A History Of Nerdy Nightly. Part 1.

As I'm writing this I'm hours from having my tonsils taken out in a surgery that has been a long time coming. It's a nerve wracking thing to anticipate surgery, especially in these remarkable times where our health is our foremost collective concern. There is an excitement underpinning that dread though. For over a year I've been managing some level of throat pain so consistently that the few days I've been pain free stick out in my mind, and the rest have blurred into a kind of normal, much like this state of quarantine and social distance has become the new normal for us all.

The intention of this is not to recount the current moment of course, but to skip to the beginning without some mention of the motivation would do the piece a disservice. The beginning of Nerdy Nightly happened long before Covid and quarantine, long before Arrielle stepped back into my life, but it exists in its current form because of all of those things. We live in a time of unprecedented change, one of which being how often we use the word unprecedented, and tomorrow I will lose my tonsils and with them the ability to talk for two weeks of recovery. I am thusly motivated to present to you my history of Nerdy Nightly, written down because I honestly have so many things to edit, and this is easier.

Way back in 2014 I graduated college with my degree in Musical Theater. I had a summer job lined up in Indiana, and a national tour contract for the fall. I was working part time, but had plenty of free time, and had my eyes on the future. I knew that no matter how well my career went in theater there was always going to be down time between contracts, and I knew that I had always found comfort and calm in the perpetual motion of work. I get depressed when I'm not busy, which I know is not healthy, but at least staying busy is something I can control. In a late night conversation with my roommate about what we love to do, I said I just want to "get nerdy every night".

It was at this time that I was watching and listening to an increasing amount of online content. I had been watching Philip DeFranco and the VlogBrothers for years, but had added Screen Junkies and Collider to my daily viewing. I was obsessed with content being made around and about the entertainment I loved, and realized it was a space I wanted to try my hand at. "Nerdy Every Night" became the nagging idea at the back of my brain that fed my insomniatic tendencies, all I needed was a logo and a slogan.

I am not gifted in any way when it comes to physical art. I cannot draw a straight line, I can't even write in a way that is particularly legible. A logo was going to cost me money, and so I decided to start with a slogan. It may seem obvious, but I love alliteration, and so "I get nerdy nightly" quickly became the prevailing choice. About an hour later the idea was fully formed; the name was now "Nerdy Nightly", and I was more excited than ever. An hour after that I had signed up for every social media in existence, @NerdyNightly was mine in every possible place I could think of.

That was six years ago now.

To the majority of people who are aware of Nerdy Nightly now, it would seem to have sprung up fresh and new in April of 2020. The truth is I had been trying constantly to get it started for all of those 6 years. I had filmed dozens of youtube videos that I posted and taken down, and written even more ideas into an ever growing pile of journals. I was never happy with how they presented me and my passion for the nerddom, and I hated the way I looked on camera. I struggled with my weight as it seemed to steadily rise over the years, and couldn't leave anything posted for more than a few hours without feeling self conscious and taking it down.

Nerdy Nightly became a thing I tinkered with away from the prying eyes of the internet, a seemingly endless thread of notes in my phone. I had begun to experience a small kind of success on stages as a comedic presence, and taken the joy of making others laugh to heart. I realized that Nerdy Nightly hadn't been working for me, because I was trying to make the things I was watching online, and not the thing I wished I was watching online. I started searching for comedic nerds, and the kinds of content they were making. Steve Zaragoza from SourceFed, Epic Rap Battles Of History, Honest Trailers, and so many others became my new unknowing mentors.

At the height of the Pokemon Go phenomenon they released an update that ruined the experience for me and so many others. It was the most topical thing I'd been passionate about in a while, and I seized the opportunity to create the first parody music video on the channel. I wrote the lyrics in an hour, and had a friend of a friend lined up to shoot it the next day. It's been private for a while, but in honor of this we're putting it back out there.

I had no idea how to shoot something like this, and Emma Degerstedt was such an incredible person for giving me her time to figure it out. We took four hours in the morning, and managed to get as much footage as possible. I had it edited and up on the channel by dinner time, and for the first time was able to share something on the channel that felt original and, despite it's flaws, filled me with pride. It helped that the feedback I got was remarkable in both its kindness and its quantity. I decided to try and make a weekly video, and my passion for the channel swelled.

