‘King of the Nerds’ season 3 spotlight: Will friendship be magic for Raychelle Keeling?
Raychelle Keeling is the final woman on “King of the Nerds” season 3 to enter the spotlight arena, and we feel like she should do so surrounded by an army of costumed warriors. We really wanted to put a “My Little Pony” reference in here, but we know next to nothing other than a feeble attempt at research earlier this week. We’ve basically exhausted our knowledge with writing the title.
Raychelle may also be the hardest contestant to pre-judge this entire season. A good chunk of her TBS video was spent on her talking about her costume, which tells us little other than that she knows how to neigh. We’ve still come up with some superficial pluses and minuses for her chances this season, because there’s nothing we enjoy more than making big predictions and potentially being terribly wrong!
Name – Raychelle Keeling
Age – 26
Location – Springfield, Missouri. Does this mean she knows Bart Simpson? (Yes, we know that the town from “The Simpsons” was named after Springfield, Oregon. We’re just trolling. Move along…)
Specialty – “Gamer.” We put a good bit of blame on the pre-season video for us having a somewhat confused impression of Raychelle going into this season. Why label her a gamer, and then have her spend most of her time talking about a “My Little Pony” costume? We’ve seen other photos of her as Rikku from “Final Fantasy X-2,” and it feels almost like someone chose “My Little Pony” for a conversation topic because it’s more mainstream. Ironic, since nerds were at their origin as far from mainstream as ever. (We’re a huge “Final Fantasy” fan, or at least in the PS One and PS2 era before Lightning struck, so we clearly have our preference.)
Obviously, Raychelle is obviously well-versed in the cosplay world, but we wished they focused more on what sets her apart from everyone else.
Nerd cred – She obviously knows way more about “My Little Pony” than we do, and to come up with these elaborate costumes requires extensive hard work / creativity. (We almost wonder if she has an FFX-2 sort of ability to sport a different costume at any given second.) She also says in the video that she is a big anime and manga fan, and the show is surprisingly light on these this season.
Could Raychelle be a strategist? Everyone comes on the show to sit atop the throne, but not everyone vocalizes their plan. She wants to hide some of her knowledge (i.e. the anime and the manga), and use her social skills as a convention veteran to her advantage. She’s not the first person to say it, but we still feel it’s smart so long as you can avoid overtly lying.
Weak points – For Raychelle, we feel like her vulnerability is how she could handle adversity in the competition. This is someone who claims that Bronies “bow down to her” (start bowing, Thomas!), and someone who says that she makes friends very easily. We have the ridiculous task of judging someone based off of a two-minute video and very little else, and through that it doesn’t strike us that she has ever been much of an underdog or outcast in the nerd community. Friendship may be magic, but it won’t save you in a Nerd-Off. We have zero information on what her math or science skills are.
End assessment – Raychelle is someone who may do a good job avoiding being up for elimination, and a good social game buys you a few weeks. However, we could see her struggling if she ends up in a one-on-one duel.
Despite the sheer number of “Final Fantasy” references we really wanted to cram in here as someone who once cosplayed as Auron, we personally relate more to the other, more socially-awkward nerds who probably are too afraid in their everyday lives to show off their true personalities.
Want to see the rest of our “King of the Nerds” spotlight articles? Head over to the link here! Also, sign up now to get some other TV coverage on everything courtesy of our CarterMatt Newsletter. (Photo: TBS / Jeremy Freeman.)