Nowadays geek is more or less chic, but growing up, we all remember how socially awkward it could be to wear the badge of “geek.” Now that we are older and wiser, how can you help the next generation of geeklings? When I spoke with the Queen of Geek, Felicia Day (Fallout: New Vegas, The Guild), I asked her what she would say to encourage those growing up geek. Day’s advice centers on the importance of a mentoring role for young geeks. Check out our conversation below:
SFM: I’ve been seeing in the news that the younger generations are less inclined to choose a career in math and science these days. You mention in your blog that you were home-schooled and that you didn’t necessarily experience the stigma of being a geek or of being “too smart.”
Even though being a geek is chic amongst our generation, I don’t know if it’s evolved past that in regular everyday schools for kids today. What would you say to them to encourage them not to be afraid to be intelligent?
Felicia Day: I think it’s very complicated. I don’t think there’s one thing that could change all children to love math and science.
But I do feel like the thing that made me as a child want to be good at math and want to know science and math was that my parents were both scientists. My dad was a doctor, my mom was a microbiologist, my grandfather is a nuclear physicist. So in our family there was no question whether you would be educated in that area, it would just be which topic and how good are you.
So there was a big motivation and I think it all comes down to mentors. Geeks are a little bit chic but it’s more underground.
Like if you think of just the typical woman that a 12 year old girl would emulate and admire right now, I don’t know that it’s going to be a woman who’s necessarily known for her brains or for her scientific acumen or any of that. Not to insult anybody but I’m just – it’s more about looks and about what purse you have and more reality TV based. I feel like the thing that you can do as a creator is to create roles that are not stereotypical like that, that just don’t base on looks.
And, one of the things that’s a by-product of what I do on the Internet that’s the thing that I’m most proud of is that girls are much more proud of saying that they’re gamers or sort of coming out of the closet as gamers. Because they were there the whole time but it was just considered weird or unless you look like some kind of really, really hot over the top stereotypical “gamer girl” that you shouldn’t say that you’re a gamer.
So, to me it’s all about mentors and making it acceptable and having people that you want to emulate and admire who are interested in those things. So, I mean, I don’t know what the quick solution is but it’s just encouraging mentors.
Never underestimate the value of how you can impact a young geek in your life. Don’t be afraid to be a mentor!
Head over to Felicia’s blog for info on the new trade paperback and season four DVD releases for The Guild.
