From my column in today’s Maroon:

Throughout his short career, Cera has perfectly portrayed the essence of your average, terminally awkward U of C student, but the Cera phenomenon is about more than just laughing at nerdy awkwardness. He actually makes being geeky seem sexy—or at least socially acceptable. Our kind used to congregate only on alternating months to LAN and eat pizza bagels. We would have loved to go to parties or come into direct contact with sunlight, but that was never really possible. Society just wasn’t ready for us.But now, people can’t get enough of us. The forum at Cera’s IMDB page is littered with threads like “does he have a girlfriend?” and “he’s adorable!!” He has the potential to do for nerds what the Beatles did for mop tops and Dustin Diamond did for celebrity sex tapes.

Update: Apparently Michael Cera is also a student of American history. Catch him here in a brief history of the vastly under appreciated Alexander Hamilton.