An Open Letter to Jon Stewart

Dear Mr. Stewart,

I have never written a letter like this before. It feels strange to be so sad about saying goodbye to someone I’ve never even met. But I just really wanted to try in some small way to let you know what an impact you’ve had on me, and to thank you, on behalf of your audience, from the bottom of my heart.

When I heard you were leaving, I started to cry. Honestly. It surprised me how surprised I was by the news. I’ve been watching your show for as long I can remember, first with my dad, then on my own. When I went away to school, my dad and I would regularly email back and forth saying ‘Did you see that bit Jon Stewart did?’ and I’ve had countless discussions with friends about important topics that were sparked by pieces we saw on your show.

It broke my heart when you said “The show doesn’t deserve a host who’s even a little bit restless.” No! We’d take you no matter how restless you are! There IS no show without you! It could have the same name, heck even the same format, but it won’t have the same feeling, the same heart, the same community as the one we’ve been enjoying for years.

You’ve been our benevolent news man - explaining the more complicated sides of politics while never talking down to us - perhaps not anticipating that young teenage girls from Canada would gain roughly 80% of their knowledge of the American political system from you, but that’s what happened, at least in my case. So many times, you’ve lit a fire within us to fix things, to right the injustices of the world, and to smack the self-important, fact-ignorant FOX News anchors upside the head. A hilarious but still gentle father-figure whose repeated face-palmings at the silliness of your own show only served to endear you to your audience more. The way you get worked up when addressing ignorance and hypocrisy is nothing short of inspiring, and the reactions, ranging from sarcastic shock to the ‘oh jeez I’m so tired of this shit’ expressions never get old. You extended sympathy to marginalized groups that never once rang insincere, and then invited representatives of those groups to be a part of your show and have their own say.

From all the repeated inside jokes (seriously, what was the deal with you and Arby’s?) to the interviews on more serious topics which you didn’t take lightly, we hung on to your every word. It’s the job of the talk show host to be welcoming to their audience at home, but somehow you made us feel even closer to you and your team. I’ll never forget the first interview you did with Malala Yousafzai - I’ve watched it over a dozen times since and every time it still makes me tear up when you say 'nothing feels better’ than making her laugh. A grown man fangirling over a sixteen-year-old girl (albeit a remarkable sixteen-year-old) might to an outsider seem a little odd, but coming from you it was heartfelt and genuine.

And when you left the show for the summer to direct Rosewater, having John Oliver as your stand-in was a perfect balance because he was similar enough that we felt comfortable with 'the new guy’ but different enough that we still missed you and were so happy when you came back. And at least we still get him doing his thing - but one day of Last Week Tonight doesn’t nearly make up for a weeks’ worth of Daily Show. He’s amazing, don’t get me wrong, but no one even comes close to you.

We totally get that you’d want to spend more time with your family, something we often forget you give up when you’re filming the show that entertains us daily. But your extended family - the millions of friends and fans that love and appreciate you - are so incredibly sad we won’t get to see you anymore.

Thank you, not only for all the laughs you’ve given us, but for all the people you’ve given us who then went on to make us laugh even more. Thank you for Colbert, for John Oliver, for Steve Carrell and Larry Wilmore and Kristen Schaal.

Thank you for getting enraged on our behalf, so that we don’t have to. When something was wrong in the world, watching you became like a form of catharsis. It was such a relief to see that someone else was taking notice, someone else was calling the hypocrites on their hypocrisy, someone else cared, and knew what mattered, but was still able to find humour in the craziness.

Thank you for opening our eyes to things we’d never even seen or heard of, had it not been for your show. I have a shelf full of books at home that I bought solely because you talked about them, and they seemed interesting to me - and you were right every time. So many remarkable, eye-opening topics that I would have never discovered if it wasn’t for you (even if you never read them yourself). I am definitely a more well-rounded person today because of your influence.

In all honesty, I wasn’t the littlest bit surprised when you said you wanted to leave because covering the news depressed you. I can’t imagine having to wade through all the awful things you cover on a daily basis, and try to find laughter in incredibly dark places. It’s so admirable that you kept going as long as you did. And I want you to know that you probably have saved a lot of people from a lot of that same depression, by giving us hope, and logic, and well-reasoned arguments, and showing us that there’s still always something to laugh at, no matter the circumstance. You were always there for us, to address the gravity of these situations, while making sure we knew things were going to be okay. And I might be in the minority here, but I truly believe that’s one of the most worthwhile things a person could ever do.

