I can nonetheless bear in mind the place I used to be the primary time I watched an episode (or, extra precisely, a clip) of The Day by day Present with Jon Stewart. I used to be 14 or 15 years outdated and seated cross-legged in my mattress, making an attempt the grown lady’s process of plucking my very own eyebrows, when a phase of Stewart’s hilariously excoriating John McCain’s 2008 presidential marketing campaign got here on. I watched the entire thing rapt, like a very good ninth-grade liberal, then made my option to the Comedy Central web site to look at roughly every thing Stewart and his “finest f*cking information group ever” had ever recorded.

At the same time as a bizarre, comedy-obsessed child who ought to arguably have been socializing together with her friends reasonably than observing a 50-year-old man inveigh in opposition to media hypocrisy, I may inform that Stewart was particular. He was all the time ready with the form of riposte I needed I’d had prepared when somebody in school mentioned one thing snotty, and whereas I now know a group of writers was behind his signature opening monologue, I nonetheless considered him as one thing resembling God (if God wore a collection of foolish little fits). Regardless of all this adulation, although, I don’t bear in mind ever being crushed out on Stewart. Granted, I used to be A) a closeted lesbian on the time and B) possibly associating him too intently with my dad (one other acerbic, elegantly graying middle-aged Jew), however now that Stewart is again internet hosting the Day by day Present on Mondays and thirst for him has erupted from all corners of the web, I can’t assist feeling like I’m out of step.

I can objectively see Stewart’s enchantment in 2024 (I imply, the person seems to be good for 61; righteous anger appears to work wonders on the pores and skin), however for a extra fleshed-out rationalization of why he’s captured the center of so many, I turned to my good friend Sophie Strauss, a stylist residing in Los Angeles. “There was one thing very horny and fairly literal-daddy about watching anyone make sense of a complicated world after we have been rising up, and do it in a method that was humorous,” Strauss says. “I feel the opposite factor about Jon Stewart versus anyone like Stephen Colbert is, he was by no means afraid to be caught being actually honest and real in regards to the issues that he felt strongly about. That was uncommon, particularly at the moment; possibly it’s extra widespread now, however he was actually unafraid of being emotional and getting heated about stuff, and I feel that was horny.” One other good friend, whom I’m not naming as a result of bawdy nature of her remark, describes her degree of attraction to Stewart merely: “I’d climb over his desk.”