…GEEK GIRLS of the woooorld!!!

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Qualche mese fa navigando tra un blog e l’altro, il mio spirito geek è stato colpito da un coloratissimo sito dal titolo THE INTERNATIONAL GEEK GIRL PEN PAL CLUB……ho iniziato a leggere di cosa si trattasse ed improvvisamente mi sono sentita come quando avevo 15-16 quando scrivevo (rigorosamente a mano 🙂 lettere alla mia migliore amica (purtoppo eravamo lontane) e le imbustavo insieme ad adesivi, foto, disegni, caramelle e “cimeli” vari di pop star di moda negli anni ’90 di cui per decenza non farò i nomi!!!!! :)…allora senza esitare, ho aderito a questo fantastico progetto!!

THE INTERNATIONAL GEEK GIRL PEN PAL CLUB è stato fondato nel 2013 per recuperare un po’ l’arte di scrivere lettere e di scambiarsi “geekeries”, roba da nerds per capirci, in tutto il mondo. Sono quattro ragazze che in pochissimi mesi hanno avuto migliaia di iscrizioni, un grandissimo successo in rete…le abbiamo intervistate e sono state così gentili da rispondere alla velocità della luce a tutte le nostre domande….
Siete 4 ragazze…. La vostra asl? Una breve carta d’identità di ciascuna (nome/provenienza/personalità/ruolo nel club) 🙂
Leslie aka Stewie co-fondatrice del IGGPPC viene dagli USA. Una maga del web e amante del mondo kawaii. Le piacciono Pop Vinyl, Firefly, Captain America e Sailor Moon.
Emily aka Farquharson co-fondatrice del IGGPPC viene dal Regno Unito. Un po’ indolente ma abbastanza sarcastica, adora Jhonen Vasquez, Twin Peaks, Disney Villains and Hunter S Thompson.
Jen aka Sparkles è canadese ed è una dei membri organizzativi del IGGPPC. E’ una persona molto positiva e geek amante di X-Men, My Little Pony, e…. i gattini! 🙂
Emma aka Cupcakes è australiana e fa parte anche lei dell’organizzazione dell’IGGPPC. E’ terribilmente divertente e acuta e ama i Dinosauri, Ritorno al Futuro, gli Unicorni and le Tartarughe ninja.

Chi di voi ha avuto e com’è nata l’idea di questo progetto?
Questo progetto è nato da una collaborazione tra Emily e Leslie. E’ cominciato tutto da una discussione su twitter su delle Curly Wurlys (delle barretta di zucchero diffuse in Inghilterra) che Emily avrebbe inviato a Leslie. Da qui le due IGGLES hanno inziato a maturare l’idea che avere un’amica di penna avrebbe dato un senso alla pila delle loro rispettive “cancellerie” kawaii. In poche ore il progetto avrebbe preso vita!!!

Come funziona esattamente?
Innanzitutto bisogna avere più di 13 anni, avere interessi “geek” ed essere pronti per un’esperienza divertente e positiva!!Ogni 15 del mese, apriamo le registrazioni. C’è un massimo si 1000 iscrizioni al mese. Una volta raggiunto il numero (l’abbiamo già raggiunto 3 volte fin’ora),le registrazioni si chiudono e noi iniziamo a fare gli “abbinamenti” tra amiche di penna. Terminati gli abbinamenti, inviamo una mail a tutte le partecipanti comunicando a ciascuna di loro chi è la sua nuova amica di penna! 🙂

Siete amiche anche nella vita reale o solo a distanza?
Tutte a distanza! Tutte e 4 viviamo in diversi paesi del mondo. Poichè tutte e 4 abbiamo i nostri progetti personali – il blog di Jen www.sparklegirljen.blogspot.com, quello di Leslie DarlingStewie.com, il blog di Emma LickMyCupcakes.com, ed il negozio di Emily su Etsy https://www.etsy.com/shop/frogmellaink, siamo venute l’una a conoscenza dell’altra attraverso internet e abbiamo iniziato a comunicare via twitter.

Come organizzate le vostre attività di abbinare le ragazze, aggiornare i blog e i social network, rispondere alle migliaia di mail e domande che ricevete ogni giorno?
Per fortuna tutte e 4 lavoriamo molto bene insieme e siamo individualmente molto motivate. In piu’ ognuna di noi è fornita di caffè e caramelle a sufficienza per affrontare la giornata! Tutte le ragazze sono suddivise per fasce d’età, così ad ognuna di noi è affidata una fascia (stanza) e ci occupiamo di abbinare le ragazze di quella fascia e di gestire il rispettivo forum. Per i blog, le mail, facebook, tumblr, etc, tutte noi ci lavoriamo appena possiamo. Abbiamo un calendario sul blog che teniamo sempre aggiornato, rispondere alla mail è la nostra priorità.

