Book Review: You're Never Weird On The Internet by Felicia Day

I finished reading Felicia Day’s memoir – ‘You’re NeverWeird on the Internet (Almost)’ without even knowing who Felicia Day is. Yes! I picked this book because it was much raved on Goodreads and the titled intrigued me.

Felicia Day comes from a family where ‘intelligence’ runs in their blood. Day with her satirical writing narrates her homeschooled life, being a geek and her college life, violin prodigy and raving about her perfect SAT score at age of 16.

I haven’t read many memoirs but this book crosses the “usual” style of writing a memoir. She makes you laugh and inspires you with her life experiences. Her nerdiness, making her stamp in online gaming community and reaching to Hollywood wasn’t easy.

The end feeling after reading her memoir will be, “I am not alone.” Felicia did not shy away her mental health problems. She brought her anxiety and the long depressive years of writing script for “The Guild” into light.

Felicia candidly explains how she was striving to outdo her own expectation which was set high after the success of the web series (The Guild). To read about the struggle to make first few episodes of the series is heartrending (filmed in garage, actors working for free).

Felicia tasted the success in the era of birth of YouTube and social media. She worked hard, way too hard for it and writes about how living a life online is difficult especially for a woman. She has dedicated an entire chapter ‘Gamer Gate’, an online harassment campaign against women in gaming world. She has included the hate notes, tweets from trolls in this chapter.

I dragged myself to continue reading the initial chapters but from the point she began writing about The Guild, the hard work to make it successful, drowning in self-doubt, friends alongside her throughout the dark phase of her life, made this book worth a read.

Felicia day embraces her being weird unapologetically by saying: My weirdness turned into my greatest strength in life. It’s why I’m who I am today...

Internet is a weird place: We want followers, likes, we fear FOMO, the feel-good feeling after many likes and comments but one negative spark can ruin life even though internet is not a place that we ‘live in’.

Take away from this book:

 “No matter what you feel is holding you back in life, you can attempt anything.