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"\"I have been here since 2:30 p.m. because I was too excited to wait at home,\" the woman told me on a Wednesday at 5:45 p.m. a few weeks ago.\nStanding outside the Museum of Natural History on what may have possibly been the most humid, sticky afternoon of the summer, the 40-something New Yorker with a giant DSLR camera hanging from her neck bubbled over with the emotion of a tween girl at a Justin Bieber concert. \n\"I fucking love science!\" she screamed as people trickled into a line that eventually grew to wrap around the building. \nBut this high school teacher \u2014 along with 900 other ticket-holders \u2014 wasn't lined up to see a rock star, catch a blockbuster flick or even meet Neil deGrasse Tyson. (We were at a museum, after all.) They were there to meet Elise Andrew, creator of the explosively popular \"I Fucking Love Science\" Facebook account. \nWith 6.8 million followers, Andrew wields an influence over the science and fans-of-science communities. However, Andrew, 24, isn't a scientist. She's actually kind of a fangirl herself. \n\"I don\u2019t really understand why people are so interested in me, personally,\" she told me in the back of the theater before her panel. \"I\u2019m just a curator. I\u2019m just telling people things I think are cool.\"\nAndrew describes \"I fucking love science\" \u2014 IFLS for short (or for the tame) \u2014 as \"the inside of her brain.\" The Facebook page, which she started in March 2012, includes posts of everything she's reading or finds interesting, from giant Peruvian centipedes and alien comics to a full download of great science discoveries of the week. In fact, she started the page simply as a place to keep track of all the cool things she found. \n\"I created the page and uploaded all the content I\u2019d been posting to my personal profile, and then I went to bed. I woke up, and I had over 1,000 followers,\" she said.\nSince then, the page has been growing at an average of 10,000 to 15,000 new followers per day, according to Andrew.\nScience for Adults\nAndrew, who hails from Suffolk, England, graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology. In the traditional science world, a Ph.D. is a prerequisite to having a voice. The level of respect for that voice often depends on the amount of content published under your name.\nPeople like Andrew, however, are turning this idea on its head. \nThat night at the Museum of Natural History, Andrew took the stage with a panel of guests: Annalee Newitz of io9, Maria Popova of Brain Pickings, Emily Graslie of The Brain Scoop and Mitchell Moffit and Gregory Brown of AsapSCIENCE, none of whom were scientists in the traditional sense. \nRather, they are this new crop of influencers \u2014 science communicators. \n\"I\u2019m such a generalist. I love everything,\" Andrew said. \"If I had the opportunity, I think I would do about 10 different degrees, five different master\u2019s degrees, probably as many Ph.D.s, and you can\u2019t do that.\"\nDon't mistake Andrew's ambition for indecisiveness. She speaks to a huge audience of adults with a general interest in science, but who bypassed the subject in primary school and college.\nAs a nation, we tend to push science education onto a younger generation \u2014 which is fantastic, don't get me wrong \u2014 but we leave out this group of adults who wants to \"catch up,\" in a sense. Andrew has captured this demographic's attention. She makes science digestible \u2014 hell, she makes it fun, even for the layperson.\n\"I want there to be something for everyone, and I\u2019m told I get that right,\" Andrew tells me. \"I speak to a lot of people who say, 'You know, I always hated science in school, and everybody got it. Your page is making that up to me.'\" \nScience professionals with higher degrees enjoy her content as well. Andrew is often invited to museums, science festivals and universities around the world.\n\"I'll speak to the scientists, who say, 'Oh yeah, I love your page. I\u2019ve always loved it. It\u2019s such a great way to keep up with all the things that are going on in different fields. It\u2019s such a great way to learn things. I love the jokes \u2026 I love this,'\" Andrew said.\nThe \"F\" Word\nAndrew, who also runs the PG \"Science Is Awesome\" page, admitted she's not sure whether she would include \"fucking\" in the name of the Facebook page if she could go back. But it's undoubtedly a huge part of the page's success. It's exciting, not stuffy. The \"F\" word is her brand \u2014 stop taking everything so fucking seriously, and maybe we'll all learn something new. \nThus, Andrew plans to stand up for the name, regardless of how big she gets \u2014 even if Facebook edits her page's URL. (The slug \"IFeakingLoveScience\" is not a misspelling on Andrew's part. It was Facebook's censorship.) The most she'll let slide is adding in an asterisk \u2014 but even then, she said, \"you're still making the person say the word in their head.\"\n\"Yes, it means people will dislike you more, and I\u2019ll probably get a hell of a lot more haters than a general page would,\" Andrew said. \"But it also means that people who do follow it feel so much more connected to you. Because it is my personality. It is me. I think if you were to take some of that away, you would lost the passion that we get from people.\" \nBut the cool factor behind IFLS doesn't just lie in its name. If you've never read the page, Andrew's favorite post perfectly sums up the brand's tone:\n\n\"People in general romanticize nature, and they make it out to be something that it isn't because humans are so awful,\" she said. \"And yes, we are absolutely screwing up this planet, but that is only because we have the capabilities to do so. Animals are not better than us. They are not nicer than us. Nature is fucking scary.\"\nThat's the great thing about science. No matter how much you disagree with or what you believe in, it's still fact. Andrew not only reminds us that science is awesome, but also that it's also kind of screwed up \u2014 and that's why we all fucking love it. \n BONUS:  5 Facts You Didn't Know About Outer Space \nImage: Elise Andrew"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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