Facing the Voice: Thoughts on Meeting Bill Nye

On Wednesday night I met Bill Nye the Science Guy!

Now you’d think that meeting a childhood idol and hugely popular science educator would leave me like this

But it actually left me more like this

Meeting celebrities in-person can be a dangerous game. Obviously it’s super cool to talk with the people who fascinate you, but you also run a big risk: knowing what they’re really like. 

Yes, we’d all like to think there’s no way this person whom we’ve grown up watching could be anything other than their awesome, on-screen persona. But notice that term, persona. A persona is a role played by an actor, and I used that word for a specific reason. In real life, celebrities might be nothing like their persona. 

This can’t be news to anyone—we’ve all heard stories about this. Even so, it didn't cross my mind when I got tickets (and backstage passes!) to see Bill Nye at Penn State.

The lecture was great and showed me every reason to love this guy: he’s funny, intelligent, fascinating, and an excellent communicator. But backstage was a slightly different story. 

It started off with a procession line leading everyone to Bill for a picture. This came off as celebrity worship and seemed a little strange, but I figured we’d see the more human side of him after it ended so I didn’t mind. 

Instead of a phone, I went up to him with my camera to ask if he’d say something for Conjecture (“brother, I’ll see you on weekday”). As I was describing it, he cut me off and said “you can’t do this, what if everyone wanted to record a video? Just take a picture” I apologized and took out my phone, but he told me I wasn’t ready and sent me behind someone in line. 

Of course I shouldn’t judge him too much from my one interaction…but he was like this with everyone, coldly telling people to hurry up with their pictures and get out of line as soon as they were done. Attempts at polite small talk were essentially met with “come on, you can’t do this now.” 

I'd already had a sour taste in my mouth from observing all this, but he did say that there’d be time for more talking and stuff after the picture line. So I waited to see the real Bill Nye.

Unfortunately, nothing really changed. After the pictures everyone did gather around him to interact in a more intimate way, but it instead devolved into a semi-formal Q&A. Genuine exchanges were infrequent and it ultimately still felt like celebrity worship. I expected to be the audience during the lecture, not while I was backstage too.

Now look, I get that everyone wanted a picture and that Bill's probably exhausted from talking to so many colleges and that he's kind of a big deal…but let’s compare this to another experience I’ve had.

At VidCon 2015 I met Vsauce’s Michael Stevens.

He was a fantastically nice dude. He was flooded with more people than Bill was and still took the time to hold genuine conversations with each individual that approached him. He only left because he was forced to, not because he wanted to. Needless to say, I was floored. In fact when I pulled this photo from my facebook, I saw a comment I wrote on July 25, 2015.

My facebook's in Italian :)

So yeah—we can make excuses for Bill Nye, but when I’m comparing his behavior to Michael Steven’s (who in many ways is more popular than Bill Nye), it just doesn't hold. 

All of this, meeting an idol and realizing they’re not as cool in person, makes me think of something I heard recently from CGP Grey on his podcast Hello Internet (skip to around 1:20:00). He was saying how seeing the faces of narrating voices like his own can actually ruin the experience for the audience. You wind up liking the narration in a such a unique way that seeing the real thing just doesn’t fit. And after seeing the real thing, the narration can no longer exist in your mind as a solely awesome creation, but rather the product of an ordinary person—it becomes less magical because you know the truth. If you don’t understand what I mean, maybe seeing real pictures of CGP Grey would help illustrate this (see footnote).

Meeting Bill Nye was like seeing that voice. Meeting any celebrity runs that risk. They might be just as you’d expect them, but they also might be something else. 

That night I traded the Bill Nye that existed in my head for this picture:

I want to trade it back.

~~~Footnotes~~~

RE: CGP Pictures...

CGP is okay with their dissemination, he mentioned that in the same Hello Internet Podcast after the section I wrote about. But remember what you just read! Think if you actually want to see what he looks like.

...

https://twitter.com/Alextigtig/status/533483252255031297
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5MVXdg6nho
https://www.quora.com/What-does-CGP-Grey-look-like