A intentional misquote of Pearl Jam is the best way to describe this.
Since the passing of Robin Williams I’ve seen a lot of well worded and wonderful tributes and articles made about him. He touched a lot of lives with his work and his personality. From Dave Letterman To the HUB network, everyone had wonderful things to say about him. However one article in particular caught my eye and it was a post that was made by “The Nostalgia Chick” Lindsey Ellis.
In it, she writes about many things stemming from Robin’s suicide. She writes about the mindset of depression and suicide, both from the sufferer as well as people around them. It’s an account that I myself am all to familiar with. But it was the retelling of the day she had heard about the death of her friend Justin “JewWario” Carmical that is more to the point of what I’m writing here now.
I never got to know Justin. I had only heard of him in passing from a convention friend of mine who is a big fan of his and other reviewers. I wasn’t familiar with Channel Awesome or Justin at that point so it didn’t register on my radar quite who this person was. But I do remember when she posted the news he had left us. I felt terrible for her to lose someone so suddenly, and having my own on and off battle with suicidal depression it really struck a personal cord with me as well.
As the months went by I became more familiar with the website that he had done so much with. I got to read all the different accounts from those that knew Justin the closest and what he meant to them. I saw the tribute that Doug Walker had made for his friend and saw a funny and wonderful person. I saw his work in the anniversary movies and could see a person who loved what he did.
Recently, a mixture of things came together for me that made me take a better look at Justin’s work to see him in his own element. Me being lucky enough to write for this website and wanting to see what my fellow contributors have produced led me to a crossover vid he had made years ago with Diamanda Hagan, reviewing Zombeak. I loved the way Justin held himself in the vid and started looking for other content he had contributed to, such as his crossover review of Interstella 5555 and some of the things he did with Marzgirl. I’m not a huge video gamer (at this point I only go for WWE games and first person shooters), so it took a little time for me to start looking at the content he produced himself.
I was amazed.
I’ve been watching his reviews, his YCPT look at import games, and his I Like Candy videos where he tries foods from different countries and love every one of them. He makes a great host and has wonderful delivery and creativity in his videos. His facial expressions, especially in his reviews of candy, are priceless. He looked like he was having fun and enjoyed what he did. As I got deeper into his content the more I wanted to watch. He has similar tastes as I do, a big interest in Japanese culture, and a willingness to try new foods and things in general. He was a smart and knowledgeable man but he didn’t talk over your head as a viewer. I saw in his work someone who I would want to sit down in a convention hallway and shoot the shit about old school games and quirky things coming out of Japan. I would have gone to his panels and I would have wished he could have gone to mine.
And I felt really guilty about that.
Who was I to make these kinds of assumptions about someone I had never met? I didn’t know him at all and didn’t even know about his work until just recently. Justin had legions of fans and a whole lot of friends that knew him way better than I would ever know. I’m an outsider who could only speculate, make guesses at, what he truly was like let alone what kind of personal pain he was going through.
It took me a little while but I began to think. I’ve watched and read a lot of the tributes people wrote about him since his passing. I’ve read accounts from the people who knew him best that were not to far off from what I was thinking about him. How wrong could I be? One of enduring moments was him looking to the camera and telling his fans “You’re not stupid. Don’t ever tell yourself that.” This was not a bad person.
After all this I wanted to get something down in writing. That’s what I do. But even then I still felt like an outsider and doubted myself. I went to the one person who I could ask on and that was my friend Mere, the one who I found out about Justin in the first place. She told me to “speak from my heart and my experience. Maybe words from an “outsider” can help people realize just how much Justin affected many people.” That’s good advice. Thank You Mere.
Writing this I’ve found that feeling guilty for enjoying his work is the exact opposite of what his work is about. He did this for fun and wanted others to have fun. Justin’s work was meant to enlighten and entertain and that’s what it is to me. To me, Justin’s work is about a person having fun and doing what he loved, not about the what ifs that I or anyone else have any control over. He inspires me with his thoughts and words and I shouldn’t feel guilty about enjoying something he put so much effort into.
So to any of those that knew him who may be reading this and even those who didn’t, I can tell you that Justin still brings a smile to faces and inspires people, even if they never got the pleasure of knowing him. His work, his words, his thoughts continue to do what Justin himself seemed to represent to you. I may not have the experiences you all have had, but I am quickly making many of my own.
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