House Read – You’re Never Weird On the Internet

What I’m Reading: You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
Published: Touchstone, 2015
Read This: while working on your award winning web series

Felicia Day, Queen of the Geeks.
Or, slightly awkward nerd girl you think would probably be a pretty good friend, but you might have to calm her down a bunch, but still probably cool.
I discovered Felicia Day in a round about way. I knew that The Guild was a thing, but I’d never seen it. I didn’t play MMOs, so that obviously wasn’t for me. (Also, I’m really uncomfortable with awkward humor.)
I knew she’d done guest spots on shows I was aware of, but always after I stopped watching them (Buffy, Season 7 anyone?) But then, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-along Blog happened and I now knew Felicia Day and I cared about her. Luckily, she had a backlog of stuff on the internet for me to consume. For free.

And now, a memoir, so I can find out more than I ever should have wanted to know about the origin story of Felicia Day.
I don’t read that many memoirs. At the end of the day, unless you’re really unusual, I just don’t care that much about your life. I’m sorry! I’m sure you’re really nice, but “slice of life” stories kind of bore me. However, exceptions can be made for certain people (usually women) I admire. Or, if you did something really, really awesome like Julia Child being a spy during WWII.
Felicia’s life story is pretty interesting in a quirky and awkward way. She didn’t have a background like mine, but I could see hers from here. I wasn’t homeschooled, mostly because my mom had to work full time and she was worried I’d become a shut in. But I thought it would be awesome. I didn’t get big on the early internet because we couldn’t afford the hourly rates and by the time AOL discs with 500 free hours started to liter the landscape, I was at boarding school with no dialup access. And I was NEVER going to be a musical prodigy. I just wasn’t that good at anything except reading.
But, I can still identify with lots of the things Felicia talks about in her book. Feeling lost the first time she went to a dance and was WAY overdressed. Being put into ALL the lessons because her mom didn’t really know what to do with her. Retreating into fantasy worlds because real life was difficult. I had books, she had video games. And Perry Mason books. Apparently.
I listened to the audio version of the book, read by Felicia, which was fun, but a little bit weird if you’ve heard her talk a bunch. Her cadence is different when she’s reading the book than when she’s recording a vlog, so that threw me just a little. It’s not bad, just different.
The book is charming if you’re willing to be charmed and frank about the difficulties she’s had growing up in an unusual way and then issues she had due to the pressure of success as well as illness. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who has those “please love me” thoughts every time I meet a new person or put something I did out into the world. If someone like Felicia Day can have them, then maybe it’s ok that I do too. After all, she’s the Queen of the Geeks.