Girl I Love

Girl I Love: Iggy Azalea


With the top two songs on the Billboard Hot 100, Iggy Azalea is taking the world by storm, and I, for one, am thrilled. I think this lady is amazing.


If you're not yet familiar with Iggy's origin story, just listen to her hit 'Work'; "No money. No family. Sixteen in the middle of Miami." Iggy Azalea (real name: Amethyst Amelia Kelly, which is so beautiful I don't know why she would change it) came from Australia to America to pursue her career in hip-hop at just 16 years old. She learned from and worked with the best in her industry and made a name for herself.


Oddly enough, it took a while for me to get interested in Iggy's music. Or, I guess, that's not odd since hip-hop/rap is not my favorite style of music. I had watched her music videos occasionally, fascinated, but didn't feel that I would actually listen to the songs if I downloaded them. I think it wasn't until I watched her video for 'Fancy' that I finally looked into her music, and realized I actually love it.

Iggy is not who you would expect to see if I said this is a rapper with the top two songs. Allow me to be superficial for a moment to say that one of the reasons I love Iggy Azalea is because she is drop-dead gorgeous. She's stunning. Her body is banging. Her hair rivals Rapunzel's golden locks. I would be in love with this girl even if I wasn't in love with her music, as well.


Iggy Azalea is a Girl I Love because she speaks (& raps) her mind, she dominates the charts, and she is a powerful example of where hard work & passion can get you.

Check out Iggy Azalea in these places!
Website // Wikipedia // YouTube // iTunes // Twitter

Girl I Love: Felicia Day


I can't remember the first time I heard about Felicia Day, but I'm sure her name was used in relation to something YouTubey, Geeky, or Internety. You might know Felicia for her acting work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural. I know her as the Internet's Geek Queen, founder of Geek & Sundry.


Felicia's rise to Geek Queen status started in 2007 when she was spending her life playing video games between acting jobs. She decided to finally do something, so she wrote a TV pilot, which turned into season one of The Guild. The Guild just ended their sixth and final season on Felicia's YouTube channel, Geek & Sundry, last year. Geek & Sundry also produces several scripted and not-so-scripted shows like The Flog (in which Felicia vlogs and goes on adventures), Caper (scripted series about superheros trying to just make rent), and my favorites Co-Optitude (in which Felicia and her brother, Ryon, play retro console games) and TableTop (in which Wil Wheaton plays board games with friends). Geek & Sundry also has a vlogs channel, and several associated vloggers' channels. That's right, the geeks are indeed taking over the world, guys.

Aside from the simple fact that Felicia is a female in a male-dominated industry (aren't they all, though?), Felicia stands out to me as someone who never backed down from doing what she loves, liking what she likes, and doesn't take shit from anyone who thinks she's not [insert qualification here] enough. Being a geek and gamer is deemed pretty cool now, but when Felicia created The Guild, she was taking a big risk that there were enough gamers that would find this web series and that non-gamers would like it, too. (As a non-gamer, I can say that it is not a gamers-only series. It's hilarious and charming.)

Felicia as Tallis in Dragon Age: Redemption
Felicia has become a huge inspiration & role model to me because of her "origin story" (writing The Guild and having the guts to make it happen) and everything she's done since. She's created her own niche on the Internet by just sticking with what she likes, not bending to short-lived trends. By being her awesome self, she's attracted an audience of people that share her interests as well as people like me, who are not gamers or geeks in all the same ways, but who have a penchant for geekiness and enjoy quality work. As a multi-passionate creative person, I also look to Felicia as an example of someone who has pursued multiple passions, and been able to incorporate them all into her creative work. Felicia is an accomplished violinist, singer, actor, writer, producer, gamer, and a reader of both comics and fantasy romance novels. With Geek & Sundry, and other projects, I've been able to see how Felicia has incorporated all of these talents into her work.


Felicia Day is a Girl I Love because she stands up for herself, she broke the mold of a gamer/geek, she pursues her passions unapologetically, and she does it all with gratitude & respect for the fans who helped her get where she is.


Check out Felicia Day in these places!
Geek & Sundry // YouTube // Twitter // Website // Wikipedia // IMDb

Girl I Love // Dianna Agron

...but you can call her Charlie.


After reading about how strange and awesome this chick is in her NYLON interview, I decided she wasn't just a pretty face (and she is almost annoyingly pretty), and nothing like her Glee character, cheerleader Quinn Fabray.

After using her Tumblr as a place to gather her inspiration, she found a lot of people were sharing a lot of their inspiration with her as well, so she began her own website, You, Me & Charlie. The site is run by Dianna with many contributing writers. I would compare it to Hello Giggles in its format, but its content is very different. Charlie focuses on sharing inspiring artwork, people, etc. It's more like a Tumblr in the way that people will post a photo set, a video, a website, but there aren't a lot of written articles. It's a website you can get completely lost in for hours browsing through all the categories, discovering new things and getting inspired.


It turns out Dianna, who identifies more with the name Charlie, is a pretty rad girl who "would live [her] entire life down the rabbit hole in a world of nonsense, but due to the low probability of [her] ever finding that damn hole, [she uses her] vivid imagination every day and refuse[s] to ever truly grow up." 

Dianna Agron is a Girl I Love because she explores all types of art, shares inspiration through her website, is weird in a good way, believes in magick and is the kind of gorgeous, cool chick who you just want to be friends with.

Girl I Love // Marissa A. Ross


I first discovered Marissa A. Ross and her unique comedy stylings through the website Hello Giggles for which Marissa writes and did a web series called Wine Time "in which a girl who knows nothing about wine, aside from the fact that she drinks it everyday, reviews wine."

After watching all of her Wine Time videos, I couldn't decide how I felt about her. On the one hand, I found her somewhat annoying but, on the other, I found her to be very cleverly funny and pretty much awesome.

I forgot about her for a while, until something reminded me to look her up again. I found her blog, Tangents and the Times and spent hours hitting the "random-ass tangent" button, reading her articles.


Marissa is one of those comedic writers who can write about mundane, everyday, happens-to-everyone situations but somehow make it sound hilarious by describing the situation with her creative metaphors and adding in her clever commentary.

If reading is too difficult for you, why not check out her web series, Tangents &the Times? Because Marissa isn't just a writer, she's "a writer who graduated from acting school to make a living as a blogger." Marissa plays herself, an LA girl trying to make it as a writer despite her inability to get out of bed in the morning without a bong hit. I've watched the three short episodes at least three times already. Something about it is so addictive!


Marissa A. Ross is a Girl I Love because she rocks the blunt bangs, refers to her boyfriend as "Dudefriend", drinks copiously, strives for a life of perpetual Summer, once "Captain Morgan-ed" a toilet, writes hilariously about it all on her blog and works her ass off making her web series and getting other projects off the ground.