Why millions love Elise Andrew’s science page
[Via Science news, comment and analysis | guardian.co.uk]
Elise Andrew’s entertaining and informative Facebook page, I Fucking Love Science, is adding up to 15,000 followers a day
Elise Andrew is “overwhelmed” and “blown away” when she looks at the Facebook page she created as a jape and which has nearly 7 million likes and more than 3 million “talking abouts” and fans including evolutionary biologist and writer Richard Dawkins and TV host Bill Nye, “the science guy”.
I Fucking Love Science was born, in March 2012, out of mischief and frustration. The page is a mixture: of meme-style science illustrations (an image of floating, sleeping otters overlaid with the words: “Sea otters hold hands when they sleep so they don’t drift away from each other… they also rape baby seals to death”); of plain-speaking summaries of the latest research (“Researchers have discovered how and where imagination originates in the brain”); and of links to oddities such as a video of a student singing an explanation of string theory to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody. These have helped her accrue 10,000-15,000 new followers a day.
She has just launched a YouTube channel and has plans for a dedicated website and television show.
“A year ago, I would have said you were out of your mind if you’d told me this would happen,” says Andrew, 24, when we meet in a New York hotel. “It was something I did for a bit of fun. I’m past overwhelmed. It’s insane.”
She is ebullient, engaging and about to co-host IFLS Live! at the American Museum of Natural History. In the spirit of the page, this is a reception where 900 science enthusiasts can chat, meet pop-science experts and geek out. “IFLS is how we refer to it in polite company,” Andrew smiles.
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It is really cool to see someone turn their passion into more of an avocation. she started this Facebook page because a friend told her to stop posting posting science stuff on her Facebook page or he would unfriend her.
“He told me I was boring the shit out of him and he was going to block me. He suggested I set up a special page. He was kind of a dick, but I am grateful.”
NIce to see a dick be responsible for such an amazing result. Now she has a Youtube channel and will be doing TV. She fucking crashed NASA servers.
This is all after she is done with her regular full time job.
And yes, it is okay to call it IFLS.
A Man With A Ph.D. 