Why the ‘Queen of Shitty Robots’ renounced her crown

Simone Giertz on battling a brain tumor, her fear of failure, and the internet's expectations. [View this email in your browser]( [WIRED Special Edition: New Issue] 12.10.19 Procrastination, according to one theory, is a coping strategy for the perfectionist beset by fear of failure. By putting off a task until the very last minute, a perfectionist rules out the one scenario that would be most devastating to their sense of self: The one in which they start early, try their best, and still fail miserably. Until recently, Youtube star Simone Giertz had a different strategy for coping with her own perfectionist fears: She made intentionally shitty robots and [then filmed herself using them](, to hilarious effect. (Bad news for procrastinators: your coping strategy is sorta boring.) “For a long time," writes Lauren Goode in [this month's WIRED cover story](, "building shitty robots meant Giertz never had to face failure, even if the robots themselves failed." Over the past couple of years, though, Giertz has renounced her crown as the Queen of Shitty Robots, embraced the risks of taking on grand designs, and [built a Tesla pickup truck]( before Elon Musk got around to it. Oh, and she’s been battling a brain tumor. What should you do? Check out Goode’s delightful profile. Don’t put it off. John Gravois | Senior Editor [Simone Giertz sits on the floor of her workshop with an oversized pair of scissors]( [Why the ‘Queen of Shitty Robots’ Renounced Her Crown]( [BY LAUREN GOODE]( [YouTuber Simone Giertz gave up wildly popular but barely functioning machines and confronted her fears of imperfection (while facing her own mortality and making an awesome Truckla EV).]( [Subscribe to WIRED]( [GET WIRED]( [Get 1 year of WIRED access for less than $1 a month.](  [Tech news and analysis you won’t find anywhere else.](  [Subscribe now]( [Image]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( [LinkedIn]( [YouTube]( This e-mail was sent to you by WIRED. To ensure delivery to your inbox (not bulk or junk folders), please add our e-mail address, wired@newsletters.wired.com, to your address book. View our [Privacy Policy]( [Unsubscribe]( or [manage your newsletter subscriptions](newsletter=wir)