David

Age: 28

Occupation: Fire Department Administrator

Education: Double major in Physics and Astronomy at Wesleyan University

Hobbies: LARPing (Live-Action Role-Playing), board games and video games

In Five Years: “I don’t even know what I’m going to be doing on Friday let alone five years from now.”

David is just one of the many geeks on this season of Beauty and the Geek, a crappy TV show that I shouldn’t even like but I kind of love. (I have the same relationship with America’s Next Top Model, and I’d like to take this opportunity to note that Tyra Banks is [A] fucking crazy and [B] shockingly stupid.) I did a whole three-hour block of drinking beer and watching reality TV last night, with the premiere of Top Model and the two-hour premiere of Beauty and the Geek. David is so far my favorite, in part because he’s an asshole, and in part because he apparently really doesn’t give a shit that everyone makes fun of his dorky LARPing, and mostly because he’s not this geek, who really creeps my shit out.

So anyway. I’m not sure what it is about Beauty and the Geek that I find so captivating. It’s a bunch of super-nerds acting super-nerdy while a bunch of silicone-stuffed waitresses/future amateur porn stars act really stupid and confused. When the show—which is, either excellently or terribly, executive produced by Ashton Kutcher—started, it was billed as a “social experiment,” which was obviously bullshit, but there were still some surprisingly wholesome and rewarding elements: By season’s end, nerds tentatively came out of their shells, a borderline-retarded Hooters waitress or two realized that in addition to fashion magazines, there were also things called “books,” and everyone felt a little bit better about themselves. But in the past few years, shit has devolved into contestants working the show’s system, pretty effectively stripping any and all merit from the show, other than as kind of a lurid “Ooh, look what a nerd!” (see above) or “Ooh, she’s stupid!” (One wannabe contestant, when asked what her I.Q. was, said something like “Oh, I don’t know… it’s, ah, slightly above not too dumb?”) I still find something awesome about this, but I can’t put my finger on what it is.

In other news about crappy TV shows, on last night’s premiere of Top Model, Tyra said something like “Being America’s Next Top Model isn’t just about being a model. It’s about being a role model.” Oh, fuck you, Tyra. Which reminds me: I’d like to take this opportunity to reiterate that Tyra is (A) fucking crazy, and (B) shockingly stupid. She is also (C) afraid of dolphins.