You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)

by Felicia Day

It’s hard being weird. No—it’s hard living in a culture that makes it hard.

I wanted to make it abundantly clear to everyone in the Lancaster mall area that I was NOT Emily Blunt.

One of the other Hot Topics said, “I only know you because my boyfriend is into your gaming stuff. He has a huge crush on you.” Then she gave a reassuring smile. “I’m cool with it!” “Great, that’s a real compliment!” I hear this a lot. The insecure part of me always feels like there’s a backhanded insult underneath, like the girls know I’m not QUITE hot enough for their guy to go through with a hookup. Sometimes I think to myself, I can steal your boyfriend. WORRY ABOUT ME!

I know I shouldn’t introduce my own memoir with this amount of insecurity, but my personal life philosophy is always to assume the worst, then you’re never disappointed. ← BAM! Highlight that previous sentence, baby!

I like to refer to myself as “situationally recognizable.” It’s way better than “internet famous,” which makes me feel like I’m in the same category as a mentally challenged cat or a kid doing yo-yo tricks while riding a pogo stick. I know that kid, super talented. But the cat . . . not so much.

But the heart of my story is that the world opened up for me once I decided to embrace who I am—unapologetically.

For the record, I was homeschooled for hippie reasons, not God reasons. And it wasn’t even full hippie. There was no “communal family in an ashram” sort of thing, which is SO disappointing.

In retrospect—and not to be mean to anyone who parented me—it doesn’t seem like there was a clear plan going into the whole homeschooling thing.

Also, homeschooling seemed like something an orphan would do, and I really wanted to be an orphan. Because let’s be real: they have it so good in kids’ literature! They’re sad but special, people love them against all odds, and they’re always guaranteed a destiny of greatness. The Secret Garden, The Wizard of Oz, Harry Potter? Orphanhood was a bucket list item for me!

There was, however, one big rule that was enforced during our free-for-all education: We were expected to read. Constantly. All day, every day. Whatever we wanted at the library, the used bookshop, adult or kid section, anything that didn’t have nudity or Stephen King on the cover, we could read.

They say that the root of everything you are lies in your childhood. Every emotional problem, every screwed-up relationship, every misplaced passion and career problem you can blame on the way you were raised. So I can be kinda smug when I say, “Boy, do I have some excuses!”

Growing up without being judged by other kids allowed me to be okay with liking things no one else liked. How else could a twelve-year-old girl be so well versed in dragon lore and film noir? Or think it was the height of coolness to be able to graph a cosine equation? Or long to play Dungeons & Dragons but never get the chance until adulthood because her mom saw that one article on how it made you a Satanic basement murderer?

Knowing yourself is life’s eternal homework. (← Another coffee mug slogan!)

My favorite movie is Babe, and if you even hum the theme song to it, I WILL start crying. One time I was introduced to James Cromwell, who played a gruff farmer in the movie, and I burst into tears when I touched his hand. Because it was so big and warm and he DANCED FOR HIS PIG.

“Nyet! Nyet! You no practice?! Lazy!” He’d throw up his hands and stare at me with colossal disappointment, like I was his underage daughter, pregnant with fifteen sets of twins.

You’d think jumping into a school of 30,000-plus students would be intimidating for a girl who’d had only her little brother to hang around for most her life, and you would be right.

It all came to a head when I performed in Professor Frittelli’s Master Class, a monthly class where a few people would play and get critiqued so everyone could learn from it. Public shaming, the great pedagogical tool, right? Answer: No.

But young perky-tits Felicia can’t hear her thirtysomething, wrinkled self.

If someone’s takeaway from this story is “Felicia Day said don’t study!,” I’ll punch you in the face. But I AM saying don’t chase perfection for perfection’s sake, or for anyone else’s sake at all. If you strive for something, make sure it’s for the right reasons. And if you fail, that will be a better lesson for you than any success you’ll ever have. Because you learn a lot from screwing up.

So the next day I lied and got the part! It was a great lesson to learn so young: Never let the truth stop you from getting what you want.

For years after that play, my family would tell the tale of how “That kid Jackson tried to murder Felicia,” and we were pretty convinced he was going to grow up to be a serial killer. I recently looked him up on Facebook. He became a dentist, so same difference.

Because everyone discouraged me from getting a degree in theatre (thank you, everyone), I did the math-music thing in college, but in the back of my mind I was always going to move to Hollywood and become an actor.

I screamed. It was a good scream. A silent “thank you” to my probably-dead-by-then singing teacher Miss Hilda.

I learned that the most important thing about taking classes is to find a place you look forward to going to.

