An Ode to Weirdness (Almost)

One school of thought would say you have to have lived a long, full life to fill the pages of an interesting memoir. Another school of thought would say that at any age, if you can put down enough interesting experiences in a memoir that people want to read them, go for it! A great example of the latter is Felicia Day's book: You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost).

I actually listened to the audiobook version of the memoir on the drive to and from Steamboat Springs a month ago. It was read by Felicia Day herself, naturally (with a foreword by Joss Whedon read by the man himself, also naturally). It sounded like a fun way to pass the time, and indeed it was.

If you're the sort of person who'd be reading this blog, you likely already know who Felicia Day is. If not, suffice it to say that she's carved out a wonderful niche being professional geeky, appearing as a guest star on many Shows Geeks Love, and at many conventions geeks attend. She didn't just fall into this status; she earned it by creating and starring in one of the earliest successful internet series, The Guild -- about the personal drama within an MMORPG raiding group.

Day's memoir talks a lot about the process of making her dream TV show herself when no network would do it for her. It also talks a lot about being female in a world that is often stridently male. (Gamergate gets a chapter; if you're fortunate enough not to know what that is, you're living in a world less sad than the rest of us, and perhaps that innocence should not be pierced.) Before all that, though, you get many chapters about how one grows up geeky in the first place. Unsurprisingly, there are familiar touchstones throughout her back story, even though she grew up in the deep south (not normally associated with breeding geeks).

The audiobook format seemed a perfect one for this particular memoir. While I'm sure much of the humor in the book would have been apparent on the page, there is something about Day's delivery that made it extra fun listening to her read it. There's plenty of sarcasm, self-deprecating humor, and lengthy asides that just works better hearing Day perform it.

This is not likely a book to change your world view, to deeply inspire or surprise you. Still, I'd venture to say that anyone expecting that from a memoir by Felicia Day has wildly inappropriate expectations. I hoped to laugh at some jokes and maybe on occasion share a moment of sympatico with a fellow geek. Check and check.

I'd say You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) deserves a solid B -- perhaps a B+ if you, like me, go for the audiobook version. If you're looking for a quirky background to a road trip or a series of workouts, it's worth checking out.