In 2013, being called a nerd isn’t the insult that it once was. Practically no one uses the term negatively anymore, and there’s no shortage of people who proudly wear the nerd badge as a cultural identity. But if there’s still such a thing as a king of the nerds, the honor would probably go to standup comic Chris Hardwick (or Peter Jackson). Hardwick’s wildly popular comedy podcast The Nerdist is at least partially responsible for the geekster population boom.

In anticipation of his upcoming five-show run at Comedy Works beginning May 2, we caught up with the surprisingly well-dressed Hardwick to get into an ultra-dweeby meta-debate about just who has the right to call themselves a nerd — while occasionally digressing into topics like hipsters, post-music MTV and the moment Dennis Miller stopped being funny and suddenly became an asshole.