Make a Nerdy Living

by Alex Langley

  Don’t just do what’s expected of you. Change majors and careers if need be. Don’t settle for a career path if you find you don’t really like it once you’ve started on it. You may go through school to get a degree only to realize once you’re holding your diploma that you don’t really want to do anything involving that degree. Mythbuster Jamie Hyneman holds a degree in Russian linguistics. I don’t think Mr. Hyneman spoke a lick of Russian on the show, but he’s doing pretty well for himself in the fields of engineering and entertainment.

  As long as you learn from what you’ve done, you will never waste your time. Thanks to my degrees in psychology, I’m able to infuse a lot of psych-related wisdom into my writing (hence the red-hot Erikson knowledge I dropped earlier). I don’t technically need a background in psych to write books, but it’s helped shape me into who I am, so in a way, it’s exactly the background I need.

  Ultimately, you need to search yourself. Find the career you want and start doing whatever it is that will take you toward that career. That’s what this whole book is about, isn’t it?

  “Hmm . . .” you say, “these careers sound nice, but I live in an area where the job selection is limited and also garbage. I want to do something vivacious, something that lets me combine my extensive, eclectic knowledge base with my propensity for boisterous performing and active listening. Maybe something where I can call in my friends to do easy off-camera work.”

  If these are the sorts of things you find yourself contemplating, friend, then you might just be cut out for the wild world of podcasting.

  WORDS FROM WORKING NERDS

  Dr. Janina Scarlet, psychologist, author, and full-time geek, is most known for superhero therapy, which incorporates pop culture into evidence-based or research-supported therapy to provide treatments for anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder.

  How did you get started incorporating popular culture into your therapeutic treatments?

  I think I’ve known most of my life I wanted to become a psychologist. I didn’t know exactly how or why, but I always wanted to help people. It wasn’t until I started working with active-duty Marines that it became clear to me I really wanted to incorporate pop culture into therapy in this way. I’ve always been a fan of pop culture, and the X-Men were kind of my gateway into geekdom, but the way it started was during my postdoctoral training of working with active-duty Marines with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Many of them reported feeling ashamed for having developed PTSD. Many of them would say they wanted to be Superman and that they felt like failures. So in talking about Superman, we were able to find that he actually has a number of vulnerabilities [that don’t] make him any less of a superhero, and we were able to use that as part of cognitive processing therapy. And I saw the benefits this work had. Later, I started doing a few more [therapies] with other types of pop culture and started incorporating more characters from things like Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Harry Potter, and Star Wars, and I’ve seen huge benefits from doing that.

  What has surprised you most with Superhero Therapy?

  I thought people might be thrown off by it or be uncomfortable. I’ve actually found that most psychologists and other therapists and patients seem to be really excited about it. Of course, it’s not for everyone, but most people are really open to the idea of incorporating pop culture into therapy and using creativity in this way. People feel less alone and more connected. I’ve been very blessed and grateful to have such warm, positive feedback, and a lot of therapists are now attending my workshops and reporting huge benefits for their own patients.

  What advice would you give to other people looking to incorporate their nerdy loves into their less-than-nerdy careers?

  The best advice I can give is to go with your heart. If you are really interested in psychology, you can do that with your own tweaks and elements. I know people who are incorporating Dungeons & Dragons or Magic: The Gathering into therapy, and that’s really successful, too. You could also incorporate other kinds of music or art. . . . I think there’s no limit to what we can do. If you’re a nerd, if there’s something you’re really passionate about, if you can tie it into your daily life, [then] I think not only will it be exciting for you but for other people as well, and it will really improve your quality of life. I think that when work is fun, that’s when it’s the best kind of reward someone can have.

  Who are some people who have inspired you in your work?

  Fiction- and writer-wise, Neil Gaiman and J. K. Rowling, because of the way their writing has touched so many lives and helped people on so many different levels. As a psychologist, I’m a big fan of Kristen Neff’s work and Kelly McGonigal. I think those two women have taken their nerdy passions for research and combined it with something they’re passionate about, like self-compassion and health psychology, and revolutionized the way we study psychology. I think all my role models are people who have found a way to follow their hearts and be creative in a way that not only helps them [but also] helps people around the world.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PODCASTING

  The spoken word is a form of entertainment stretching back to the start of human history, when the first cave person grunted wry observations about cave life to the amusement and enlightenment of his fellow crap-flingers. Today our desire for entertainment and wisdom remains the same, but the delivery system has changed.* Smartphones bring us unfettered access to the world of sound wherever we go, and with that freedom to listen comes the desire for something worth listening to.

  THE HISTORY OF PODCASTS

  In the early ’00s, Adam Curry and Dave Winer—the same Dave Winer who helped create blogs—helped build rich site summary (RSS) feeds for audio-heavy content known as audiologs. This paved the way for podcasts.27 Winer then worked with former New York Times reporter Christopher Lydon to expand his blog to include audiologs of his in-depth interviews with technologically minded and important people, creating what many argue to be the first podcast series.

