CraveOnline: When you pick out shows for Geek & Sundry, are you developing all these in-house, or are you finding something that somebody else is already doing and incorporating it? How does a show get to be on your channel?
Felicia Day: There’s varying ways that we work. A lot of them are taking pitches or reading material that we solicit, whether we find someone online that we think is really talented, or in a meeting or through agents, or just somebody who’s worked with somebody who’s worked with someone. It’s definitely a question of us wanting to work with people who are likeminded, and that’s why we read and reach out to tons of people all the time, because it all goes through the filter of “Would our audience like it? Is it something that you don’t see somewhere else?” We’re very discriminating about what we try to make.
We are premiering a new show this week called “Outlands” on the channel. It’s with Adam de la Peña, who did “Code Monkeys” on G4. I was a huge fan of that show and meeting him in person, he’s totally like-minded with his sensibility. He’s quirky. He’s funny without being non-inclusive, and just has the right sense of humor that I think the audience will like.
I’m very careful about the personalities and the shows we put on the channel because it reflects our overall sense of what is Geek & Sundry. If you go to the [channel] you want to know what kind of show you’re going to see. That has to be very clear for somebody going to the channel, what they’re likely to see. The same thing goes with our blogging channel. […] We launched earlier this year but we took submissions from the community all summer, and we got hundreds and hundreds of submissions. This week, for Geek Week, we’re premiering several of those personalities. It was an amazing to process to see everyone’s unique perspective on so many different subjects, and then narrowing it down to ten people who I thought really distilled that idea of “What is Geek & Sundry?” into what they do. They were all super passionate about what they were talking about, but they’re also someone that you’d be comfortable with walking up to and having a drink with at a convention. [Laughs]
Is that something you think you can incorporate on a regular basis, this sort of talent search? Or was this just a special event?
For the vlogging channel I wanted to build the infrastructure and build up all the personalities in a way that felt like weren’t just forcing the audience to watch everyone we have. I love the people we picked initially, but I do feel like that sense of participation is inherent on the internet, and also especially in vlogging. It’s about personality, and that’s why we did the community submissions process for that. For the main channel, like I said, we’re always aiming to do less, better. Which is not necessarily everyone’s approach to a YouTube Channel that has more than one show, but that’s our philosophy, the way we like to work. Certainly in the future we might open up the idea of, if someone has made a show, you’d be able to submit to us for consideration. I’m definitely not opposed to that, it’s just there are some hoops we have to jump through legally to make sure that everything’s done in a way that everyone feels happy about it. But that’s something we’ll be thinking about in the future as we finish the vlogging process, which has gone so amazingly.
You talk about how personality is so important when you’re vlogging. What advice would you give someone who wants to present themselves the best way possible? What are the tricks?
I think you have to start with the root of it, which is “Why are you talking about what you’re talking about?” You’ve got to make sure it’s something that you’re not reaching for, that after you do 20 vlogs, you won’t be searching for something to say. You have to singe out that thing you can talk forever about, that you’re passionate about [so] that working on it doesn’t feel like a job. That will come through in the way that you talk to your audience about that subject… your sensibility, or even if it’s just your world view.
Then, on the other front, you need to make sure that technically it looks and feels like a place that people want to settle down in, and have a good time in. You want to make sure that your production values are high enough that audiences don’t have to work to see you clearly, or hear you. Give them something to enjoy. You’re asking them to enter a room with you, and enter a world with you. Just basic things. [Make sure] that your room is not messy. You’d be amazed at some of the things that count against you that you don’t think about. So that sort of conscious about the way the video looks, but also the way that you’re coming across because if you love what you love, and you’re conveying that in a way that the audience feels is relatable, you can overcome any technical aspects because the audience is responding to you as a person.
