Of course they also are. This thought has to be seen in the context of the subject of the thread - The Big Bang Theory, and the actual article which also deals with the outsider (non-nerd), the audience and the nerds.

In other words, Penny or the people at the university on the whole are not clowns, rather the nerds are the primary clown characters. Jennifer, her boyfriends, Mr. Renham or most other non-nerd characters in the IT Crowd are the primary clown characters. We (the general audience) sympathise with the nerds more in the IT Crowd in the same way that we sympathise more with the non-nerds.