Vera Wylde or Council of Geeks (born: March 1982[1][Age 41]), is a YouTuber whose channel focuses on a variety of "geek" content, including Doctor Who, She-Ra, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and other related content. Additionally Vera produces videos about LGBTQ+ representation in media, sometimes broadly and sometimes focusing on specific instances or patterns in geek targeted media.
Channel History[]
The channel was launched in 2012 as the home to a series of scripted shorts. Starting in 2012 Vera begin filming "solo rants," which would soon become the primary form of content on the channel. In 2018 they came out as genderfluid (confirming their other channel, Vera Wylde, was them), and has gradually presented masculine more infrequently as time has gone on.
In 2019, Vera launched a subsidiary channel called Break Room of Geeks which housed content deemed unlikely to catch traction on the main channel. Starting in 2020 most of the "rant" style content has moved to the Break Room while Council of Geeks plays home to less frequent but more polished uploads. In July of 2020, Vera was laid off from their day job and was able to garner enough support to make YouTube their fulltime career.
Over the years Vera has collaborated with several other YouTubers, including Steven Partridge, Stubagful, Riley Grace Roshong, and Jessie Gender. They've also provided voice work for a Doctor Who fan audio by The Who Chaser.
Vera also runs a podcast under "Council of Geeks" which has changed format several times over the years. At the start it was unedited versions of "roundtable talks" that happened on the channel. After that it became "90s Comics Retrial" until covering X-Cutioner's Song burned them out on the project. Following that the feed was home to "Go Home Hollywood You're Drunk" which ended when the co-host Jon Van Luling became a father and scheduling became too difficult. Next it was "See You Space Cowboy," and featured episode by episode reviews of the entirety of Cowboy Bebop. After that the feed featured reviews of classic episodes of Doctor Who. It is currently home to "What the Frell," which covers every episode of Farscape and is co-hosted with fellow YouTuber Jessie Gender.
Vera is also a self published author under both their legal name and "Vera Wylde." Her first published work was a non-fiction work published in 2018 titled Skirting Gender: Life and Lessons of a Crossdresser, a book which offered advice and personal observations following a successful Kickstarter campaign. Her second work was When She Wakes: A BDSM Exploration in Two Acts, a two-person stage play which she published after failing to find a local theater group willing to tackle the material. Their first novel, a fantasy adventure titled Dreams of Fire, was published in 2021 following a successful Kickstarter campaign.
Trivia[]
- Vera is genderfluid, and lists her pronouns as "she/they".[2]
- Vera's appearance is variable from video to video and over time (for years they wore a signature flat cap which is rarely seen anymore). At this point the only constant is a rainbow ring usually worn on the left hand.
- On the "Top 50 WhoTubers" list organized by SL Productions, Council of Geeks was voted #24, #3, and #1 in 2017, 2018, and 2019 respectively (there was no 2020 list).
- In the 2019 WhoTube Awards organized by DoctorBlue, Council of Geeks was awarded "Best WhoTuber" and "Best Collaboration Video" for his joint review of Warriors of the Deep with Stubagful.