Tech Nerds, Like Serena Williams’ Fiancé Alexis Ohanian, Have Never Been More Desirable

Serena Williams didn’t announce her recent engagement not with a People magazine exclusive, a classy announcement in The Times or a low-key confirmation from her publicist. Instead, she took to the “I Said Yes” subreddit to publicly share the details. The post was accompanied by an illustration of Williams and her hubby-to-be in the style of Reddit’s alien mascot “Snoo.” Williams identified herself as the “Future Mrs. Kn0thing,” a reference to her fiancé’s Reddit username.

It wasn’t even the nerdiest celebrity engagement announcement in recent memory.

That might have been Victoria Secret’s Supermodel Miranda Kerr. She announced her engagement simultaneously on Snapchat, Twitter and Instagram. A photo of her ring was overlaid with a Bitmoji image of her Kerr and her fiancé.

So, apparently geeky announcement illustrations are now a requirement among celebrity brides, but that’s not the only thing Williams and Kerr have in common. Both of the men they said yes to are tech entrepreneurs. Kerr is engaged to Snapchat co-founder Evan Spiegel. Williams said yes to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.

Silicon Valley titans are out to disrupt everything, and, apparently, that includes celebrity romance as well.

Aside from geeky, social media engagement announcement, the biggest trend seems to be having a techy boyfriend in the first place.

Karlie Kloss, a tech nerd in her own right (in addition to championing the cause of girls in computer coding, she’ll also be a correspondent on Bill Nye The Science Guy’s upcoming Netflix show), has been quietly dating Venture Capitalist Joshua Kushner for over four years now. Kushner also tried his hand once at founding his own social network, Vostu. That didn’t really take off, but his investment firm Thrive Capital is, well, thriving. (Yes, he also happens to be the brother of Ivanka Trump’s husband Jared Kushner).

Actress Emma Watson still seems to be quietly dating William “Mack” Knight. He describes himself a tech entrepreneur who is currently a senior manager at Medallia Professional Services. Incidentally, Watson is starring in the upcoming film The Circle, a dystopian thriller that explores the evil sides of a fictional Silicon Valley mega-company.

Girls star Allison Williams is the bride of Ricky Van Veen, a prolific tech entrepreneur and one of the co-founders of College Humor.

Of course, it’s not just celebrity women who have expanded their dating circles to the tech elite enclaves of San Francisco Bay.

Alex Rodriguez, the former Yankee who has been linked to everyone from Cameron Diaz to Madonna, is currently smitten with Anne Wojcicki. She’s not only the founder of Silicon Valley-based personal genomics and biotech company 23&Me (you know the one where you spit in a tube and it tells you what your heritage actually is), but she’s also the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Notable, Brin, Wojcicki and Rodriguez all rode together in the same car to this past year’s tech-savvy edition of the Met Ball.

Then there were those rumors that Elon Musk may have been dating a post-divorce Amber Heard, though it turns out that might not have amounted to much. However, Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla founder, has been married and divorced two separate times now to British actress Talulah Riley. She’s not exactly a household name on our shores, but you might remember her as “Angela,” one of the hosts on Westworld. Her character was the one that first welcomed William to the park, and people thought looked sort of like Ivanka Trump.

It seems that every era has its ideal status boyfriend. In the past, they’ve been everything from European nobility to investment bankers and Greek shipping heirs to Hollywood execs. Because it’s increasingly Silicon Valley’s world and the rest of us are just living in it, it only makes sense some of the world’s most eligible bachelorettes find themselves pairing off with tech enthusiasts. Apparently, there’s just something irresistible about those techies. Maybe it’s all those cute illustrations.