Nina
Perez

She was called "The Oprah of MySpace." Not because she gave away cars, but because she could get anyone interested in anything - green tea, a British procedural drama, a comic book series that had been sitting on the rack for six months. Nina Perez had the instinct before she had the platform, the editorial eye before she had the site. When Project Fandom launched in 2009, it was early enough in the internet's maturation that no one was handing out content creator grants or podcast seed money. She built it because she needed somewhere to put her opinions, and her opinions happened to be very good.

From Brooklyn to Portland is not an uncommon American migration story, but Perez carried something specific with her: a journalism degree, a community manager's ear for what people actually want to talk about, and a genuine love for the kind of pop culture that gets written about in comments sections long after a show has ended. The geek perspective she brought to Project Fandom was not performed. It was the natural output of someone who spends her spare time sketching TARDIS designs and rewatching Game of Thrones with the analytical focus of someone taking a final exam.

The site covers TV, movies, gaming, comics, anime, and books - a breadth that sounds ambitious and somehow still does not capture the full range of what lands in Perez's editorial scope. She launched Podcast Fandom alongside the site, then kept building: Project Fandom's Throwback Thursday Podcast, Geek in Review, Otaku vs Notaku, a Book Club Podcast. Each new show was not a rebrand but an extension, carving out a slightly different corner of the audience that was already there. The multi-podcast network she built did not come with a venture round. It came from recognizing what listeners were asking for.

By day, Perez has worked as a Social Media Community Manager for an online outdoor retailer - a professional context that is not entirely disconnected from her personal work. Managing an online community of hikers and climbers requires the same skills as managing a fandom: know what the audience cares about, give them content worth sharing, and never underestimate how quickly a conversation can go sideways. Both jobs are about attention, and she has always understood how it moves.

The writing career runs parallel to all of this, not as an afterthought but as evidence of range. In 2011, Perez published "The Twin Prophecies: Rebirth," a YA fantasy novel, and "Blog It Out, Bitch," a collection of humor essays co-authored with Steven Novak. Two books in the same year, in different genres, while running a media platform. By 2013, she had launched the six-book "Sharing Space" contemporary romance series, completing it in 2014 with "Before Forever." Then back to fantasy with "The Twin Prophecies: Origins." Then more fiction: "The Witness," "The Donor," "Lily in the Middle." The output suggests someone for whom storytelling is not a side project but a persistent condition.

What Project Fandom built over fifteen-plus years is not easily replicated: a community that trusts the criticism because the criticism has always been honest, a podcast library that functions as both entertainment and reference, and a brand that has stayed coherent while the media landscape has fractured around it. The site has evolved from a blog with a podcast into a full editorial platform, currently active with reviews of anime, prestige drama, and genre television. The voice has remained consistent. That's harder than it sounds.

Nina Perez lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and their two children. She has strong opinions about Idris Elba and Benedict Cumberbatch, an Apple product preference she will discuss at length, and a TARDIS sketchbook that may or may not be the most honest artifact of who she is. In the ecosystem of pop culture commentary - where opinions are infinite and attention is scarce - Project Fandom has found its audience by refusing to be generic. That's her editorial instinct, running every page.