That’s me with Jessica and Ashley, or as I’ll always think of them, iWish4Dot and Melody5. We look like hobgoblins thanks to the obnoxious Greenpeace clipboarder who did a lousy job taking the photo despite us listening to his entire spiel, signing his petition, and offering him money.1 But as bad as this picture is, I’m posting it anyway because of how happy it made me to meet those two for the first time yesterday.

I spent the better part of nine years working for The N, Nickelodeon’s teen network now called TeenNick. One of my many jobs, and by far the best, was blogging and co-hosting a podcast for The-N.com as “The-Seth.” My co-host — a superstar, the best writer for teen girls there is, and one of my favorite people in the world — The-Mary2 and I started the podcast in 2006 largely because I was bored and wanted something new to do. Every Friday we’d call each other, shoot the shit about that week’s new episodes of Degrassi or Instant Star or whatever, call up one of the stars and make them talk to us, then post it online right after the shows aired. It struck a chord with our audience, and we eventually  recorded over 150 episodes over three years.3

It never felt like there was any significant amount of people listening, but we had a handful of loyal fans. Our two biggest4 were a couple of The-N.com users who’d met each other at a Degrassi event in LA and become friends, Melody5 and iWish4Dot. We’d chat with them on the message boards and got to know and like them. When I left The N in 2009 (and Mary left in 2011) it didn’t take Melody and Dot long to track me down on Twitter, and we stayed in touch. They’re two of only a handful of The-N.com users who made an effort to see what happened to me, and I was kind of flattered that they still cared about what I had to say after I’d dropped my The- mask and it became apparent that teen-girl soap operas weren’t really my favorite thing in the world. Yesterday Dot and Melody Jessica and Ashley (I have to get into the habit of using their real names) took me to lunch. I’m not sure if they realize how much it meant to me to talk to them.

Ashley’s 25, Jessica 19.5 They’re great ladies that I honestly admire. Jessica’s suffered from fibromyalgia6 since she was 12, which means she’s sometimes in constant pain. She let on that yesterday was one of those times, but you’d never know it through her endless brightness. Her disease made school a struggle for her, but she’s never given in and is getting ready to start college again next year.

Whenever I think of Ashley, I think of her fearless individuality, particularly how she used to braid compact discs into her hair. Now she’s a middle-school teacher. It’s not an easy job to begin with, but Ashley works in a public school in Inglewood, teaching art to kids from some of the poorest neighborhoods in Los Angeles. She insisted that she pay for lunch, and I knew better than to argue with her. Ashley keeps her class in line even though she’s smaller than most of her students.

The two of them have both been very open and generous in saying that Mary’s and my writing and podcasts helped them make it through high school, not an easy time for either of them. It seems unbelievable to me that I had anything to do with it. I was just making jokes about TV; I knew there were kids out there that liked them, but it never sunk in that I might be changing people’s lives. Meeting Ashley and Jessica humbled me and reminded me that those of us who work in the media need to take our jobs seriously. No matter what our work might seem like to us, it’s important to someone out there, and we owe it to them to give it our best.

I’m proud of Dot and Melody, and talking to them made me proud of myself. I’m thankful that I was able to do a little bit to make their lives better and to have the rare pleasure of witnessing that. Most of all I’m thankful that now I’ll have the chance to get to know them as people, not just as words on a screen. Thanks for lunch, you two, and thanks for listening.

1. Ashley said, “It’s a good thing I gave him my rock-star name and my address from middle school.” [↩]
2. AKA Mary Chen [↩]
3. That’s over 50 hours of programming. [↩]
4. I’ll say “arguably biggest” to spare them any backlash. [↩]
5. I’d always assumed they were the same age and maybe 21 by now. [↩]
6. I spelled that right on the first try. [↩]