This is now my motto as a teacher

I created a Rogue (Thief) character, because I enjoy channeling my inner kleptomaniac, and stepped into a world so real, so “graphically advanced,” that as I hopped around in the starting area, clutching my little beginner dagger, I fell in love. Deeply. Unutterably. In love. This probably sounds strange to nongamers. I understand. The best analogy I can make to real life is this: You know how sometimes you go to another city and, while driving around, you see a house that looks so cute and inviting that you fantasize about what it would be like to drop everything in your life and just move there? Like, you see a cottage while on vacation in Belize, and think, Prices are dirt cheap, people look chill, let’s DO THIS! It’s a feeling of new possibility. Of starting fresh. Imagine capturing a kernel of that in your own life right now, by sitting at your computer and paying $15.00 a month in subscription fees. That’s what it’s like to bury yourself in a virtual world.

It was like Cheers. But where absolutely no one knew your name.

When I was growing up, my dad read a ton of science fiction, my aunt was an actor, my brother could fart and burp loudly, and all these things I aspired to do because I felt they’d make me a more bitchin’ human being.

A good teacher is someone you’re willing to share your ugliest, roughest work with and who doesn’t make you feel ashamed or stupid.

“And Felicia, what goals are you working towards?” “Uh, acting more. And writing . . . something. A screenplay? Or . . . a pilot? Yeah, a TV pilot.” I grabbed “pilot” out of the air because Jane had already said she was doing a screenplay, and it’s a personal rule of mine never to order the same thing off the menu as someone else. You’re a flawed human being if you think two beet salads at a table is ever acceptable.

I do the exact same

I woke up at 3:54 a.m. with a full-on panic attack and a huge epiphany: I was going to die someday. I was going to END. And I know you can say that to yourself a million times, Live for the now!—I mean, it’s the message of half the Ben Stiller movies ever made—but you can’t understand something unless you FEEL it. Deep in your bones. For some reason that night, I felt it.

If ideas flow out of you easily like a chocolate fountain, bless you, and skip to the next chapter. But if you’re someone like me, who longs to create but finds the process agonizing, here’s my advice: - Find a group to support you, to encourage you, to guilt you into DOING. If you can’t find one, start one yourself. Random people enjoy having pancakes. - Make a goal. Then strike down things that are distracting you from that goal, especially video games. (Unless it’s this book; finish reading it and THEN start.) - Put the fear of God into yourself. Okay, I’m not religious. Whatever spiritual ideas float your boat. Read some obituaries, watch the first fifteen minutes of Up, I don’t care. Just scare yourself good. You have a finite number of toothpaste tubes you will ever consume while on this planet. Make the most of that clean tooth time. For yourself.

And Kim could sense that I was freaking out. Because I said, looking freaked out, “The idea of doing that freaks me out.”

When I send food back at a restaurant . . . well, I don’t. Because I’m convinced they’ll send it back with cyanide in it. Or bodily fluids.

People ask me if I have a marketing or PR background, since that’s what helped catapult The Guild into situational internet fame against all odds. Answer? Nope, I have no qualifications in those areas. But I’ve always had a flair for showmanship. I love adding a bit of “VOILÀ!” to life, like secretly slipping a turd into the pool and watching people react REALLY strongly. Um, except it’s a turd everyone gets excited about, not grossed out by. One made of gold or diamonds or something . . . I dunno where this analogy is going.

It wasn’t a mistake. People were willing to support us in order to make more Guild. Of their own volition. It was the best compliment I ever got.

There are enough negative forces in this world—don’t let the pessimistic voice that lives inside you get away with that stuff, too. That voice is NOT a good roommate.

I love it when people tell me I’m doing the wrong thing, or that something isn’t possible, or just straight dismiss me. That lights my fire in a perverse way, like a two-year-old who deliberately touches the hot stove after you tell them not to. But compliment me or expect something big? That’s the perfect way to destroy my confidence.

I was trained to get an A in life from everyone, so I never learned how to take care of myself even if I had a right to.

Imagine saying to someone, “I have a kidney problem, and I’m having a lot of bad days lately.” Nothing but sympathy, right? “What’s wrong?” “My mom had that!” “Text me a pic of the ultrasound!” Then pretend to say, “I have severe depression and anxiety, and I’m having a lot of bad days lately.” They just look at you like you’re broken, right? Unfixable. Inherently flawed. Maybe not someone they want to hang around as much? Yeah, society sucks.

There’s a great Eleanor Roosevelt quote, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

You need to be able to feel proud of yourself even if you were living in a tiny hut in the middle of nowhere, taking care of goats. You are unique and good enough JUST AS YOU ARE. As a theoretical goat herder.

You made something great. And something new will come around. Or not. Either way, do the work you love. And love yourself. That’s all you can do in this world in order to be happy.

The internet is amazing because it connects us with one another. But it’s also horrific because . . . it connects us with one another.

It’s proven that our brains give more attention to negative experiences than positive ones. (I read it in a study. Reference: internet.)

And I think the world of gaming needs people from all walks of life to speak up and represent the positive side of what we love. Because, let’s be real: gaming’s reputation is NOT good in that area right now. Currently, if it were a restaurant, it would get a VERY bad Yelp review.

Because if you can’t be your own weird self on the internet, where can you be?