  For the next few years, podcasts were by cutting-edge people, for cutting-edge people. They weren’t easy to get into the hands of the general public, partly due to technological limitations and partly because most people had never heard of podcasts before.

  In 2005, iTunes added native support for podcasts, meaning that anyone with an Apple device could easily find a podcast and start listening. This marked a tectonic shift in the zeitgeist that is still quaking to this day, as the popularity of podcasts continues to grow.

  Comedians were among the first to adopt the format to full effect. Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and their perpetually curmudgeonly friend Karl Pilkington, created The Ricky Gervais Show to international success. Chris Hardwick, frustrated with having to wait around hoping for acting and comedy work to present itself, started the Nerdist podcast in 2010 as a way of empowering himself to generate his own work. Today, Nerdist has become a multimedia empire known as Nerdist Industries. Mustachioed misanthrope Marc Maron’s WTF with Marc Maron interviewed many guests over the years, though none as noteworthy as President Barack Obama. This interview was the first time a podcast had featured an American president as its guest, thus helping solidify the medium as an important means of communication.

  Filmmaker-turned-B-filmmaker-and-podcaster Kevin Smith supported the medium of podcasting from almost the beginning of its existence. Smith’s Smodcast network is home to dozens of different shows, several of which feature the enthusiastic tones of Smith himself. As someone who likes to sit around, get high, and make dirty jokes, Smith’s brand of gentle vulgarity was perfect for podcasting’s freely accessible format, netting him a massive army of followers and listeners.

  As podcasts continue to increase in popularity, so too do the myriad ways in which people utilize them to tell stories, educate, and entertain. This American Life, Serial, Stuff You Should Know, Welcome to Night Vale, The Read, My Favorite Murder, and 2 Dope Queens are a handful of examples of the variety of podcasts out there;
each is a show with its own distinct take on the medium. No matter your interest and no matter your presentational style, you can make podcasts work for you.

  A ZILLION COOL REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD START A PODCAST RIGHT THIS SECOND BUT NOT LIKE RIGHT THIS SECOND BECAUSE YOU’RE READING THIS BOOK

  THEY’RE (USUALLY) EVERGREEN

  Since the content of a podcast is often preplanned and more dictated by the style of the show than fast-moving Internet trends, podcast episodes don’t grow stale as easily as, say, YouTube videos about fidget spinners. The How Did This Get Made? group, which mocks terrible retro movies, will be as relevant decades from now as they are today because cheesy movies deserving mockery will still deserve that mockery in the future.

  THEY’RE INTIMATE

  Podcasts are people talking directly to your ears, or, if you’re wearing headphones, it’s like they’re talking directly inside your head. When you couple that with the conversational flow of most podcasts, it creates a format that feels very cozy, making it easy for listeners to kick back and unwind.

  PODCAST LISTENERS ARE AN AUDIENCE EAGER FOR MATERIAL

  Most people who listen to podcasts are also doing something they want to be distracted from, like driving to work, folding laundry, or battling back the endless demonic horde. Since your listeners are partially occupied doing something else, it means they’re often going to be more forgiving about the occasional dull moments. Plus, in this age of increasingly ubiquitous multitasking, it’s a godsend to have entertainment that can be consumed casually and easily while completing less-entertaining tasks.

  IT’S EASY TO GET STARTED

  The only things you need to start a podcast are a microphone, a hosting platform, and the will to make your idea into a reality.

  IT’S EASY TO MAINTAIN

  Keeping up your podcast doesn’t require the escalating costs of inventory stock, nor do you have to worry about chasing trends the same way a YouTube series might, as your audience is going to skew older and will generally be there specifically for you rather than because your video autoplayed by accident. Also, since any on-camera work you do will be superfluous, you don’t have to worry about the inevitable ravages of time wearing your flesh down to the skeletal nothings we all become!

  IT’S STILL A FAIRLY NEW MEDIUM

  Television, movies, and books all have legacies stretching back decades or even centuries. Video games, despite being pretty new to humanity from a nonlinear, nonsubjective viewpoint of time, are practically ancient compared to podcasts. The nascence of podcasts lends itself to innovation. If you’ve got a bold new idea for a kind of podcast you think no one has done before, odds are good that you’re right. Sure, in the decades to come, podcasting innovations will be fewer and farther between. For now, innovate away, mon frere.*

  MOST, IF NOT ALL, OF YOUR WORK CAN BE DONE IN YOUR PAJAMAS

  No matter your job, if you can do it in your pajamas, things are probably pretty good.

  WORDS FROM WORKING NERDS

  Troy Benjamin, author of books and comics, producer of feature films, former DVD-bonus-content producer, and fanboy who fills all his free time with endless projects like fansites, newsletters, and podcasts

  How/when did you get started in your line/s of work?

