My Terrible, Horrible, No Good Gatekeeping Nerdist Internship Interview

Note: this was cross-posted to my Medium account.

It was the fall of 2013. I had taken a huge risk and moved halfway across the United States in order to go to the University of Southern California for their concentrated Master’s in Specialized Journalism: The Arts. While I had spent close to eight years with an all-volunteer publication covering the performing arts in Kansas City, I had yet to break into any actual paid work (either as a full-time job or as freelancing) as a journalist, and I had hoped that this might help me figure out if there was a way I could fix that. And if all else failed, I knew it would be a great experience and give me opportunities I wouldn’t have otherwise in the Midwest.

While, based on my background, I had considered doing my thesis on something connected to theatre, it was one too many conversations about Doctor Who and Sherlock with one of the professors that made her ask why I wasn’t covering geek media and culture.

I admit: the idea had blown my mind. Yes, I was a regular subscriber to the RSS feeds for Den of Geek, The Mary Sue, and similar nerdy publications, but it had never really dawned on me that I could possibly cover geeky stuff myself.

During my fall semester, I saw a listing for an internship at The Nerdist for an editorial assistant. The person posting it was a USC alum, and one of the reasons I had chosen USC for my master’s was because of the joke about how it was kind of like the mafia: if you were an alum, and you knew another alum, that got your foot in the door.

And it worked: I got the interview.

Now, admittedly, I’ve never been good at job interviews. I’m potentially high functioning Asperger’s (never been able to afford getting an official diagnosis), and the idea that someone can decide whether you are right for an organization after a 30-minute (if you’re lucky) conversation continually mystifies me. I have always done much better in places where I started out as a temp and was able to show I was capable of the job.

Add to it that I was extremely nervous. As mentioned, I was fresh into the idea of writing in the geek industry. Additionally, since my actual paid job background was 90% administrative work, I was apprehensive at my qualifications. Finally, this was basically my dream job: while I enjoy writing, I’ve always been much more drawn to the editorial side of things, as I felt there was more variety in the job tasks.

My interview … well, let’s just say it did not go well. And it took me a while to figure out what all went wrong.

via GIPHYAt first, he chastised my resume for not focusing on writing. It was obvious this was the first time he had seen the resume. I had used an administrative resume not only to ‘hide’ my lack of paid writing experience but also because I felt an editorial assistant was more of an administrative position rather than a writing one. When I tried to explain that, he brushed it off and continued the interview.

He then went on to bring up my attending USC. He was very insistent to point out that he had never been to college and expressed how my going for my master’s degree wasn’t worth it. I tried to explain that while yes, a job in the industry would be great, I knew that the state of journalism wasn’t the best and that part of me going for my master’s was to figure out whether it was something I wanted to continue to pursue. He looked at me like I was insane.

Then, he asked why I wanted to work there. I admitted to being a fan of the Nerdist, and — figuring a little honesty sometimes helps in these situations — acknowledged that as a result I was nervous about the interview. He proceeded to tell me that the job wasn’t for the video production team, which confused me — because nowhere in my answer did I mention the video production team.

The conversation then turned to what I was nerdy about, and this is where the interview went completely off the rails.

I mentioned I was (at the time) really into Sherlock and Doctor Who, and made the joke (that ended up being the title of one of my master’s thesis articles) about how I was ‘somewhat unhealthily obsessed with Martin Freeman’. This was just after the opening of The World’s End, so he asked my thoughts on it.

I had actually seen it as part of a Cornetto Trilogy showing in LA where they showed all three movies back to back (and wearing my Shaun of the Dead t-shirt) the prior weekend, and so had been talking about it all week. So, I shared my thoughts: while I thought it was an okay movie, I felt it was the weakest of the three and didn’t really feel like a part of the series.

He proceeded to question whether I was a ‘real fan’ of ‘those types of movies’ (meaning alien invasion stories) and asked if I had even seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers. I tried explaining that I didn’t hate it, I just didn’t feel it was in the same vibe as Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. I even went on to explain that while I didn’t care much for buddy cop movies (and at the time had never even seen Point Break), I had still enjoyed Hot Fuzz, so didn’t think it was my lack of liking those movies that made me not like it as much as the others. Having written more than my fair share of reviews, I was even willing to further explain my point with examples, but he cut me off and continued to insist I just didn’t ‘get’ the movie and seemed to get increasingly upset that I wasn’t raving about the movie.

We then moved on to the rest of the interview, but I knew at that point that I was not getting this job. When I heard officially I didn’t get the job, I discussed what I at the time described as a ‘really odd’ interview with my professor. I admitted that if this was the way the interview went, it was probably a good thing that I didn’t get it, as it was a sign of what the workplace culture would be like.

It wasn’t until later, when I started doing research to back up my main thesis article on how women are treated in the geek/nerd community that it dawned on me that he was gatekeeping me and putting me in the ‘fake geek girl’ category.

Up until this day, I have only told a few trusted friends. Two years ago, I had the chance to reach out to someone who was working at Nerdist at the time who announced an internship position. I asked who was in charge at the time, and explained I was asking because I had had an interview that didn’t go well. They asked for more details and I gave them a condensed version of the above … to never hear anything from them again. Despite reaching out numerous times with story pitches and applying for writing jobs there, I have never gotten a response back. Not even a ‘thanks but no thanks’ kind.

Nerdist is a huge force in the geek media industry. The kicker for all of this? This had been an unpaid internship, and I would’ve gladly worked for free just to get my foot in the door and to learn while I was there. But I was shut out because I was a woman (and possibly because I was a more educated older woman) who had the audacity to not love a movie wholeheartedly.

There have been a lot of stories in nerd culture recently that involve women or people of color (or both) revolving around harassment. (Well, there have ALWAYS been these stories — but there has been a definite uptick lately.) And I’m not saying my interview was anywhere near that level. But this is part of why I believe and support these stories. I have seen how nerd culture is still geared towards white men (see the fanaticism over Ready Player One, which is basically male nerd geekery in a nutshell). And I have seen how pissed off they get when someone who isn’t like them has the audacity to want to be in that space.

Fandom is not an all or nothing: you can find issues with a piece of media and still be a fan. You can also like certain aspects that others don’t — and you both are still fans. When I was growing up, to be a geek or a nerd meant you were bullied for liking things others didn’t: made fun of, taunted, even beat up. And it hurts whenever I hear stories of admitted nerds turning around and doing the same. When nerd culture started to become mainstream, I had hoped it would be for the better. But it just feels like it shifted. We can do so much better.

You can see my other essays here.