End of a TV Era

Last Thursday, Jon Stewart retired from hosting The Daily Show. Steve and I started watching Jon on TDS when we started college fourteen years ago, two years into Jon's sixteen year tenure. We watched his final show in a motel in Elko, Nevada on our way to Steve's family reunion in Utah.

There are a lot of people with a lot of opinions about Jon and the show. Most of them I suspect never watched TDS. But whatever his legacy with the rest of the world, for me and Steve, Jon and TDS taught us to talk about and care about politics. 

It was common when I was growing up to hear that it was improper to discuss politics. As a child, Steve remembers distinctly asking an adult who they were voting for, and being told that the question was impolite and he shouldn't ask such things. Steve and I both feel that this sort of feedback only served to teach us that politics was taboo and, frankly, unimportant, and we started our adult lives terribly ignorant of such things. Steve didn't vote in the first election after he turned 18; he didn't see the point. Jon Stewart and The Daily Show (and also later Stephen Colbert and The Colbert Report) taught us that this stuff matters.

The picture above is from our kitchen. After Stephen left the Report (we're looking forward to seeing him host Late Night starting next month) and Jon announced he would retire from TDS, I took pictures from a 2006 Rolling Stone feature on the two men and put them up on the wall. They make me smile every time I see them, and remind me to stay sharp and pay attention. 

A lot of people seem to see TDS as some sort of liberal brainwashing, and believe that viewers of the show only got their news from Comedy Central and didn't understand the "real world." For me and Steve, that couldn't be further from the truth. To fully appreciate TDS and the Report, one needed an extensive knowledge of current events. Issues raised on the show sparked desire to learn more. Both shows encouraged their viewership to be skeptical and make their own decisions. To detect and reject empty rhetoric (or "truthiness" as Colbert so delightfully coined). TDS and the Report skewered the disingenuous and shortsighted on both sides of aisle. 

Steve and I will be forever grateful for Jon, Stephen and their shows. I firmly believe being viewers in our formative college years made Steve and I better, more informed citizens. Though we'll very much miss seeing him regularly grace our screen, Steve and I hope Jon's life after TDS is wonderful and fulfilling in every way.