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Few months ago…surfing the net my geek soul was impressed by a very interesting website…THE INTERNATIONAL GEEK GIRL PEN PAL CLUB…I totally get involved with it and suddenly I felt like when I was 15-16 years old when I used to write to my best friend and send her stickers, pictures, sketches, candies….so I decided to know more about it and join to this fantastic project…

THE INTERNATIONAL GEEK GIRL PEN PAL CLUB was created in 2013 to recover the lost art of letter writing and share geekery all around the world. They’re 4 girls that in few months got thousands of submissions and fans…a great success…we interviewed them and they were so kind to dedicate us some of their time to answer all our questions… 🙂

You are 4 girls…. Your asl? A brief identity card of each one of you (name/location/personality/role in club) 🙂
Leslie aka Stewie is from the USA and co-founder of IGGPPC. She is a web pixie and kawaii lover and enjoys Pop Vinyl, Firefly, Captain America and Sailor Moon
Emily aka Farquharson is from the UK and co-founder of IGGPPC. She’s pretty laid back, but quite sarcastic and loves Jhonen Vasquez, Twin Peaks, Disney Villains and Hunter S Thompson.
Jen aka Sparkles is from Canada and she’s one of the staffers at IGGPPC. She’s a very enthusiastic and positive geek girl who loves X-Men, My Little Pony, and kitties!
Emma aka Cupcakes is from Australia and is also one of the staffers at IGGPPC. She’s wicked funny and quick witted and loves Dinosaurs, Back To The Future, Unicorns and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Which of you had a so great idea and how decided to start this project?
This project was co-founded by Emily and Leslie. It all started from a discussion through twitter about Emily sending Leslie some Curly Wurlys, which is a candy bar in the U.K. The discussion then led them to talking about the idea of having a pen pal again so their ever-growing piles of Kawaii stationery would have a purpose. Within a few hours they had come up with this project.

How does exactly works?

First, you have to be 13+, have geeky interests and be ready for a positive and fun experience! On the 15th of every month, we open up the pen pal registration. There’s a maximum capacity of 1,000 sign-ups. Once we hit capacity, which we’ve done 3 times now, or the 2 week registration window closes we start pairing up pen pals! Once we’ve paired everyone up, we send out an email informing all the registrants who their pen pal is.

Are you friends in real life or just at distance?
All at a distance! All 4 of us live in a different country around the world. Because all 4 of us have our own side projects – Jen’s blog, www.sparklegirljen.blogspot.com, Leslie’s blog, DarlingStewie.com, Emma’s blog, LickMyCupcakes.com, and Emily’s Etsy shop, https://www.etsy.com/shop/frogmellaink, -we were aware of one another through the interwebs and had been chatting online through twitter.

How do you organize your activity of matching girls, blogging, keeping updated social networks, answering the thousand mails and questions you receive everyday?

Luckily, we all work really well together and are motivated individuals. Plus, all of us run on caffeine and candy to keep us going throughout the day! Seriously though, all the pen pals are divided into age groups. So we each lead a House on the website forums and we are responsible for pairing up those pen pals after registration as well. As for the blog, emails, facebook, tumblr, etc, all of us work on them when we can. We have a blog calendar to keep us organized and email is always a priority for us to answer.

Your definition of a geek girl
A geek girl to us is someone who is passionate about a subject or interest so it could be comics, films, anime, science, baking, knitting, tea drinking, whatever, if you love it and want to express that love then you are a geek.

Every round is full in a few hours, did u expected a so great success?
No! When the project started only two months ago, we had no idea it would blossom into such a magnificent beast, but we are glad every day that it did! 

Are you planning an event/meeting in italy too? 🙂
We leave event planning primarily up to our members, if there is demand for an italian meet up I am sure out italian members will let us know! Members tend to plan them around comic conventions or other big ‘geek’ events 🙂

Which country of the world has more iggpp(s) right now?

The geekest country…Right now, USA has the most members are on the site but we have geeks from all over the world on the site and registered for a pen pal… Norway, UK, Belgium, Italy, Brazil, Germany, Japan, Australia, Belarus, Colombia, Ecuador, Indonesia, Switzerland, Vietnam, and Singapore!

The funniest/craziest thing has happened to you during this experience…
The craziest thing is the project itself, each week more projects are started, more friendships forms, it’s sometimes quite overwhelming! Also people, like yourselves, wanting to interview us! Its pretty insane! 😀 😀 😀

projects and wishes for the future…:)
We just hope to keep going, pairing more girls, taking part in good discussions on our forums and having fun! Also one day we hope that we can be in the same place at the same time! Being spread across four countries it would be amazing for all four of us to meet one day!

And we wish you to continue to make this project bigger and bigger…for the moment I can assure that it works!!! Last month I was paired with my great penpal from Canada…JULIE!!! Hi JULIEEEEE!!! She sent me a letter and I sent one to her and we’re crossing the fingers and are anxious to recive them soon…in the meanwhile we are keepin’ in touch on fb or by mail…and that’s a clue of what I
sent her!!! ^_^