Nerd Famous

Most of my reaction to this weekend’s Emily Gould article in the Times was “Gosh, who knew that writing for Gawker might have a corrosive effect on your personal life…,” but there were some interesting bits. She did a nice job explaining how blogging can be sort of addictive, and also had some good bits on the phenomenon of blog fame:

I started seeing a therapist again, and we talked about my feelings of being inordinately scrutinized. “It’s important to remember that you’re not a celebrity,” she told me. How could I tell her, without coming off as having delusions of grandeur, that, in a way, I was? I obviously wasn’t “famous” in the way that a movie star or even a local newscaster or politician is famous — I didn’t go to red-carpet parties or ride around in limos, and my parents’ friends still had no idea what I was talking about when I described my job — but I had begun to have occasional run-ins with strangers who knew what I did for a living and felt completely comfortable walking up to me on the street and talking about it. The Monday after my disastrous CNN appearance, as I stood in line at Balthazar’s coffee bar, a middle-aged man in a suit told me to keep my chin up. “Emily, don’t quit Gawker!” a young guy shouted at me from his bicycle as I walked down the street one day. If someone stared at me on the subway, there was no way to tell whether they were admiring my outfit or looking at the stain on my sweater or whether they, you know, Knew Who I Was.

I’m not remotely in that league (I’m not that tightly wound, either), but I recognize the basic phenomenon. The contexts in which somebody might recognize me from the blog are pretty limited, but I have had total strangers come up to me out of the blue and say “I really enjoy your blog.” And I walked into a poster session at DAMOP once only to have a fairly prominent guy in the field see me and yell across the room “I have a suggestion for a blog post for you!”

When I gave a talk at Bucknell a little while ago, the person doing the introduction jokingly called me a “world famous physics blogger.” I corrected that to “nerd famous,” which I think is probably more accurate. I find myself in the weird position of being known to a surprising number of people I’ve never met. And you know, that hasn’t stopped being strange– it’s not as surreal as finding myself with a book contract because of a silly blog post, but it’s pretty darn odd.

I’ve also had half a dozen colleagues on campus independently discover the blog by one means or another– every time I’ve hit a big aggregator, somebody new has mentioned it to me, and one colleague found me because of a link from Kevin Drum. The Physics majors have known about it for a good while, and a few of them tease me about it, but I’ve had a few students in my class this term mention it, too, so it’s getting more widely known.

I still kind of get a kick out of this, and I’m happy to report that it has yet to wreck my life. Then again, I haven’t been doing this all that long, and even Gawker took a while to ruin Emily Gould. There have been more than a few dinners where Kate has quietly rolled her eyes while I talked obsessively about the blog, and a couple of occasions when she’s suggested that I take a break, but I’m still holding things together. And the Gould article is an excellent reminder of the need to maintain perspective.

There will, however, be a dramatic decrease in my posting frequency this week, as I’m headed off to western Pennsylvania for this year’s DAMOP meeting. Which is, of course, a prime location for my nerd fame… I know of several likely attendees who read this, and there are probably a few more I don’t know.

If you’re going, and you see me there (I’m somewhat difficult to miss), feel free to say hi. Don’t be surprised if I look a little startled, though. This whole business is still just a little weird.