Today we’d like to introduce you to Suzie Hicks.
Suzie, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I work in educational media, specifically surrounding environmental awareness and activism. I recently finished hosting a live weekly show on Caffeine.tv entitled “I AM NOT A SCIENTIST”, and just began a position in STEM/literacy education for PBS on Monday. My taglines are: I’M STRESSED ABOUT THE EARTH!!! and Love Yourself and the Planet because my activism bridges the line between mental health and the rapidly worsening state of our world.
I’ve always been stressed about the planet ™ as long as I can remember. I grew up in New Jersey, nicknamed the armpit of the US because of its visible belching of toxic plumes into the air from NYC and the airport. However, all of the memories I have of childhood are blanketed in green and blue–catching frogs and turtles in local ponds, hiking above the tree line and watching birds fly over mountains, and playing made up games in the fall leaves before dark. I was lucky enough to have a deep relationship with nature as a child, leading me to become a steward for it in adolescence and adulthood.
However, I am not a scientist. I’m a theater geek, education advocate, public media nerd and perpetual academic, but I am not conducting experiments and research. While in college, I somehow landed an education internship at the New England Aquarium (after seeing that the job posting was looking for science major AND drama majors) and found a love for informal environmental education. I spent my days essentially performing through my lectures, activities and presentations, as well as explaining to overeager three years old that sea stars AREN’T actually fish, and no they won’t bite you.
Once this internship ended, I was hungry to continue making media about the ocean and planet. On one of the dating apps I was on, my bio stated (and still states) “Aspiring Female Bill Nye the Science Guy”, and thus Suzie Hicks the Science Chick was born. My boss at the aquarium thought this nickname was hilarious and urged me to create a TV show around it. Three months later, with the help of my broadcast journalist friend Kate, the pitch packet for the first season of Suzie Hicks the Science Chick was approved by our college’s independent video organization. I then got to write, produce and star in a whacky comedy about the planet with my best friends. We shot and premiered two episodes that semester, one entitled PLAS-TASTIC and the other SUZ’S BIG OL’ RENEWABLE ENERGY ADVENTURE. Our intro began with “IN A WORLD that is slowly turning into a literal tire fire, one under-qualified 22-year-old is here to slow the burn. Equipped with nothing but an unpaid internship and a dream, she is changing hearts and minds…one frat boy at a time.” By far my favorite part of this experience was my band, the fact checkers. We created a parody to Under the Sea called Out of the Sea about plastic, and a parody of Here Comes the Sun called Let’s Use the Sun about renewable energy. The show earned me the Outstanding Television Personality award at our school’s annual award show and the Jennifer Stowers-Quintal Visionary award for advocacy and educational excellence at our achievement ceremony.
That summer, I converted the show to a podcast, and became a semi-finalist at WBUR’s next great show contest, and submitted my undergrad thesis about environmental dystopian media and children’s perceptions of the environment. I moved to LA in September of last year, worked at a restaurant for six months, and through some good ol’ networking and a well-timed reel, I landed a job as a host/personality for a live-streaming service called Caffeine. During this time, I sucked up all of my negative opinions about social media and created an Instagram for Suzie Hicks the Science Chick. The show had/has a Facebook page where I’ll share environmental/STEM related articles and calls to action, but the Instagram was a new outlet to create content without the resources of a full-blown college studio. I then developed a weekly live comedy show called “I AM NOT A SCIENTIST with Suzie Hicks the Science Chick” where I’d dive into a different topic each week and laugh alongside the internet. Caffeine is mostly a video game based streaming site, so I would get a lot of people who turned in with the comments “is this school” and “are you a teacher” but left two hours later saying “I just learned more than I ever have in class” and “I wish you were my teacher” because we highlighted the fun and silliness of science and earth rather than the formal learning objectives. I also picked up a volunteering shift at a local preschool teaching 2-4 years old science under the alias of Suzie Hicks the Science Chick.
This summer, my best friend Evan stepped on as my co-producer and creator of Suzie Hicks the Science Chick content. We joke that the stupider the idea, the better the outcome. Over the past few months, we’ve made videos about reusable water bottles and bear attacks, the thrills of tote bags, and scary stories about climate change to tell in the dark. We’ve also begun collaborating with different partners to explore sustainability, and I got certified as a Climate Reality Leader to continue our advocacy. Alongside the head of the preschool and one of my favorite students, I’m writing a children’s book about plastic pollution and community. Right now, I’m in Minneapolis attending a SciGIrls training on engaging young girls in STEM and editing the footage from our last climate strike.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
This is a project that has seen about 80,000 different iterations, from 20-minute college TV show to 2 hour live stream to 30 second Instagram video to 45 minute preschool science lesson. It has been a really interesting challenge adapting my content to fit my resources/time as I’ve transitioned out here while keeping the values and messaging the same. The biggest challenge I’ve faced on this journey so far has absolutely been self-doubt and eco-anxiety. Sometimes I’ll just sit and look at all of the devastation going on and feel super alone, small, and ineffective. My brain will wax poetic about how I’m not really doing anything to help anyone and that people could care less. But, I’m working on fighting that little voice. I have a Charlie Chaplin quote hanging in my room that says, “you have to believe in yourself. That’s the secret” and it reminds me that everything I’ve manifested since moving to LA has simply because I told myself I could. Also, posting stuff to Instagram takes WAY longer than I always think it is going to, and the formatting always seems to fuck up.
Please tell us about Suzie Hicks the Science Chick.
Suzie Hicks the Science Chick isn’t a company just yet. Evan and I joke that the second someone throws us a handfull of nickles for our content, we’ll know we’ve made it. Right now, we’re just doing this for fun and to contribute to a larger conversation about climate change, sustainability and moral obligation to leave our planet better than we found it. We create our videos and posts based on what makes us laugh or the thing we’re the most stressed out about on any given week. Our content is unique because it allows people to laugh at things that are just talked about in concerned tones on the news while giving actual tools and resources about how to make our situation better.
Recently, we’ve begun developing pitch packets and proposals and are collaborating with a few eco-friendly brands to get SHSC in front of some Hollywood eyes. The dream is to have another iteration of the Suzie Hicks the Science Chick TV show, but like, on actual TV this time. I’m really proud of the changes we’ve been able to elicit in the people that follow us. We’ve seen so many people making changes in their own lives, as well as putting pressure on the larger societal forces to change and become part of the movement. If we can get someone to start being intentional about the way they affect the earth, we’ll know we’re doing something right.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
The first word that comes to mind is forgiveness. As an artist, I need to continually forgive myself for my self proclaimed shortcomings and missteps. As a teammates and collaborators, Evan and I are continually forgiving each other and ourselves for differing opinions on our projects and any miscommunications that we have. As an activist, I have to forgive myself for not always getting it right, and the fact that I’m not doing everything every day all the time. And as someone that’s a public figure for the environmental movement, I have to help my viewers forgive themselves for the society we live in. Guilting individuals for their lifestyles is counterproductive when they are a product of the society that raised them. However, it is everyone’s responsibility to put pressure on that society to change.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi7rdqUgk5d0IfgcoH9slSg
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @suzie_hicks_science_chick
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheScienceChick/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/andalsosuz
- Other: http://berkeleybeacon.com/science-chick-experiments-with-science-and-comedy/
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