Eric Monkman becomes latest University Challenge legend

"Monkmania has Twitter buzzing," says The Guardian. Canadian economics student Eric Monkman has proven to be the breakout star of this year's series of University Challenge, thanks to his idiosyncratic facial expressions, intensely earnest demeanour and apparent lack of indoor voice.

Tonight, Monkman's Wolfson College, Cambridge, will take on Balliol College, Oxford, in the final of the venerable BBC quiz show. Already the internet is taking sides.

The student's appearances on the show have been accompanied by floods of tweets from admirers, who have coined the hashtag #Monkmania.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

"People really seemed to have responded to my appearance in a way I didn't expect, which was a huge surprise for me," the postgraduate student told Cambridge News.

Of his trademark teeth-clenched expression, he said: "Even though I am maybe looking angry, I am just really trying to focus on the next question."

Tom Eames at Digital Spy attributes the popularity of the show's more eccentric contestants to the recent cultural enthusiasm for "geek-chic".

"In the last few years, everyone loves calling themselves a geek or a nerd, even though in the real world they might not be," he told the BBC. [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-39482317]

Monkman is not the first University Challenge contestant to attract attention online. Here are a few of the show's other memorable characters:

Gail Trimble

The first University Challenge contestant to become a viral sensation was Gail Trimble, a postgraduate student at Corpus Christi who appeared on the show in 2009.

From botany to literature, nothing seemed to stump the well-rounded classicist. Trimble was responsible for 825 of her team's total 1,235 points, leading The Observer to wonder if she was the show's "cleverest contestant ever".

With Trimble at the helm, Corpus Christi easily rode to victory in the final – but their triumph was short-lived, as the team was disqualified when it emerged that one member had completed his studies before appearing on the show.

Ted Loveday

University Challenge's most impressive contestants may often appear aloof and intense, but the same cannot be said of Ted Loveday.

Viewers took the Cambridge Law student to their hearts not so much for his lightning-fast answers as for his unabashed excitement and eye-catching cable-knit jumper, borrowed from his dad.

Ever humble, he attributed his stunning performance to his habit of browsing Wikipedia before the show, Cambridge News reports.

Alexander Guttenplan

The American science student captained Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to victory in 2011, becoming an unlikely heartthrob along the way, a turn of events that Guttenplan branded "odd".

Hearts were set aflutter when the student dared to do the unthinkable, curtly correcting Jeremy Paxman after he congratulated the team on a "good guess". "It wasn't a guess," Guttenplan shot back, instantly catapulting himself to the status of University Challenge legend.