I got my job at Jalopnik in August of 2015 after starting a James Bond themed Kinja blog and emailing former Editor-in-Chief Patrick George my articles for a year. It’s been a crazy six years and I’ve been fortunate to share them with Jason Torchinsky who is still here, too. So I’m leaving him with a present.
Raphael Orlove is also the other employee at Jalopnik who has worked here the entire time I’ve been employed and will remain after me. However, I did not drive two hours to his house to film him and his family touring the Planters Peanuts Nutmobile back when I was in college, otherwise I would have come up with a similar gift for him. I did do that with Jason back in 2016.
This footage has haunted me since. Jason was the first Jalopnik staffer I met in person and I was nervous. I remember thinking the quality of the video wasn’t good, the audio was from the camera and we didn’t have Jason mic’d up, and I eventually told myself nobody wanted to see such a thing and I shelved it. Having now gone through and edited the following video, I’m sorry to say I should have shared it much, much sooner.
Thank you to Jason, Raph, and everyone at Jalopnik, Gawker and G/O Media who I’ve had the pleasure of working with for the last six years. I started a video series on Jalopnik called “Justin Gets A Real Job” because this never felt like a real job someone would let me do. Now it looks like I’m off to find something a little more real, but I will forever cherish the non-existent leash gifted to me here and of course the friends we made along the way.
I graduated college, moved to New York City, visited Europe for the first time, hit over 162 MPH on a racetrack, drove my dream Aston Martins and I came out to my friends and family as gay which helped facilitate more representation on the site itself, all in my time here.
Jalopnik has changed my life, I hope in some small way I changed Jalopnik for the better, and I’m going to fucking miss the hell out of this place and the crew I’m leaving behind to do their better blogs. Now please enjoy this video.