Allie Brosh

Allie Brosh (born 1985) is an American blogger, writer and comic artist mostly known for her webcomic Hyperbole and a Half.

Early life

As a child, Brosh used to write stories and had notebooks filled with them, "It was this epic monstrosity that filled three whole notebooks. The main plot was that there was a guy, and he fought lots of things."[1] She wanted to be a writer when she was eight. Brosh was raised in Auburn, California; then near Sandpoint, Idaho, which Brosh says let her "be a little bit weirder".[2] Being far away from town, her mother gave her pens and paper since Brosh had to entertain herself, she used to like to draw even before writing.[2] She graduated in human biological sciences from the University of Montana in 2009, where she also participated in track.[3][4] Brosh said she has ADHD, which was worse when she was a child.[5]

Hyperbole and a Half (2009–2013)

Brosh started her blog Hyperbole and a Half in 2009.[1] She realised her work was getting popular when someone posted it on Reddit and found her blog getting the most visits she had ever had. Her blog, meant to be humorous, dealt with various aspects of her personal life, for instance: her antics as a child, speculating about her character flaws, her grammatical pet peeve — "a lot" written as "alot" and her life with her two pet dogs. Brosh said she started her blog to avoid her college physics final wondered if people would like her work.[2] In May 2011, she posted that she had signed a book deal.[1] Some parts of her posts became Internet memes.[6] Brosh also posted several Youtube videos, some of them being animated versions of her typical art style while the others are recordings of herself.[7]

Brosh in October 2011 revealed she had depression to her readers on Reddit along with a blog post and kept her online presence inactive for more than a year. In May 2013, she made a second post which was long and chronically her struggle and thoughts of suicide.[8] In the same year, she had over 380,000 Facebook likes and around 72 million website views.[2] It got 1.5 million visits in a day while the amount of positive and supportive comments that they were worried about her surprised Brosh.[1] Her two posts about her struggle with depression with its dark humour are her most popular works.[8] Brosh said seeing how people related to her work helped her; according to her, "Depression can be such an isolating experience, and it's deceptive, you know, you think, 'Surely I'm the only one that's ever gone through this, or felt this depth of misery.'"[9]

In 2011, her blog was included in a list of the funniest sites by PC World[10] and in 2013, Advertising Age put Brosh in its yearly list of "most influential and creative thinkers and doers".[6] Besides getting popular with people who had depression and could identify with her work, she got praise from critics and psychologists for her depiction of the illness; furthermore, people who never experienced the illness said they understood it better.[11] Linda Holmes, from NPR, praised her work, saying "Brosh's posts are hugely evocative, gut-bustingly funny, and startlingly inventive in using simple drawings in ways that allow for pauses and comic timing" and compared her method of depicting "giddiness and anger" to Bill Watterson.[8] Jonathan Rottenberg, Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of South Florida, in Psychology Today, said, "I know of no better depiction of the guts of what it’s like to be severely depressed."[12]

Brosh intentionally makes her comics appear crudely drawn and says she spends time perfecting the figures since her characters are mostly from her imagination. Brosh sometimes spends hours on the character's facial expressions or body positions with multiple drafts. She uses the Paintbrush software for drawing her comic. Her character which is supposed to be herself, loosely resembles a stick-figure with a pink dress sometimes with a grey hoodie, wide-grinning, unfocused eyes and a triangle-shaped ponytail—which she jokingly calls a shark fin.[11]

Book and later activity (2009–present)

Her book Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened is based on her comic blog. Published by Touchstone, an imprint of CBS’s Simon & Schuster and was released in October 2013.[1] Around the time of her first book, she had undergone a major surgery due to having stage IV endometriosis; this had caused a delay in her book's release.[1] Brosh went for a six-city tour for the release, arranged by the publisher. She made appearances on radio and television and got support from fellow authors like Elizabeth Gilbert. Brosh used social media, revealing the cover on Facebook and Twitter. She participated in a marathon "ask-me-anything" session on Reddit before its publication.[13] The book shares a similar style with her blog with the drawings in addition to new content.[1] Regarding her style of writing, she compared it to her trying to mimic stand-up comedy, "It [my writing] was more one-dimensional than stand-up comedy, in which you can rely on tone and facial expressions, body posture. And I wanted to find some way to commit that to the page. Drawing fixed all of those problems."[6]

Her book sold more than 350,000 copies in one month.[13] It was the American Booksellers Association’s No. 1 pick for November.[13] Zosia Bielskib from The Globe And Mail said "Brosh brings levity to many trademarks of depression, from emotional numbness to suicidal thoughts to paralysis around simple life tasks such as returning a DVD" and further called her an "unlikely poster girl for depression".[11] Bill Gates, in his blog, praised her book and said, "While she self-deprecatingly depicts herself in words and art as an odd outsider, we can all relate to her struggles. Rather than laughing at her, you laugh with her. It is no hyperbole to say I love her approach—looking, listening, and describing with the observational skills of a scientist, the creativity of an artist, and the wit of a comedian."[14]