  Walking through the halls of the Loyola Marymount film school, I saw a generic print-out posting on the walls that simply said “Did you like the movie Groundhog Day?” and nothing else, except an e-mail address. Of course, being the huge Harold Ramis and Ghostbusters fan that I am, I was intrigued and reached out to the e-mail. It turned out it was producer Trevor Albert looking for a few good interns, and luckily I made the cut. I think it helped that his current assistant knew of the Ghostbusters fansite I had been running since junior high. So I worked for almost a year as an intern, eventually becoming Trevor’s assistant, and from there he introduced me to a good number of the connections and colleagues I’ve worked with to this day.

  What has surprised you most about your line of work?

  I would have to say the most surprising thing I seem to encounter frequently is an unwillingness to take chances, despite a lot of people always claiming they’re looking to do something “outside the box.” I also think it’s surprising that storytelling and how we create and consume content has been evolving and changing so rapidly that it’s presenting so many wonderful opportunities, but there’s a certain amount of trying to get people to catch up.

  What tool could you not do without in your work?

  I’d be lost without my Zoom H4N audio recorder. I’m a horrible note-taker, and my memory is so selective, it’s embarrassing. I can’t remember names or dates (except the release dates for Star Wars and Ghostbusters, for some reason), so making sure I don’t miss anything during interviews is key.

  What do you find most enjoyable about doing podcasts?

  I have to tell you, I’m so glad Chris and I have been doing the Ghostbusters Interdimensional Crossrip podcast. The podcast feeds a couple desires I continue to enjoy: lengthy conversations about a movie that came out almost thirty-five years ago, and conversing and dissecting the topic with filmmakers and artisans in a long interview format.

  How do you go about getting feedback on something like a podcast, where you don’t necessarily have the reactions of a live audience to work with?

  For better or worse, social media gives you instant feedback as if there were a live audience. If someone doesn’t like something, they’re pretty quick to tell you. If they enjoyed something, sometimes they’ll chime in as well, and that always makes you feel pretty good. I’ll leave it to the sociologists to unpack why Internet culture always seems to veer toward vocalizing the negative and sitting silent on the positive, but it’s been interesting to observe and be on the receiving end.

  Are there any particular obstacles you feel you’ve had to overcome to get where you are?

  Money. I mean, it sounds really cynical, but it’s true. It’s extremely difficult to monetize a lot of these things. [That] is not to say I’m looking to finance a four-car garage to fill with a fleet of pristine DeLoreans, but you do have to pay rent and put food on the table.

  A good friend of mine has an interesting perspective on all these projects, like the books, podcasts, etc.—because they’re being done in the name of love, as soon as they are monetized they can also take on the baggage of being “just a job.”* On the one hand, it would be great if all the fan-based projects you’re doing because you love and enjoy producing [them] paid the bills. On the other hand, you don’t want to lose that feeling of excitement and enthusiasm that fuels a lot of these projects.

  What tips do you have for beating procrastination?

  A producer I really admire taught me an incredibly good lesson: If there’s something you can do, do it right now. Don’t wait. If you need to pick up the phone and call someone, do it right that instant. Otherwise, you’ll be apt to procrastinate and it’ll never happen. Or it will somehow snowball and accumulate this meniscus around it, making it a more difficult task.

  To a certain extent, procrastination can be your worst enemy. With the demand for content as high as it is now, and with the amount of people who want to create that content increasing in numbers on a daily basis, there’s a certain competitiveness that should fuel you. You have to be proactive. If you don’t do this, someone else will.

  And honestly, it helps to have a gym partner. You know, the person who is going to shame you in the morning if you skip meeting them at 6:00 a.m. at the gym to exercise. Having Chris and my wife to hold me accountable in releasing a weekly show without missing an episode release helps immensely.

  Any tips or closing thoughts for newcomers looking to get into the business?

  Be patient but persistent. Opportunities will pop up when you least expect them, and you have to be open to those when they present themselves. But you have to be patient until those opportunities arise. If you’re passionate about something, let that fuel you.

  ST
ARTING POINT: PODCASTS

  Okay, now that you’re sold on the format and the idea of working in your pajamas, there are a few things you’ll need to take care of before you can become a superstar podcaster driving a flying car and throwing thousand-dollar bills everywhere.

  INVEST IN YOUR EQUIPMENT

  While you can get your podcast started with naught more than a mic, if you want to make a good podcast, one that sounds professional and will keep bringing people back, you’ll need to invest some time and understanding into the tools of the trade, such as:

  A good gyat-dang microphone: Since the only stimulus your audience will be receiving is auditory, it’s worth every cent to get the best microphone you can. No one wants to listen to buzzing static and volume that’s whisper-quiet one moment and screaming the next. Yeti microphones are generally pretty solid, as are several of the Audio-Technica mics, but your mileage will vary depending on your voice and recording location.* Broadly speaking, microphones come in two elemental varieties: condenser and dynamic. Condenser mics will generally give you better sound if you have a quiet environment to record in, but they pick up background noise like crazy. Dynamic mics are cheaper and won’t pick up background noise as much, but the sound quality of what you do get is probably not going to be as good.