Shona Ghosh

O rly? Know what the above says then?

I’m still coping with the turnaround of geek becoming cool. I blame the Matrix; apparently no one’s recovered from a trilogy of Keanu Reeves in leather. You’d think he might have bandied about some actual hacker terminology but no. Not even a sniff of 1337. Just guns. The closest real geeks get to Desert Eagles is crytography – once defined by the US defence department as weaponry.

And now everyone’s all over the new WoW expansion – lots of positive press coverage. But then a marriage breaks up – lots of negative press coverage. Traditional media is still slightly confused in its approach towards technology. The red tops barely touch it. The Telegraph and the Guardian try to be cool uncles. I’m currently trying to discover some kind of financial link between Rupert Murdoch and Second Life, because there is no earthly reason why the Times should continue to obsess over such an unreservedly naff game. The BBC delivered its online tech coverage long ago into the hands of a single journalist. Ever see that happening in News?

I’m definitely not a nerd. Real geeks get better paid jobs than me. But I also know that new journalists aren’t, by and large, nerdy enough. To distinguish ourselves from the Luddites over at the Times (who asked me during one internship what ‘lolcat’ was), we need to be aware of the subtle difference between levels of nerdship. We should know that Weezer’s Pork and Beans references almost every YouTube meme that has existed, ever. This is not even remotely like David Cameron posting up a video about his kids. And if you want to know what the title says, try copy/pasting it into this.