--- description: Hi! I’m Tim Long, a colleague of Matt Selman’s on The Simpsons writing staff. I’m subbing for Matt today while he works on next week’s... title: Guest Blogger: The Simpsons’ Tim Long image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Business](/section/business/) * [Tech](/tag/time-section-tech/) # Guest Blogger: The Simpsons' Tim Long by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Mar 18, 2009 8:56 PM CUT by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) Mar 18, 2009 8:56 PM CUT StartFragment Hi! I’m Tim Long, a colleague of Matt Selman’s on _The Simpsons_ writing staff. I’m subbing for Matt today while he works on next week’s blog post, an elaborate parody of _X-Men Origins – Wolverine_ entitled, _Breakfast Men Origins – Chocula_. My subject today is this: “I can’t deny that I’m a nerd” – Katie Holmes “I was a nerd in school” – Zac Efron “I’m a big nerd!” – Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling “\[I was a\] nerd to your language, yes” – Jean-Claude Van Damme “Oh my God, I’m such a nerd!” – at least one good-looking person at every party I’ve attended since 2004. Why, exactly, do beautiful, popular people keep insisting upon membership in the Geek Nation? Probably because it’s a social twofer: by claiming to be a nerd, Jean-Claude Van Damme gets to appear self-deprecating while at the same time vaguely implying that he’s a genius – a view that might not occur to anyone who’s seen _Time Cop._ The problem, of course, is that it impoverishes the language: if we let Katie Holmes get away with calling herself a “nerd”, then we no longer have the perfect word to describe Steve Wozniak. It’s also offensive to all the real nerds who get swirlied, wedgied, nerpled, and [kancho’d](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kancho "undefined") all over the world every day – often by lunks who look just like self-proclaimed nerd Curt Schilling. Now, I’m not denying that a guy like Zac Efron probably felt like a nerd in high school; everyone does at some point. I’m just saying that he should keep it to himself. Zac, you’re already Fonzie – do you have to be Potsie as well? \*\*\* As a bonus, here’s a clip from the best movie ever made on the theme of nerd revenge, _Revenge of the Nerds_. I very much doubt that Katie Holmes could name the sorority _or_ the fraternity that’s “clapping along”: EndFragment Guest Blogger: The Simpsons’ Tim Long ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7252268/guest-blogger-the-simpsons-tim-long/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7252268/guest-blogger-the-simpsons-tim-long/"},"headline":"Guest Blogger: The Simpsons' Tim Long","datePublished":"2009-03-18T20:56:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T10:58:16.613Z","description":"Hi! I’m Tim Long, a colleague of Matt Selman’s on The Simpsons writing staff. I’m subbing for Matt today while he works on next week’s...","url":"https://time.com/archive/7252268/guest-blogger-the-simpsons-tim-long/","keywords":["Tech","TV"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Business","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/business/","name":"Business"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-tech/","name":"Tech"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/archive/7252268/guest-blogger-the-simpsons-tim-long/","name":"Guest Blogger: The Simpsons' Tim Long"}}]}] ```