"... Where there's smoke, there's Fya!
Story Time: How Fya got her name…
Fire is forward moving energy. Why “Fya?" I am glad you want to know! The answer is somewhat poetic. Bear with me. Because our higher power said that’s what her name was going to be. It was up to me to figure out what kind of sense that made. Turns out, it’s pretty clever. It is a name that speaks to Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z. Fya is a slang form of fire, used for anything that’s, well, lit. It means something is amazing, extremely good, or on point, especially said of how someone feels (or looks). It’s also going to make for some really nice MERCH!!!
So Fya is a word? Yes! Fya is a word! It’s also still an acronym. But I like it better as a word. As an acronym, FYA is a call to action (DO SOMETHING). It has many cyber definitions, none of them passive: For Your Action, For Your Attention, For Your Awareness, For Your Approval, For Your Assistance, For Your Acknowledgement, For Your Amusement, etc. It contrasts with For Your Information, so it’s definitely not a passive acronym. Synonyms for FYA & related words: (the :fire emoji) fuego. turnt. dope. hot. lit.
About the Firebolt The firebolt is a mascot. He will become animated & bolt across our website. He will sometimes wear sunglasses and have little arms. He will become sentient! He thinks he’s a dragon. Comical memes will feature him & his hubristic personality. Setting things on fire is his job security, so he’s got some issues to work out. We expect him to grow as an individual, over time.
How did you come up with it? I'm not quite sure I came up with it through any clever thought process. It felt more like unsolicited guidance from Heaven. And I didn't have any better ideas so I just went with it. I figure they were all sitting around “up there” watching me ponder this in the comforts of my own mind & then finally someone sprung from their seat & blurted it out... as if I was getting it all wrong. They just couldn’t wait another moment or risk having me run with a different name. Imagine how you watch football & you scream at the TV, hoping your player hears you telling them what to do, maybe you’re even jumping up & down. He gets the ball and scores and you rejoice! I think that’s what they did. They tried to be patient while I built up to it & every time I came up with a play that wasn’t right, they roasted me. I think I heard them telling me what play I would run: Fya! Run Fya! The thoughts I was thinking were simplistic. Like, when insurance first began it was just called “Fire Insurance". It’s a generic term the industry still uses today. A legal document will require a party to obtain “Fire Insurance”, though they require the insurance to cover much more than fire. As soon as I started to ponder that, I just “heard” Fya, in my head. I then learned that Fya means “follow” in Old Norse. I am Scandinavian, so I started to ‘warm up’ to it pretty quick but I had NO idea just how brilliant that divine play actually was until I did some more research. I looked up FYA as a word in many languages, in the urban dictionary, & as an acronym, to see what all it represented. The more I learned, the more I liked it. Considering that I was born with a head of goldy-red hair & my career literally started with the fiery tragedy of 9/11, I started to understand that it was fated. I chose to honor the recommendation & NEVER forget where I came from.
Personal Association: Of course it's dramatic, its personal. Aside from all the fun of coming up with her name- there is a dramatic element. Loss isnt peaceful. We are here to expand & we can't do that without contrast, right? If you ever lose everything you have in any kind of tragedy, you will experience contrast, drama, raw emotions. You need somebody on your side who has been there & felt the grief of a total loss. I will be there. This is my calling. Fya has risen up from an ember of hope beneath the ashes of divorce & destruction. I can breathe on this fire and it will expand accordingly. This little agency can be as big or as small as I want it to be. We can stay cozy and tight knit, or we can franchise. We can cover the entire state of California and beyond. It doesn’t care what we do. All it knows for certain is that it must live. And that’s all that we need to know. -Teralyn
Coming Soon: More stories!
Fya-Side Blog