Everyday is a Day to Talk About ICarly

Of the three original ideas that were going to be my first post this is the one that surprises me the most for being my third post. Perhaps it’s because I’m more protective of what I deeply love and there are many things about Star Wars that I don’t like and can list off easily. No, the fans are not one of them. My love for ICarly is much more personal than my public love of Star Wars. I will never go around in public spouting off ICarly quotes or say to someone: “That is such a Spencer Shay moment.” Mostly because I burn in natural light and vomit internally when interacting with the general public. But also because no one will get my references or be too guilty to admit that they get my reference and the people who would openly laugh and support those references are people I don’t want to associate with. To all you damn people that aren’t in the know allow me to explain; ICarly is a live action kids show that aired on Nickelodeon between 2007-2012. It starred child actor Miranda Cosgrove, she rose to fame due to her role as Megan the little sister on Drake & Josh, and had five seasons in its original run. The show was picked up for a revival in 2021 that had three glorious seasons but sadly ended in 2023 on a cliffhanger because the world is dark, twisted and unfair. The program creator Dan Schneider is an infamous industry name now. The show's co-star (real star) Jennette McCurdy has gone on record calling him out for his creepy behavior and desperate need to touch little girls feet. This is all alleged of course because some dumbass Americans think that all abuse victims are fakers who just make up their stories for attention. But this is my blog so fuck you if you hold that thought your victim blaming bullshit is why so many live in constant fear and Dan Schneider is a creepy fuck who I would love not see make anything in the industry ever again. 

I’d thought by the ripe old age of twenty eight and a half I would have fallen out of love for the series. Surely the show would be no more than cringe propaganda that was an unrealistic interpretation of being an influencer on the world wide web. Maybe doubling down on your love for it shows that you still have much in your heart and are willing to give more 🙂. But on my multiple rewatches, some for the purpose of this blog post most because I found something new on each watch, I discovered that the original show was much more cunning than my pre-teen mind could ever imagine. Most of the episodes have themes or motifs that callback to so many older sitcoms it’s outrageous. That paired with bits of Carly watching bits of Drake & Josh and harking back to Megan being her polar opposite, the show is absolutely brimming with dramatic irony. The only type of irony I love. As an avid sitcom watcher, and now knowing this is where my love for sitcoms stemmed from, I’ve noticed the slide into oblivion that awaits most sitcoms that aren’t allowed to end because they’re just too darn marketable. Writer strikes, show runner changes, casting changes I’ve seen a lot and it doesn’t take too long to find the originating cause (most of the time it’s drugs). When shows are stretched the writers start going to crazy places or just copy the same story over and over. Luckily for ICarly it’s the latter (for the most part) and for the original run the fifth season is my favorite by far. With time the cast also tend to get more comfortable with each other and pull greater performances out of each other. This isn’t as true for ICarly as Miranda Cosgrove has not developed as an actor since its inception and the shadow her co-stars set over her looms greater and greater as the show progresses. 

I’m getting a bit ahead of myself here though because I’m tired of the stigma that people can’t like bad actors. For the love of god, please get off the internet and talk to more people in the world. To truly tell if an actor is good or bad takes time, multiple performances and some understanding of acting as a profession. I lack the understanding of living as a working actor but I am quite familiar with changing the way you feel or look in order to present yourself as what you want people to see you as. The difference between my experience acting and a working actor is that if I let my mask slip that would be it for me. I’d be shipped off to some unregistered insane asylum never to be heard again. While working actors are allowed to roam free and openly assault people and get off scot free because they are pretty. But this is a gross accusation of actors as a whole and really unfair to share paragraph space with the wonderful Miranda Cosgrove. If it isn’t obvious I’m quite good at tearing down the things I love and that’s because I believe in seeing the whole picture. Several things are true all the time, Miranda Cosgrove is not a good actor, she is only good at playing herself which is close to who Carly Shay is, and she is my favorite actor ever, maybe the only actor I actually like. She’s worked with predators and through a slurry of insults and threats from the weird community that is the ICarly fanbase and still chooses to act and go out for different roles. Going to briefly shout out The Wrong Paris where she tries to play a put together confident woman from Paris, Texas and quite literally stumbles her way through the performance. She is one of the few child actors that managed to fight through the trauma that comes with that and has stumbled into adulthood gracefully. This could all be thanks to the people around her but at the end of the day the way she acts and lives shows me a person that does see all the awful things that people can say and do but still chooses to give back. By no means is acting the most difficult career in the world, but no other job is as public facing as Hollywood acting. I for one hate the idea of having fans or a group of people I will continually disappoint because they don’t know what they want. To choose to keep doing that, after likely being forced into it by your parents is a bold choice that couldn’t have been easy to make. But I’m very glad that she chose to come back for the revival and experience something of a revival for her own career. If it comes out that she is some narcissistic abuser that has sabotaged others careers, oh well because to me she’ll always be Carly Shay. A kind yet arrogant woman that is too close to her brother but isn’t afraid to hide it. She’s devious yet ignorant of the things going on in the shadows around her everyday.

Another thing that should be very apparent at this point is my love for the revival. The worst thing about it is the fact that it is exclusively on Paramount+ and I had to give them my money in order to watch it. The revival made the smart decision to pick up later in Carly’s life, about nine years past the finale of the original run. It does a great job showing us that peaking in highschool, middle school even is not great for the rest of your life. You see, life is often brief peaks of perfection with large mundane, sometimes dark valleys that often stretch too long before the next peak. The first episode shows us our eager twenty something girl failure eager to ask her influencer boyfriend to start a new channel with her. A very real situation for what people call intimate relationships these days. Of course her love to be has cold feet and ends up dumping her on live stream, my new largest fear. It continues from there with Carly trying to get her shit together and brute force her way out of depression. Doesn’t that sound familiar. . . Yes reader, sorry to be the one to tell you but I am indeed a massive loser, because I did not know the perfect show for me existed until I watched the ICarly revival. It blends comedy with realistic enough situations so well and has some of the most grounded and original character writing I have seen. I am a disgusting shipper, I don’t post about it anywhere on the internet because my shame keeps me grounded but I’m not above telling you that I think Sam & Freddie made a better couple. I love when opposites attract and Sam & Freddie smoothed down the rough edges the other had. But during the revival I found myself cheering the awkward Carly and Freddie pairing on. At the same time they fill the audience in on what happened between Carly & Freddie between the shows and use it to fuel one of the most tense moments in the show. I normally don’t like will they won’t theys but it was just too well done here. 

Unlike Star Wars I have no shame in recommending both ICarlys especially to any television-philes out there. It’s more than just a sitcom for kids and is more relevant than ever. Streaming in particular is so close to how the original ICarly web show was, its influence is still very present. Try not to worry about the actor's abuse while watching and remember that the original cast had strong friendships at least while filming. Hopefully, alas we truly don’t know and that is their right to keep private. So grab a friend and watch both series, you will not regret it.