The most interesting things about me are my tragedies. I’m trying to change that by building experiences, but truly, my life has been a fucked-up Forrest Gump of things that should all separately happen to one person at most in a lifetime.
I’m well past the point that these memories hurt; they’re just fascinating in a “what are the odds?” way. Still, in the moments I talk about them like crazy adventures, I’m realizing people see these stories as fresh trauma, and sometimes it feels raw to them, too. They don’t know how to react. That’s okay, and part of why I want to stop.
I’ll “deposit” these stories into FingerSlice.
Tonight’s story is a little convoluted and pieces of the puzzle are still getting figured out, so I’ll wrap this story into something I also wanted to try- having AI scan my whole blog to collect my tone and write for me. I kind of memory puked onto it, so all the details are true and proof-read for accuracy (and there was so much to be corrected tbh)
Trauma dump AND experiment? yay
Nickelodeon Near-Miss
When I was somewhere around 14–16, John Robert Powers somehow got my information and invited me to their Seattle office, which was on the seventh floor of the downtown Macy’s building.
I genuinely do not remember signing up for this. I think there may have been a mailer involved. Either way, at some point my dad's girlfriend and I ended up sitting through their whole talent presentation.
Their philosophy was basically: try everything. Acting, singing, modeling. You never know what you might secretly be amazing at.
Some of the kids had clearly been there a while because they would literally chant parts of the presentation along with the presenter.
Normal stuff.
The actual setup was that I was auditioning for the opportunity to audition for real things. In my case, I remember doing reads connected to *Zoey 101* and, later, *iCarly*. They also wanted to sell us acting/modeling lessons, headshots, etc.
One of their favorite success stories was a girl I went to school with named M. She actually did get some work through them; modeling, singing the national anthem at events, things like that. So she was extremely convenient ammunition whenever they wanted to explain why I was apparently doing teenagerhood incorrectly.
And then they went way too hard.
At one point they called my house while my dad wasn't home and proceeded to berate me over the phone.
“M LASTNAMESUPEREMPHASIZED's dad wouldn't—”
I don't even remember what offense my dad had committed by comparison. I just remember an adult employed by a modeling school arguing with teenage me until I cried.
My stepdad eventually found out.
My birth dad was too busy making plans for the money and daydreaming about moving to Hawaii to shoot Zoey101 to notice.
My step dad called them.
I have no idea what that man said.
Whatever it was, it apparently frightened the capitalism directly out of them, because suddenly they were offering me everything for free.
Free lessons.
Free professional headshots.
And, as their grand apology, a **one-on-one audition with the executive producer of *iCarly*.**
We declined.
At the time, this was mostly a story about a sketchy modeling school being mean to me and my stepdad going nuclear.
Many years later, the *iCarly* part became considerably more ominous.
Because *iCarly* was created and executive produced by Dan Schneider.
So, in retrospect, John Robert Powers' proposed apology for emotionally abusing a teenage girl may have been to give her private access to one of the most controversial adults in children's television.
I cannot prove that Schneider was definitely the person they meant, nor do I know that anything bad would have happened. There were other producers involved with the show, and twenty-year-old memories aren't legal depositions.
But given everything that has since come out about the environment surrounding Nickelodeon shows of that era, I am extremely comfortable saying:
**Thanks, Dad.**
That was an absolutely incredible bullet to accidentally dodge.….I don’t sound like that, do I?
I think this is going to be a very liberating blog series. I already feel ready to let that story go. It was a bigger monster in my head, despite having told it 100 times. Something about “depositing it” helped me let go.
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