West of Nothing

36. The Inside Guy

Is that what this red light here means?

Stop playing dumb. I can see through the act with my mind-ray vision. You want to know my life story, huh? Do you want the Twitter or the Facebook version?

How about the Twitbook—backspace—Facewitter—backspace—whatever version.

Here goes War and Peace then. I'll spare you the diaper years. Picture me as a playful five-year-old with strict traditional-but-Americanized Korean parents with a low tolerance for self-pity. Needless to say, I didn't get to do much wallowing. They weren't mean or anything like that, just very structured. They kept this big day planner on the wall and each Sunday they would go through the next week and fill it in hour by hour. To this day, whenever I smell Sharpie, I get vivid flashbacks of it. They home-schooled me until college. It had nothing to do with my disability. They thought the American education system was too lax. I guess that was good because I missed out on all the playground bullying and I did learn an awful lot. I knew how to do quadratic equations before I could tie my shoelaces. But the bad part was I didn't get to know any kids my age until I was about 10.

What happened when you were 10?

I found the Internet. It literally changed my life. Suddenly, there were all these people from all over the world I could connect with. New Zealand. Finland. Bangalor. Brazil. And they all just accepted me and judged me on my personality. It's like that cartoon, 'On the Internet nobody knows you're a dog.' To them I was just another over-privileged American girl with a self-image problem. This was right after Harry Potter got popular and fan sites were popping up everywhere. I pestered my parents to get me the books and stayed up all night reading them just so I would have something to talk about on the forums the next day. I made so many posts they asked me to be a moderator. Next thing I know I'm making changes to their website, writing HTML and JavaScript. Half the time I would just make things worse. You should have seen the angry emails I got when I broke the Sorting Hat applet.

I knew there was something wrong with it! Mason said. It kept putting me in Slytherin.

I don't think that was a bug in the applet, Gabby replied. Eventually I got the knack of web coding and before long I'm doing fifteen or twenty websites. When that got kind of dull, I joined up with this open source consortium and next thing I know I'm learning Java and database languages. I earned enough money doing freelance work to pay for my first two years at Stanford. I launched my own startup my junior year, which went flop during the big financial crisis, but hey, I got some cool spinner boards as a souvenir. We had big plans for a whole line of interface devices for the physically impaired. Losing that company is one of my biggest regrets. Anyway, then it was on to Google and you know the rest.

What's it like being the goddess of code-bloggers? That must be a lot of pressure to live up to.

When Corny called me a goddess, she was being kind of literal. My online handle is G0dd3ss and yes, I do run a popular programming blog. But it's not like I'm the leader or anything. It's more like having an enormous family with a thousand siblings, squabbling all the time but sticking up for each other when the chips are down. The best part is how we all pitch in to solve these really difficult problems everyone else has given up on or there's no money for—or someone just gets a wild idea that will probably never work but you can't stop thinking about it until you try. I never get tired of it. Programmers are literally the smartest and most interesting people in the world.

I happen to do a little bit of programming myself, Mason pointed out.

That's what makes you a little bit smart and a little bit interesting, replied Gabby. But you should stick with what you're good at. Besides, makers aren't so bad.

Thanks... I think. So what's with the Korean pop music? Did you get that from your parents?

HA! My parents hated it. They were professional musicians in the San Diego Symphony. They said K-pop was like fairies dancing to the sound of their own farts. But it was so passionate and different from the classical music I heard growing up and I loved the theatricality of it. I'm really into cosplay too. It feels liberating to dress up as a teen idol or a video game character, and everyone just plays along with you. I was in Vegas for a Blackpink concert when the major got a hold of me.

That explains where you got the clothes.

I would appreciate it if you didn't mention this to anyone on the Internet. I have a reputation as a blog goddess, you know.

My lips are sealed, Mason said.

Why the interest in my life story all of a sudden? Gabby asked.

Just doing some background checking on the team members. I wanted to make sure you're not a spy. Based on your responses, I think I can give you the all clear.

You never know, Gabby said. It's always the quiet ones.