine and Curtis Armstrong are there at the forefront. Did we learn nothing at Adams College? ;)
Every commercial for this I see gets me one step closer to this:
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m931fczc3D1qb7645o1_r1_500.gif
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Huh...
So this is what being a Geek is these days then?
NOBODY TOLD ME!
I wonder if it's too late for me to start lifting weights and join my local football team?..
Needless to say, I'll be giving this a miss.
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I know I shouldn't... but the trainwreck you can't look away from factor is killing me.
Plus one guy is a furry/scaley and a Brony. I have been waiting for the shitstorm that happens when that culture hits the mainstream.
Plus another guy listed Spider Jerusalem as his fav superhero and another listed Desert Bus as his fav game. That is interesting.
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Strange. Part of what put me in the Geek/Nerd category was that I refused to run around doing what other people said I should to be cool. Not killing myself for someone else's title of King of the whatever.
@arivalscientist HAHAHAHAHA!! Woman? WIN the contest?! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
*Wipes tear*
Bit of 1950's sexism for ya there.
On a serious note, I hope a girl DOES win it. The lady with the pink hair looks like she might be able to cane the competition.
@arivalscientist she'll have devour the heart of the existing queen of the dawned, er I mean nerds.
But essentially, yes.
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@arivalscientist No, she is immediately sent to Sweden to make her innie an outie.
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Damn, I thought it was gonna be a sequel to the movies, with the nerds as adult millionaires and the jocks as beer-gut ridden has-beens with fat wives.. Lame 80's style movies are hip again, right? This should be a no-brainer.
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Kind of hoping one brave and savvy contestant will walk in with a black shirt that says JERK on the front so that Curtis Armstrong can get up and declare him/her King of the Nerds.
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@arivalscientist @super-staff I don't think you're quite understanding what I'm referencing here.
@arivalscientist @super-staff Okay, I thought you thought I was referencing something else.
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You're referencing Dan vs.
I'm referencing Revenge Of The Nerds:II: Nerds In Paradise
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How is this any different from every other living-in-a-house-competition style reality show?
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@Noneofmyusernamesareavailable I'm going to assume it's because all the losers are rendered as blood sacrifices to the nerd gods
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Wish that were true... in fact, death (or blood sacrifices) should be the penalty for losing at any reality tv show...
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@Gallen_Dugall @Noneofmyusernamesareavailable
That was the Mad Mad House...........
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It's funny how so many get up in arms about this - So much invested in being counter culture and looking down on the "cool kids" their whole lives that having anything that might possibly bring their interests into the mainstream upsets their delicate world view.
@SupraDan I think half the problem is that this isn't even interested in bringing anyone's interests into the mainstream as much as it's inevitably going to be about poking them with a sharp and pointy stick for giggles.
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@SupraDan Then you have clearly never watch reality programming...the point is to bring forward the extremes of a culture for the sake of entertainment. Example, Here comes Honey Boo Boo, is a show about the "redneck lifestyle" but do i believe for one second that everyone in the south is just like her and her family? No. Do you think people from the south are upset that they are demeaning their "interests" for the sake of going "mainstream"? Absolutely. So i consider myself a nerd and i'm proud of it but i don't want people to now think i'm just like these people.
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@Canadian.Scott to be fair, Honey Boo Boo is more about the white trash lifestyle than the redneck lifestyle. Rednecks are a couple of rungs higher on the ladder.
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@SupraDan The mainstream is like some eldritch horror that crams all that is good up its ass and then spews out horribly processed versions of those things for the moronic general public to greedily consume
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This is why I hate reality TV. Shows like 'Here Comes Honey Boo Boo', 'Jersey Shore', King Of The Nerds' and any number of redneck based shows rely on finding the broadest stereotypes they can and playing those roles up to eleven. God forbid they find people who have interests in nerd culture but are not raging, tape-on-the-glasses Poindexters. For all their talk about how bad it is to view people negatively, Hollywood still loves to do shit like this.
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@skrag2112 In the end it is a number game. It is so much cheaper to do a reality show then scripted show.
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@skrag2112 there are exceptions to this lowest common denominator programming
I like "Top Shot"
We hates it, we do!!! Stupid Fat Face Off!!! [actually, they are talented people on the show, but the reality show "contest format" takes it down several notches of watchability for me]
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@Lithroe I like the ones that take talent as well. Use to love Junkyard Wars (both US and UK); Catch it, Keep it; Monster Garage; Iron Chef (I prefer the Japanese one); and I do enjoy Rocket City Rednecks (although this last season you can tell they found some new producer who is determined to fit in that fake reality crap where they can).
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@Canadian.Scott @Gallen_Dugall @skrag2112 Ooooh, totally forgot about Face Off. Actually love that show. Like Chopped, that shit takes talent.
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@Canadian.Scott @Gallen_Dugall @skrag2112 I saw a little of that once. I had the same issue I have with all "creature" makeup effects being that they don't sufficiently break up the human figure so it still looks like a person with stuff on their face. Proportion and scale need to be broken up - this is the basis of camouflage. I would love to see some good digitigrade legs on an alien someday - it's certainly possible
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@Canadian.Scott @Gallen_Dugall @skrag2112 I've seen 'Face Off' and its not a bad show. It displays people with actual talent. Now if someone would tell Honey Boo Boo that growing fat and stupid is not a talent.
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@Gallen_Dugall @skrag2112 I'll give you that. But for every 'Top Shot', we get 10 'Hillbilly Handfishings'.
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@skrag2112 @Gallen_Dugall yeah but that's the nature of marketing
you get the same thing in film, books, video games and everything else
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@Gallen_Dugall @Lithroe @skrag2112 Poor guy. According to the rumor mill he has died more then wolverine.
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@Lithroe @Gallen_Dugall @skrag2112 I'll keep that in mind - bunch of good stuff starting up this month and next - justified, young justice, archer, and a new season of Through the Wormhole in spite of the rumors that Morgan Freeman had died
