You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
A few years ago, I was talking to my friend about geek culture. I turned to her and said "You know what I just realized? I think I might be a geek". She looked at me and said "You THINK?!"
When I was growing up, we weren't yet an out-and-proud subculture that has it's own prominent place in mainstream culture. This was something you tried to hide behind Starter jackets and Jansport bookbags.. and REALLY tall bangs. You tried desperately to pretend that you didn't care about anything. And that you ESPECIALLY didn't care about anything that made you so giddy that you could barely sleep at night just thinking about it.
I might be tearing up when I think of my daughter living in a time when geeks have inherited the Earth. She may be a Nerdfighter... or she might be an athlete. You do you, Lorelai! But I love that whichever path she picks, she'll be able to find her people and truly revel in whatever she loves without shame or embarrassment.
I related so much to Felicia Day's book. Not only about being a geek when geekdom wasn't yet accepted, but so much about friendships discovered on online forums. I've been through that moment before where you've been talking to someone all day every day for a decade... yet you wouldn't know them if you passed them on the street. I laughed hardest at Felicia's difficulty calling her online friends by their real names. Been there, done that... still call some of them by their screenames! You knew the friendship had gotten serious when you thought of them by their given name instead of MonkeyPaw360 (I don't know a MonkeyPaw, I swear).
Synopsis:
From online entertainment pioneer, actress, and "queen of the geeks" Felicia Day, "You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)" is a "relentlessly funny and surprisingly inspirational" (Forbes.com), memoir about her unusual upbringing, her rise to internet stardom, and embracing her weirdness to find her place in the world.
When Felicia Day was a girl, all she wanted was to connect with other kids (desperately). Growing up in the Deep South, where she was "home-schooled for hippie reasons," she looked online to find her tribe. The internet was in its infancy and she became an early adopter at every stage of its growth--finding joy and unlikely friendships in the emerging digital world. Her relative isolation meant that she could pursue passions like gaming, calculus, and 1930's detective novels without shame. Because she had no idea how "uncool" she really was. But if it hadn't been for her strange background-- the awkwardness continued when she started college at sixteen, with Mom driving her to campus every day--she might never have had the naive confidence to forge her own path. Like when she graduated as valedictorian with a math degree and then headed to Hollywood to pursue a career in acting despite having zero contacts. Or when she tired of being typecast as the crazy cat-lady secretary and decided to create her own web series before people in show business understood that online video could be more than just cats chasing laser pointers.
Felicia's rags-to-riches rise to internet fame launched her career as one of the most influen-tial creators in new media. Ever candid, she opens up about the rough patches along the way, recounting battles with writer's block, a full-blown gaming addiction, severe anxiety and depression--and how she reinvented herself when overachieving became overwhelming. Showcasing Felicia's "engaging and often hilarious voice" ("USA TODAY"), "You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) "is proof that everyone should celebrate what makes them different and be brave enough to share it with the world, because anything is possible now--even for a digital misfit.