I see this comment getting downvoted, but I agree with the sentiment; it suffices to say that if there a compelling mathematical structure exists, there will be people studying it. I imagine most graph theorists are hardly interested in the applications of their field, they just happen to be studying a structure which has much more intuitive practical applications (social networks, molecules, etc).
[edit: i was probably too offhand about that, but what I meant is that the fact that people are engaged in something like this misses at least the conventional usage of "nerd", if wasn't obvious]
