Geek Celebrity

Ever heard of Richard Stallman? How about David Heinemeier Hanson? Maybe Linus Torvalds? Donald Knuth? Joshua Bloch? Joel Spolsky? Michael Arrington? Kathy Sierra? Bjarne Stroustrup?

These folks are geek celebrities, which means if you aren't in the computer business, you've probably not heard of them. Every field seems to have its own celebrities that are basically unknown except to people in the brotherhood (sadly, often men and not too many women).

Unlike the other fields, these celebrities often do act like celebrities. They go out to give speeches at O'Reilly conferences and tour around like minor rock stars. Not everyone, of course. Donald Knuth acts like the academic that he is. But David Heinemeier Hanson? He's got his hip arty crowd clothing (is that a dragon?). You can't have a Rails conference if DHH doesn't speak. He went from just another Dane, to Rails rockstar.

And more than that. The computing industry is hooked up. On the web! With blogs and reddit and Digg, there's an avenue for geeks to look up information on their favorite geek guru. Got Twitter? You can follow the willing celeb minute to minute.

How about watching live feed of Justin from justin.tv who takes The Real World to the next level (ah, but I don't think any of the roommates are getting kicked out).

Even geek cartoonists can be celebs. Why, just the other day, I saw a guy wearing a t-shirt with TRex, the start of the Dinosaur Comics, penned by one Ryan North. You can write a Ruby tutorial with cartoon foxes and that makes you a celeb ("Why" of "Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby").

What's the effect of this celebrity? Income. People will pay to listen to the gurus of the computing industry talk. You can have Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. I'll have DHH and the ukelele-playing Chad Fowler, thanks.