Sure, ostensibly you stayed up to watch Curiosity land. But you just couldn’t keep your eyes off the handsome specimen with the star-spangled ‘hawk. Seven minutes of terror? Try seven minutes of HELLO, NURSE.
As always, the internet means knowing you’re not alone in whatever you’re into, even if what you’re into is Inspector Gadget/Pokemon slash fic or something. And you were definitely not alone in swooning over Mohawk Guy, who is in fact awesomely named Bobak Ferdowsi (Bobak and Ferdowsi: coincidentally also the two stars of my Pokemon slash). In fact, by the time the East Coast woke up, Ferdowsi already had a fan Tumblr with multiple fanart submissions. Next challenge for NASA: figure out whether internet fandom actually moves faster than light.
Mohawk Guy is the latest in a long line of sexy science superstars, including … uh … young Neil deGrasse Tyson and … Marie Curie. OK, so “science sex symbol” is not a hotly contested position (although the This Is What A Scientist Looks Like Tumblr offers some likely candidates). But that’s actually why this whole Mohawk Guy thing is a kinda big deal. Ferdowsi’s pretty handsome, but he’s not just beefcake — he’s amassed a following partly because it’s so fucking cool that he’s a NASA flight director with star hair. Folks are into Bobak because they’re increasingly nerdosexual-curious — and conversely, a studly space guy with awesome hair makes astrophysics and engineering seem more attractive and approachable. It’s not just Ferdowsi and your ovaries that win today: It’s science.
Nerd-lovers and science geeks, there are many of us! We are strong! We are recruiting! And I propose this for our flag:
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