Nerds Are Mad At Alex Trebek For Calling Them 'Losers'

The let's-meet-the-contestants portion of Jeopardy! is, depending on how you see it, either the worst or best part of the show. In this portion, common denizens are forced to talk about their interests in fly fishing, or porcelain miniatures, or shih tzus, or parasailing, or tarot cards. And sometimes you get this guy, who told a long, insufferable story about confusing the moon with the sun.

Trebek, for his part, keeps a level head and feigns some modicum of interest. He asks contestants about their lives, he listens, he makes a bland comment, then moves on to the next person. This is how it usually goes. But, for some reason, he decided to drop a sick burn on contestant Susan Cole during Wednesday's show. Cole expounded on her interest in "nerdcore hip-hop," describing the community as a group that raps about "video games" and "having a hard time meeting romantic partners." To this Trebek said, "Losers, in other words."

That major diss was pretty out-of-the-blue, and it sparked off a wave of backlash from a united coalition of card-carying nerds. It also brought on the #suckittrebek hashtag, a nod to Will Ferrell's parody of Trebek on Saturday Night Live:

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Of course, members of the nerdcore community were riled up. Before the televised burn happened, rapper MC Frontalot had been rooting for Cole:

Post-burn, however, all the good vibes had dissipated. Nerdcore rappers sounded off on Trebek, and rapper Mega Ran responded by spitting some fire back at Trebek. "Alex Trebek, you lost a lotta respect," he rapped. "This host gets roasted on SNL yearly. He hosts a show for nerds and doesn't know it, clearly." He's got even more burns in his arsenal:

Other rappers and emcees sounded off on Trebek as well:

Even Wheatus chimed in on the matter for some reason:

By now you may be wondering what, exactly, nerdcore is. On the surface, it's hip-hop that revolves around geekery (think: Dungeons and Dragons). And some of the beats are based on 8-bit jingles you'd find on your Super Nintendo. But there's more than what meets the eye, apparently. As explained at Greenlabel, a culture website sponsored by, uh, Mountain Dew, nerdcore sprouted in the mid-90s as commerce and pop-culture were locked in for a head-on collision:

The aforementioned Mega Ran is a major figure in the genre. His expertise lays in rapping about 90s video games like Mega Man, Killer Instinct, and Castlevania (remember Castlevania??), though he also ventures into other matters of pop culture. Here's a track about Stranger Things, Netflix's latest runaway hit: