Who is "the fat kid"?

Question

One of the New Gods in Neil Gaiman's American Gods is never (as far as I can remember) referred to by name, but usually as "the fat boy" or "the fat kid". As the name suggests, he has the appearance of a plump young man, and he's often found in his limousine. Some of the way he talks (the phrase "ones and zeros" comes to mind) suggests he might be the god of computers, or the internet.

What is he the god of? Computers? The internet? Electronic devices more generally?

If he's given a name anywhere in the books, or if Gaiman has confirmed his identity in an interview, that would be pretty damning, but evidence put together from passages in the book to establish a reasonable conclusion would also make for a satisfactory answer.

Answer 1

Media, among others, just refers to him as the "technical boy".

She spread her hands and rolled her eyes comically, funny Lucy Ricardo washing her hands of a disaster. "The technical boy? You met the technical boy? Look he's a good kid. He's one of us. He's just not good wiith people he doesn't know. When you're working for us, you'll see how amazing he is."

This is the only name he's given. Mr. Nancy and even the technical boy himself use the same name at different points, although it's never capitalized to indicate a proper name.

"Hey, Czernobog," said Mr. Nancy, after a while. "You check out the technical boy back at the motel? He was not happy. He's been screwin' with something that screwed him right back. That's the biggest trouble with the new kids -- they figure they know everythin', and you can't teach them nothin' but the hard way."

This does carry a slight implication that the reason he's not properly named is because he's so new, or still evolving, or his idea still in flux... or something. It's not gone into detail on inside the book - although the recent TV series adaptation has kinda confirmed the idea by proxy by casting a very different looking "technical boy", and confirming this was intentionally reflecting the difference between the concept he represents over time (the following quotes from Neil Gaiman's Twitter):

The thinking was that the 2017 Technical Boy would be more slimline vaping hipster than the 2001 incarnation.

he's Technical Boy 2017 as opposed to Technical Boy 1999. He's not one of those dot coms. He's more killer apps.

The technical boy appears to be a general god of computers and the Internet, although undoubtedly he has a hand in anything that's connected to those things. The intent appears to be a channel for the time spent - "worshipping" - information technology, as there are other personas depicted in the finale for other technologies like flight and railroads. As you noticed, this is reflected in his speech, among other cues like his e-cigs smelling like burnt copper:

"Tell him that we have fucking reprogrammed reality. Tell him that language is a virus and that religion is an operating system and that prayers are just so much fucking spam.