Brosh's online presence again got sporadic with a single tweet in November 2014. The next year, in August, she announced that she was working on a new book. People started purchasing pre-orders. The book, a sequel, called Solution and Other Problems was slated to release in 2016 but was changed to a later year before finally being marked "unavailable" on Amazon.[15] The publisher Simon & Schuster declined to comment.[16]

Brosh made a few public appearances, appearing on WTF with Marc Maron in November 2014.[17] She was on an episode of YouTube series Tabletop in July 2015 and in the same month, at Comic-Con on a panel with Felicia Day, discussing the writing of the book and the sequel.[18] Brosh gave a talk at JoCo Cruise in 2016, an annual gathering of artists and tech experts.[16]

Personal life

Regarding her finding her career, she said, “With my crippling ADHD and impulsive decisions this is a perfect job for me. I make my own schedule."[3] As of 2013, Brosh lives in Bend, Oregon, with her husband, Duncan, who she married in December 2012. They were together around eight years before that.[1] Brosh is a fan of Magic: The Gathering and calls herself "a huge dork".[2] Besides having her pet dogs, she also has a number of pet rats. Brosh's younger sister Kaitlin died in 2013, she referred to her sister's death as a suicide since she had bipolar disorder.[17] Brosh has been active on Reddit and likes it because it was the place where her first posts got popular. She says she tends to be a recluse and her work as a writer tends to encourage this behaviour. With her history of having long periods of being inactive online, her fans have shown concern and speculate about her health.[16] On this, she said, "I have been trying to make myself be more responsible. There’s a part of me that wishes that I could sort of disappear and fade back into the mists when I need to. But I know that’s not how reality works. I’m trying not to disappear for quite so long, or as completely".[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Gee, Catherine (2013-10-29). "Hyperbole and a Half: how one of the internet's funniest writers finally made it to print". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Mohammed, Zaineb (December 2013). "Meet the creator of the cartoon blog (and new book) "Hyperbole and a Half"". Mother Jones. Retrieved 2 October 2018.
  3. 1 2 Emerald Gilleran (2010-09-17). "UM Graduate Blogs into a Career". Her Campus. Archived from the original on 2012-08-31.
  4. ↑ "Brosh honored by Big Sky Conference". gogriz.com. 2006-02-21. Retrieved 2016-02-18.
  5. ↑ Michael Humphrey (2010-05-03). "The life and lines of Allie Brosh: Hyperbole and a Half". Archived from the original on 2015-04-16.
  6. 1 2 3 Gross, Terry (November 12, 2013). "Even When It Hurts 'ALOT,' Brosh Faces Life With Plenty Of 'Hyperbole'". NPR.org. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  7. ↑ Liz Shannon Miller (2011-01-19). "Hyperbole and a Half: A Web Comic Gone Wild on YouTube". GigaOM. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  8. 1 2 3 Holmes, Linda (October 29, 2013). "Present Tense: Allie Brosh, Donald Glover, And Hurting Right Now". NPR.org. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  9. ↑ "'Hyperbole' Creator Considers All The Things". NPR.org. October 29, 2013. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  10. ↑ Sullivan, Mark (June 5, 2011). "The Funniest Sites on the Web". PCWorld. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  11. 1 2 3 Bielskib, Zosia (October 31, 2013). "Meet candid cartoonist Allie Brosh – an unlikely poster girl for depression". The Globe And Mail. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
  12. ↑ Rottenberg, Jonathan (May 9, 2013). "What Is It Like to Be Severely Depressed?". Psychology Today. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  13. 1 2 3 Trachtenberg, Jeffrey A. (2013-11-25). "Why Social Media Embraced Allie Brosh's Book 'Hyperbole and a Half'". WSJ. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  14. ↑ Gates, Bill (May 19, 2015). "A Funny, Brutally Honest Memoir". gatesnotes.com. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
  15. ↑ Pastor, Pam (January 7, 2018). "Adam J. Kurtz in Manila, 'A Wrinkle in Time,' The Grid Food Market and other things we're excited for in 2018". inquirer.net. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  16. 1 2 3 Aldrich, Elizabeth (December 1, 2016). "But Seriously, Where's Allie Brosh? - Rawckus Magazine". www.rawckus.com. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  17. 1 2 "Episode 550 - Allie Brosh". WTF with Marc Maron Podcast. Retrieved 2018-10-02.
  18. ↑ Lynne, Tara (2015-07-17). "Comic-Con: "Spotlight on Allie Brosh" (Or, My Favorite Panel)". The Geekiary. Retrieved 2016-04-25.

Further reading

  • Alexandra Brosh (31 October 2013). Hyperbole and a Half: Unfortunate Situations, Flawed Coping Mechanisms, Mayhem, and Other Things That Happened. Random House. ISBN 978-1-4464-9652-7.
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