Saturday, October 17, 2009

Up the Nerds

It's been a long while since we've had a such a rowdy little post - one that brought out a number of luminaries, including no less than legend IM Guy West. Even I hadn't expected it.

That little post, "Not a Real Geek", about Canberra chesser Jeremy Reading, who appears in the Channel 7 reality show Beauty & the Geek, turned out to be a touchy one. As you saw, I had a poll up accompanying that post and now the results are in!

On the proposition that "Jeremy is damaging chess", we had 48 voters, of whom 24 disagreed while 21 agreed; 3 people were undecided. Well, that's just too close to call if you ask me. This is very scientific stuff, you understand.

Anyway, we leave the last word to WIM Arianne Caoili, who is currently studying OS, in response to IM West:

However, my only real point is, that the whole nerd image will not make chess popular, which a lot of us are interested in doing.

Maybe, Guy, you have alluded to a very valid point: that chess will never be popular because the great unwashed aren't attracted to chess naturally.

Sad but true? I was hoping that one day, chess for young people would be a good distraction from mindless crap such as drugs etc, etc - a way to focus our energy into something useful. I just don't see this whole thing as good publicity to market chess to the great unwashed.

Maybe there will be other ways.

Other than that, go the nerds!

1 comment:

leegeorg07 said...

I personally am 13 and live in the UK. A while ago my school had a small club going but because nobody ever went it got cancelled, and so I'm left with barely any knowledge and a thirst for more. The whole "nerd" stereotypical image is stupid anyway, people say that WE are antisocial, when we have no-one to talk to.