So thank you, Jon. Thank you for all the time we got to spend with you over the years, all the weeks and months when we took you for granted. There’s going to be a little emptiness at 11 o’clock for the longest time. And wherever you go, and whatever you do next, we’ll be waiting to cheer you on every step of the way.

Good luck to you, sir. I’m really going to miss you. 

On Singing & Talent

Warning: This may come across as a humble brag. Please read the whole thing before judging. Or if you're not inclined to do that, don't read at all. 

I hate it when people complain about my singing - not even to say that it’s bad, but to say I’m ‘showing off’ or that I ‘make them feel inferior’ about their own voice. 

You have no idea how insanely hard it is for me to finally work up the courage to sing in front of people. It takes months, sometimes years, of knowing a person for me to go from mumbling along in the car to actually feeling confident enough to belt out a song. And it’s damn near impossible to get me to sing if there’s no music to sing along to, because then I can’t pretend that the other music is drowning me out. 

I like my voice. I’m proud of my voice. I know it’s not perfect, but I also know that it’s pretty good. I hate that I’m always afraid of people not liking it. I hate that something I love doing, and that makes me so happy, is something I feel too scared to share with the world. 

The couple of times someone has complimented my singing, I've had a brief moment of panic, of ‘oh my god you actually heard that’ but it’s also given me this warm glowing feeling inside, and helped me feel braver the next time.

But saying someone is off-key or has a bad voice is not the only way you can crush them. In fact, if I did go off-key or sing lousily, I bet no one would say anything, because that’s not the polite thing to do. I know I would never say something like that. If we’re driving along (I use that example because it’s where this sort of thing happens the most frequently) and jamming out to a song we don’t like, I don’t care if you’re Mariah Carey or William Hung, honestly I’m probably just going to have fun with you either way.

But when someone turns to me and says “Oh my god, I hate singing with you because I sound like crap and you don’t” it ironically doesn’t boost my ego. Instead, it makes me feel like by enjoying myself, and having a gift, I’ve somehow been insensitive to them. Like I need to apologize for the differences between us. I realize the other person apparently isn’t having fun, and somehow it’s my fault. 

Why do I have to feel bad about being good at something just because you’re not? I’m sure you have many talents that I don’t share, but I’m proud of you and I will embrace your talents, not tell you to hide them just because I’m insecure. 

And as for the 'showing off' thing, I just don't get this. I've never once entered a talent show, never once intentionally stood in front of a room full of people to sing, 'just because I could' and I thought people needed to hear it. Even that, I don't think, would be considered 'showing off', rather just 'showing'. Sometimes I like to harmonize with songs (or just sing the background vocals if the song is in two parts to begin with) simply because I think it sounds cool. My mom is very musical. I grew up listening to her harmonize with stuff on the radio, and as a result I learned to do it too. And if there are two of us singing, then why shouldn't we do a two-part harmony? That's really fun! 

But when I do this and people accuse me of showing off it makes me feel bad, because what have I done wrong? What's stopping you from doing the same thing?? And if you know you just can't harmonize because you don't have the ear for it, or for whatever reason, then why the heck is it a bad thing that I can? If you enjoyed doing something, and you were really proud of it, I would never tell you you were showing off. There's nothing wrong with being proud of something you're good at. It's not egotistical to do it to the best of your ability, rather than holding back because people around you will judge you for going all-out. And considering I barely have the confidence to do it in the first place, accusing me of doing it to the point of showing off is more than a little ironic. 

Now it's a whole other story if you just don't want ANYONE to sing along. Sometimes people just want to listen to music without other people singing over it. I get that and I'll respect that. It might be a force of habit to sing (or at least hum) along if I know a song really well, but if you catch me doing that and ask me to stop, I'll definitely apologize and clam up. 

But please don't say I make you feel bad by being comfortable with myself. Because chances are you'll say something like that and move on, but it'll hurt and stick with me for a good long while. Obviously the last thing I want to do is make someone feel bad! But I don't understand how I can avoid that, other than stifling myself in order to make sure you don't compare us. And that's not fair. 

Besides, chances are you're being too harsh on your own voice anyways.