CliqueClackWas King of the Nerds good for the nerds?
The first season of ‘King of the Nerds’, a reality competition just ended — but should nerds be happy with it or angry?
So the first season of King of the Nerds on TBS just ended. It was a reality competition show between “nerds” to determine who was the greatest nerd of all (from among the candidates accepted, that tend to be a bit more … photogenic for TV purposes). It was successful enough that there will a second season (accepting submissions, if you’re brave enough).
I was initially a bit wary of this show, due to problematic portrayals of nerds in other media (like The Big Bang Theory, which I got mad at earlier this year — although this show was created directly to capitalize on the ratings success of TBBT on TBS). Would this just be filled with attention seeking fakers and wannabes, with not a single contestant who knew the difference between Gregor and Sandor Clegane (they’re murderous brothers, and one is much worse than the other) or the primary weapon of Cloud Strife (it’s a really absurdly big sword)? Or would there be real nerds: people with unironic appreciation of something past the typical fan or a particular appreciation for a nerdy pursuit (like science, fantasy, or gaming).
As it turned out, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The contestants were actually all quite nerdy, with various levels of the social awkwardness expected for nerdy people. Were there some unusually attractive people? Sure. Were they all? Nope! There was actually a decent mix of appearances, although there weren’t any ugly people — but hey, it’s television, right? But these people were still clearly weird and into nerdy things — that’s good enough for me! The competition itself had both legitimately nerdy contests and silly reality show ones. For every trivia contest or debate about the morality of superheroes, there was a silly physical contest with nerdy “aspects.” While entertaining to watch, these were not useful in really gauging the nerdiness of anyone. Sometimes it was all about luck.
The contestants did not all have a chance to become interesting to the viewer, especially those first kicked out. There was also a bit of drama with backstabbing lies, and the typical sort of reality show nonsense — although there was definitely a level of non-faked anger and confusion by these contestants that fell into the roles they thought they had to fill and weren’t sure about their actions in the long run. When Joshua sent Danielle to the “Nerd-off” (the end of episode contest to determine who gets eliminated) after telling her he wasn’t voting for her, she was furious and saddened, and he thought he was just playing the game. This element of humanity, manufactured and edited though it was by the show, added something real to this show. These nerds may have often played to the cameras, but they weren’t actors. They were real. This seemed like a real set of actual, nerdy people. A plus.
SPOILER WARNING for those who haven’t seen the season — read no further! I’m about to get into a bit of an analysis of the finale.
7 Comments on “Was King of the Nerds good for the nerds?”
I only watched the last couple episodes of the show and in a year where the internet has been up at arms about the epidemic that is the “fake nerd girl” with their scheming and their fakeness and their having breasts, it’s very telling that four of the final five contestants were women. And they all seemed genuinely “nerdy”… but that’s not exactly perfectly definable.
That being said, there were aspects of just absolute ridiculousness leaning towards stupid. But I did like that the enthusiasm of the contestants seemed genuine… even if I wanted to throw something at the hosts’ heads every time they made a bad joke.
I really wanted Panzer/tradechat/Danelle to win. I only watched towards the end and was really shocked when they played her as kinda the bad guy. Seeing her emotions on screen so much in the finale was rough. I was glad to hear though that her fathers’ cancer went into remission after the show.
Back to the show. It was just meh. I don’t really get this “Mansion of nerddom” or “Throne of Games” junk. If anything, send the people to SpaceCamp. That campus rocks and is like DisneyWorld for nerd kids. I’d bet something could be worked out. The show just had a superficial feeling that felt like it was just a bit askew. It never came from the nerds. It just had a thing that made it just a little odd. Maybe it was the hosts, maybe it was the competitions. I’m not sure.
One major issue I had with it is that TBS had Celeste appear on Conan a few weeks before the finale. This kind of forecast her win since she was the only contestant to appear on Conan (or any talk show, as far as I know). I think the next season might benefit by having at least two weeks where no one is voted off and the contestants get to live and interact with each other. The show wasn’t perfect by any means and had a lot of the usual reality show tropes but overall I think it was more good than bad.
I’m pretty sure most of the “nerd” have been on Conan during the season, showing outtakes and their original audition tapes, not just Celeste.
I think they had some promos for the show and some of the contestants but no one else was actually a seated guest.
Oh, seated guest. That I don’t know about since I don’t watch Conan. I just know I always saw previews for one of the contestants doing something on the upcoming Conan episode. If she’s the only one to sit for an interview before the finale, then that is pretty stupid on TBS’ part.
I had a lot of problems with the game design. They needed better tasks and they needed better challenges. The drama and stuff doesn’t work so well on this show: I wanted to see them doing cool problem solving stuff. And the people who left seemed bizarre too.
I’m sorry it wasn’t better designed. As mentioned i don’t really care who’s feelings were hurt, this isn’t big brother based on simply surviving together. These are smart people and they should have been doing a lot cooler and tougher challenges.
Is it surprising that the winner won? No I would have voted for that person too.