Witty essays from the creator of the hit underground series, The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.
Witty essays from the creator of the hit underground series,
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl.
In this universally accessible New York Times bestseller named for her wildly popular web series, Issa Rae waxes humorously on what it's like to be unabashedly awkward in a world that regards introverts as hapless misfits and black as cool. I'm awkward-and black. Someone once told me those were the two worst things anyone could be. That someone was right. Where do I start? Being an introvert (as well as "funny") in a world that glorifies cool isn't easy. But when Issa Rae, the creator of the Shorty Award-winning hit series
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, is that introvert-whether she's navigating love, the workplace, friendships, or "rapping"-it sure is entertaining. Now, in this
New York Times bestselling debut collection written in her witty and self-deprecating voice, Rae covers everything from cyber sexing in the early days of the Internet to deflecting unsolicited comments on weight gain, from navigating the perils of eating out alone and public displays of affection to learning to accept yourself-natural hair and all.
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl is a book no one-awkward or cool, black, white, or other-will want to miss.
"With MISADVENTURES OF AWKWARD BLACK GIRL, Issa shows us why she is the queen of media and why we need a multiplicity of voices in the media." Los Angeles Times
Rae, IssanWith her unique flare and infectious sense of humor, Issa Rae's content has garnered over 20 million views and over 150,000 YouTube subscribers (and counting). In addition to making Glamour magazine's "35 Under 35" list as well as Forbes's "30 Under 30" list and winning the Shorty Award for Best Web Show for her hit series "The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl," Issa Rae has worked on web content for Pharrell Williams, Tracey Edmonds, and numerous others.
The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl
A/S/L
At only eleven years of age, I was a cyber ho. Looking back, I'm embarrassed. For me. For my parents. But oddly enough, my cyber social debauchery is indirectly correlated with my current status as a so-called internet pioneer. It all started when I began catfishing-creating characters and transmitting them over the internet-though back then people just called it "lying." Had my father not signed my entire family up with America Online accounts for the computer in our modest Potomac, Maryland, home I don't know that I'd have had the tools to exploit the early ages of the internet.
Two years earlier, my oldest brother, Amadou, had gone away to college at Morehouse, freeing up the coveted computer, which was housed in the basement, for my use. Before he decamped for college, I would spend hours at a time watching him type the commands into MS-DOS that would transport us to the magical kingdom of Sierra's King's Quest VI on our IBM. I never had a strong desire to play the game myself-I always assumed I wasn't smart enough to play it on my own-until Amadou graduated from the house and I no longer had anyone to excitedly observe. I looked up to my oldest brother as the epitome of intelligence. He knew everything, though he was too humble to be ostentatious with his knowledge as I would have been had I been as smart. So I simply observed. At eighteen, he was an official adult, and he had a duty to selflessly spread his intelligence to the world, other people's younger sisters included. His absence left a void in my heart and in the basement, particularly where the use of the computer was concerned.
I wasn't next in line for the computer, but my second-oldest brother, Malick, was too preoccupied with football, girls, and high school to care. He'd occasionally make use of it for term papers and Tetris, but otherwise, it was mine for the taking. Using the computer wasn't foreign to me, by any means. I had an old Apple computer in my very own room (a double source of jealousy for my younger brother), where I played Number Munchers and self-published my stories on perforated paper from an excruciatingly noisy printer.
"Jo-Issa, are you wasting paper again?!" my mother would yell from her makeshift home office, tipped off by the mechanical snitch. When alone, and mom-approved, I actually loved to hear the robotic crunching and whirring that the printer made while laying to ink my very own written words. But the computer in my room paled in comparison to the one downstairs, in the basement. For one thing, the large floppy disks-I think they were actually called hard disks, what the f%4# 90s?-were becoming extinct, and rightfully so, since the data on those things could be lost with the smudge of a finger. And since my computer took only the "hard" disks, my game choices were limited to nerdy learning games and text-based adventure games with no visuals. BLECH. BORING. BOO.
The other reason my computer wasn't a huge triumph for my preteen self-discovery was because it lacked a modem, which meant no dial-up internet for me. But AOL changed my life. Specifically, it changed my social life. To be more precise: AOL gave me a social life. It ignited my social development and expanded my concept of sexuality. Because of AOL, I had imaginary friends that weren't imaginary. I had elaborate conversations devoid of awkward silences. And, perhaps most valuable of all, I could actually talk to boys. At my command!
Before my parents caught wind of frightening news reports of child predators, I spent my days and after-school evenings in chat rooms, learning to speed read, talking to kids my age who were also ahead of the curve. Or pedophiles,
Über den Autor
With her own unique flare and infectious sense of humor, Issa Rae’s content has garnered more than twenty-five million views and more than 200,000 subscribers on YouTube. In addition to making the Forbes “30 Under 30” list twice and winning the 2012 Shorty Award for Best Web Show for her hit series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl, Issa Rae has worked on web content for Pharrell Williams, Tracey Edmonds, and numerous others. She developed a TV series with Shonda Rhimes for ABC and is currently developing a half-hour comedy, Insecure, for HBO. Issa has received national attention with major media outlets including The New York Times, CNN, Elle, Seventeen, Rolling Stone, VIBE, Fast Company, MSNBC, Essence, and more.
Klappentext
A collection of funny and witty essays from the creator of the underground web series of the same name, which has had 26.3 million views on YouTube. Issa Rae is developing an HBO comedy series, "Insecure".
