Dear Abbi and Ilana,
We are Belle and Lexie, more formally known as the creators of Fireball Loft. We have a story to tell and thought it could be best done in a love letter to you. Without further adieu, FOUR AND THREE AND TWO AND ONE ONE.
It all began during the summer of 2015. We were spending the night in our first off-campus college apartment, and were doing the rounds on Hulu and Netflix in search of something to watch. After trying, and failing, to get through some kind of stand-up comedy special on Netflix we decided to give Broad City a try—a show we knew little about but was highly recommended by Lexie’s sister. We went into the first episode knowing nothing except it was about your lives in New York City. We watched two episodes before collectively deciding it was too over-the-top for us and called it a night.
Flash forward to two years later, it was our senior year in a different off-campus college apartment when a new search for entertainment began. We had watched the entirety of The Office the fall before, and wanted another high-quality comedy to watch while we ate our dinner. After scanning through Hulu, we decided to restart our journey into Broad City and this time it stuck. We watched episode after episode, unable to turn away. The show was cringe-worthy, hilarious and real. We felt like every uncomfortable interaction or infuriating roommate situation could’ve happened to us, and we loved it in a cover-your-face-while-howling-with-laughter kind of way.
At the time we watched the show, we were disappointed to learn it only had three seasons out. Obviously we finished it all in a matter of days. Then we realized how many other projects you two work on. We started watching Comedy Central extras and the Youtube videos you made before the show was picked up. (One of our personal favorites being the skit where Ilana breaks her $20 on a homeless person.) We followed you on Instagram and started reading everything you post online. We bought Abbi’s book for our apartment, and listened to her podcast on modern art. When Ilana launched Generator, we watched videos and shared them with our friends.
There are plenty of shows we love, and celebrities we follow on Instagram. What stood out to us, was that we found Broad City right as we were starting Fireball Loft. Seeing you showed us what our future could be like. We might have started out as fans of the show, but over time we became fans of the lives you lead. We identified with your journey, sources of inspiration, and desire to pursue personal projects. Seeing two women pursuing their love of comedy, activism and art simultaneously was and is inspiring to us.
You use your platform to talk about women in comedy and fight for equality. You’ve found the balance between comedy and serious social issues, helping to bring those into the public’s eye. Both independently and together, you’ve created a space for conversation on a wide a range of topics available to everyone. We both have different projects we enjoy in our free time, but we also love and care about Fireball Loft. By looking up to you we saw that there’s room for whatever we want to do, as long as we’re willing to work.
We’re at a crossroad in our lives. We just graduated college and moved across the country. We’re climbing the job ladder, searching for apartments, and realizing that there’s so much more we want to be doing. We’ve started dedicating time to revamping our blog and are learning how to devote time and attention to this side hustle. We are ambitious and scrappy, and now we’re channeling that energy towards our futures—all because you have given us inspiration. We have a vision for what we want in life and can see the path to get there because you helped trailblaze it for us.
Long live the kweens,
P.S. If you want to get to know us more, read this to learn about how we started Fireball Loft.
Advertisements Share this:
