Author’s Note: This is the first book in my attempt at a 2015 2016 reading challenge. I’ll be following the Popsugar 2015 challenge, but I’m probably going to make some minor alterations. I don’t plan to read in any specific order, but I’ll be updating the site with a couple of new features to track my reading.
Book: You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)
Author: Felicia Day
Category: ???
I found Felicia Day’s The Guild right around the same time I began seriously considering changing my major. It turns out that would be about the middle of my college career.
As a kid that grew up on the Internet, its characters were familiar, almost archetypal. These were the MMO-playing, forum-dwelling people that helped me learn to (sort of) socialize.
At this point, this post could branch off in several different directions. I could discuss the rather sharp difference between what I expected from college and what I found. I could discuss how, despite some excellent professors, my early experiences as an English major (all thanks to how I chose to deal with them) left me in a sort of terrified creative holding pattern.
I might revisit those topics later, but this post is about You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost).
Suffice it to say, The Guild introduced me to the idea of new media as a field I could work in, re-ignited my creative spark and probably in a roundabout way led me to become a journalism major.
All of this didn’t really sink in until I started (and devoured in just a few hours) Day’s memoir. I picked up the book because I like to learn about creative, innovative people, especially in their own words. I did not anticipate personal revelations of my own.
The best memoirs (or autobiographies, I can never decide on a solid set of differences between the two) are like very engaging, one-sided conversations. They should leave an open reader feeling privileged to have learned about a person. After all, we read to know we’re not alone (That’s William Nicholson by way of C.S. Lewis in Nicholson’s Shadowlands).
After reading You’re Never Weird, I feel that sense of privilege. It’s reassuring to see how much you can have in common with a person whose life experiences are so radically different from your own.
Being vulnerable in print is hard. There are lots of good quotes by lots of different authors that say the same thing but with metaphors. But this book is open, and not in a lascivious, tell-all, tabloid-fodder way.
It’s a good book is what I’m getting at. It’s a book about Felicia Day and the Internet, and if you want the nitty-gritty, pick it up.
I particularly enjoyed the Gamergate chapter. As an aspiring teller of creative, nerdy stories and a longtime denizen of the Internet, the whole ordeal (and the wider issue of toxic dialogue online) is disheartening and at times frightening.
The Internet offers amazing opportunities to connect, share and learn with people, but it also provides a nutrient rich environment for hate and ignorance.
It can be intimidating to have any online presence lest you jeopardize your own safety or that of your family, but Day’s stance is fortifying.
Author’s Note Redux: My good friend Sawcy has been consistently plugging away at the reading challenge since last year. Check out his blog here.
chasetriesagain.com 