I am going to declare 2008 the Year of the Nerds.

Every year the pundints look back on the year and try to summarize it with a nickname, in the hopes it will create buzz and catch on making them famous for having started the latest thing.

This time, I'm not going to wait for the end-of-the-year crush of nostalgia by declaring now (before that invisible, pre-Christmas holiday former known as Thanksgiving) to call 2008: the Year of the Nerds.

WHAT IS A NERD?
First off, I think it's important to define what makes someone a nerd. I'm going to say a nerd is a person who has become an expert in their chosen field simply through hard work and honest determination, sci-fi knowledge notwithstanding.

Another characteristic that is important in the definition of "nerd" is the lack of a narcissistic need for attention. The desire for a true nerd is only to do the job correctly, rather than the rewards from accomplishment. That is not to say nerds don't want to get paid for their work, it's just that the need to solve a problem far outweighs the need to see their name in lights and have their picture taken. It's the motivation behind the intellectually curious and the puzzle-solvers. It's why technology moves forward: someone tries to build the so-called better mouse-trap instead of hosting a TV show about mice and/or traps.

MEDIA NERDS
Speaking of TV, let's start there for my list of notable nerds who made 2008 the Year of the Nerds.

Television is known for looks first, ability to read words written by others second and anything else far behind.

2008 was the year that a self-proclaimed "dorknozzle" got her own TV show, a highly rated one no less. It seems the viewers of Rachel Maddow's show, or rather, Dr. Rachel Maddow's show appreciate her knowledge of the subjects she discusses rather than the slickness (or lack of slickness) of her program. Maddow is a Rhodes scholar, and if that's not enough, she also earned her PhD in political science, the very field she focuses on her show.

Another prominent television nerd in 2008 was writer extraordinaire, Tina Fey, who has even referred to herself as a nerd (http://www.tinafey.net/newyorkpost.php). She has been credited by some (okay one) to have been the biggest reason behind Palin's ridiculous first impression.

Other quasi-media types are the millions of anonymous computer nerds who designed, launched and maintained the vast tubes of the internets, that proved to be instrumental in changing the political fund-raising landscape as well as the technology behind the many near-spontaneous Prop Hate protests nationwide.

Taking advantage of these technologically-enhanced tubes in 2008 was a statistician, who gained prominence for his eerily accurate electoral predictions. A statistician! If a numbers nerd can become famous, that has to mean something. That nerd is Nate Silver, the former baseball statistician, whose FiveThirtyEight.com was the website for fellow nerds (and even the non-nerdly) interested in the most comprehensive analysis of election polls. Ever.

LEADER NERDS
2008 also saw a "peace nerd" win the Nobel Peace Prize: Martti Ahtisaari, former president of Finland. "Who?" do you ask, well, he's got the anonymity down, but what has he done that was so nerdly? Ahtisaari was cited for "his important efforts, on several continents and over more than three decades, to resolve international conflicts." Three decades working to insure international peace as a UN diplomat and mediator is pretty nerdly in and of itself, but Ahtisaari is also the founder of Crisis Management Initiative, a group of fellow Scandinavians that was recognized for their work as peacemaker in some of the world's most troubled areas. Looks like Ahtisaari's work for peace didn't end after 30 years.

Last but not least, the biggest winning nerd for 2008 was the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review and professor of constitutional law with the University of Chicago Law School. This nerd was elected to be the 44th president of the United States.

Barack Obama's intelligence is universally recognized, yet some criticized him for his almost halting speech pattern. Fellow nerds, however, know the reason for this: he's thinking. His deliberate, methodical win in the primaries and eventual overwhelming win over his Republican rival was due as much to the anonymous computer nerds mentioned above as it was to his nerdly management of the anonymous community organizers whose true grassroots work is quintessentially nerd. Get the job done and do it correctly--the first time.

So, let's hear it for the nerds who made 2008 a year for competent people, working to solve problems instead of posturing for flash, style and all the other accessories of attention.

back-end nerds. They are the nerds who kept the Obama website up at all times, never had a failure, even considered a user-friendly 404-page, and made the biggest donation system in US politics work. You can bet that it involved much more than the bullshit MS ACCESS databases our voting systems use.

I'm a back-end nerd, so I had to say that. Everything running as smooth as it did technologically was because of people like us.

Regardless of my mistake, thank you nerd! This is your year!

I read it again, you covered us

Gratsi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Jest#Subsidized_Time

If Obama had lost, it would be "The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment."

hey, I'm a numbers and analysis geek so of course I'd agree. Or I should say, "After 10,000 computer simulations were run, 97.6% of the time the result was, 'Nerds RULE'".