I booked two contracts the following week, and was going to be out of town for six months.

Suddenly Nerdy Nightly returned to my notes and journals, once again existing only for me. That six months turned into a couple years of really remarkable theater for me, bouncing all around the country and eventually landing me in Japan. I was touring with an orchestra as a singer for Disney, and experiencing a foreign culture in an amazing way for the first time. It was an eye opening, life changing experience, the only downside of it all was when I got sick. I was diagnosed with prostatitis, attributed to my weight, terrible diet, and lack of exercise. It was a painful, humiliating disease that led to an intense depression. I was 26 and struggling with a part of my body that I was told shouldn't start to fail me until well into the future.

The truth was I had failed my body, not the other way around. I had taken the health and strength that came naturally for granted, and was suffering the consequences. Upon returning to New York I decided to take a year off from leaving the city for work, and dedicated my time to weight loss and my mental health. I stopped drinking sugary sodas, haven't had a drop since January 31st, 2018, I stopped eating sugar and carbs and dairy and everything else with flavor... I started riding a bike everywhere I went, over twelve miles a day after not working out at all. I lost thirty pounds in the first thirty days, and seventy in the course of six months. The people I worked with were praising my change, and encouraging me at every step. Raoul, our incredible grill master, went out of his way to make me healthier versions of our staff meal to help me out. He will always hold a special place in my heart for his kindness.

The effect this had on me was immense. I couldn't stop looking at myself when I passed a mirror, the reflection seemed wrong but easier to look at. I was happier, more confident, and had energy all day every day. The lethargic couch potato was gone, and I had found a new gear to put myself in. I found I didn't like cycling to music though, and so I found a new obsession in podcasts. I was devouring them constantly, catching up on ongoing hits as well as jumping on anything new. The YouTube creators who had once inspired me had adopted the platform and I was being inspired by them all over again. Ed Greer on Nerd Goat, Steve Zaragoza on The Valleyfolk, VlogBrothers on Dear Hank And John, Philip DeFranco's A Conversation With... The list is quite long.

The OG logo by Zobzles Designs

The natural next step was to turn Nerdy Nightly into a podcast. I already owned the equipment I needed, a Blue Nessie USB mic for self tapes that recorded straight into my computer. In October 2018 I recorded the first episode and put it on Podbean. I remember the moment it got its tenth download, and elated recorded another and another. Every Tuesday night I would record, and as I got more comfortable with the format, I started to feel an incredible love for it.

Suddenly smitten by podcasting I knew I had to get a more professional setup. I walked into BnH in Midtown New York, and got the best set up I could afford. XLR mics, a couple cables, and a Zoom H4N Pro. I went home and immediately recorded the next episode, I was vibrating at the thought of how much different it would sound. The playback was crisp, and clean. The background noise, that came from recording in the three bedroom apartment I shared with my ex and a stranger who had just moved in, was muted. I couldn't have been happier.

It was at this point, after four years of dreaming, that Nerdy Nightly began to actually feel real. I finally had a thing worth sharing, and it brought me so much joy. That first version of the podcast went 48 episodes. I had 5 interviews with friends from their Broadway shows, and couldn't believe that more and more people were tuning in. I wasn't making any money, and didn't expect to, but it was so worth it.

After a year of that, I was finally ready to go out of town for work again. I felt stable in my happiness and ability to push through when things got tough, and I wanted to get back on stage. I was rather quickly offered that shot in the form of a production of Peter Pan at the Fulton, a theater I love with a director, Marc Robin, whom I love even more, and a cruise ship production of Jersey Boys. It was a solid ten months of financially uplifting work, a chance to get out of debt doing what I love. Realistically there was no way to continue the podcast though, and so Nerdy Nightly 1.0 came to an end.

There is an alternate dimension where Covid never struck, and in that dimension the podcast would have returned the week this is published. That had been my plan, finish the ship contract August 15th, get home, relaunch the podcast on September 1st. If you told me then what was actually going to happen, I would have laughed in your face.

Arrielle will appear in Part 2 of this. Coming next Wednesday.