I was driving home from school in traffic when “Welcome to the Black Parade” by My Chemical Romance came up in my playlist. From the first G note on the piano, Jake & Amir rushed back into my mind. The classic early episode “Song” features “Welcome to the Black Parade,” as does the very last episode in the web series. Amir Blumenfeld and Jake Hurwitz lip-syncing along to the 2004 My Chemical Romance hit is a visual that brings me intense nostalgia as well as melancholic sadness.

The two greatest passions that I have in life are writing and music, specifically comedy writing and pop-punk music. So, you can imagine how emotionally impactful it was to hear this song for the first time in about a year. To an outsider, Jake & Amir might not seem all that important. Maybe it isn’t in the grand scheme of things, but the impact that these two coworkers goofing off at their desk has had on my life, is great. In that same vein, pop-punk is not the most respected genre of music. While “Welcome to the Black Parade” may have specifically garnered acclaim, typically pop-punk is considered juvenile and not the most artistic form of music. But pop-punk got to me at the right time and shaped me, and continues to shape me, into who I am today. Though in this essay, I will be focusing on Jake and Amir and the impact that they had on my life.

 I became entranced by the comedy of Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld a bit late. I didn’t discover their CollegeHumor web series until 2014, at which point it had been going strong for over seven years. From the moment that I watched my first episode, “Jake and Amir: Celebrity Date,” I was enthralled by the unique comedy and perfect timing between the two stars. To this day, “Celebrity Date” remains one of my favorite episodes and is the one that I recommend being watched first by a new viewer, as both Jake and Amir are at full energy and display their individual quirks perfectly. It may seem hard to believe that something could have such a strong impact on my life, even if I missed the first seven years of its existence. But after watching that first episode, I spent the next month or two watching every Jake & Amir episode that I could find, purchased their half-hour special, Fired, on iTunes, and eventually began listening to their podcast, If I Were You. By 2015, my Jake and Amir obsession was in full swing. I had caught up with their podcast and watched every new sketch immediately after it was uploaded. I had settled into my new obsession, but I had no idea what was waiting for me.

One day, January 27, 2015, specifically, I was doing my Tuesday refresh of the Jake and Amir subreddit, when I saw that a new Jake & Amir video had been posted. The title and thumbnail immediately struck me as out of the ordinary, “Jake and Amir Special Announcement,” and the thumbnail being a headshot of Jake and Amir. Confused, I clicked on the video and immediately my heart sank upon reading the description of the video, “The End is Near.” I played the video and was delivered clips of old Jake & Amir episode, with the two of them looking at each other in silence through the years. I recognized the voice in the song in the background as Audrey Scott, singer in the band Sick/Sea and a frequent submitter of theme songs to the If I Were You podcast. After a minute passed, my fears came true, the video revealed that the last eight episodes of Jake & Amir were to air in the next few weeks. I truly do remember nearly crying in my middle school library. These characters that I had grown to love and this world that I had been apart of, was all ending. The eight-part finale series was filled with callbacks and golden moments that were hilarious and melancholic at the same time.

In the approximately seven-month period after I discovered Jake and Amir, they truly, in the best way possible, took over my life. I had already been interested in comedy and loved doing bits with my friends, but Jake and Amir’s unique style of humor became my style of humor. The way I talked day-to-day was just like Jake Hurwitz’s character and the way I talked in comedic situations, was Amir Blumenfeld’s character. I got a few of my friends into the show and we would frequently quote episodes back-and-forth between each other. We had an assignment in seventh grade to make short films, and my script could have passed as a Jake & Amir fan script with the names changed. Even today, four years after the end of the series, I still regularly quote episodes, frequent the subreddit, re-watch episodes, and use the pair’s comedic style daily.

No comedy act has been able to captivate me that way that Jake and Amir have. I enjoy Bo Burnham’s comedy and listen to various other comedy podcasts and while I do love other comedians, none of them have been able to shape my vocabulary and personality as much as Jake and Amir. Thank you, Jake Hurwitz and Amir Blumenfeld. Thank you for everything.