No, World of Warcraft is not cool. It's a geeky, cerebral, fantasy-oriented, escapist, time-sucking pasttime. There is a minority of normal people who play WoW, but that doesn't change the fact that most people who do are antisocial and/or socially inept.

So what? The richest man in the world is Bill Gates. Vin Diesel plays WoW. Dwayne Johnson, a.k.a. "The Rock", plays D&D. Barack Obama, a.k.a. "The President", collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comic books. A fantasy-oriented, escapist work of fiction won the Academy Awards in 2003, and at least one was nominated in half of the past 10 years. Roughly 90 percent of the people who have ever worked with Joss Whedon are personally geeks. Gweneth Paltrow prepared for her role in Iron Man by borrowing comics from her husband's collection. Nicolas Cage named his son after Superman, and named HIMSELF (that is, his screen name, his birth name is Coppola) after Luke Cage, a B-list Marvel superhero. After playing Galadriel, Cate Blanchett had her pointy ears bronzed. If you've ever got through a depressed period by playing WoW extensively, so did Dave Chappelle.

WoW is full of antisocial people who don't get much sun. So is the rest of life too by now. The geek has inherited the earth.

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