Last week I listened to an episode of This American Life called “What I Learned From Television.” It’s a great episode all around, with contributions from both Dan Savage and Sarah Vowell. But the part that really got me on a gut level was a story from Mr. Ira Glass himself, about The O.C.

The O.C. began airing during my sophomore year of high school. Marissa Cooper died in a flaming car crash during the last days of my senior year. It’s hard to articulate what the O.C. means to me, because it is about so much more than the show itself. It is about Phoebe, and Sarah Goldfeather, and first kisses, and first boyfriends, and the first time you heard that Imogen Heap song. Even though high school as portrayed in the O.C. is nothing at all like my own experience of high school, watching the O.C. still makes me remember high school fondly—because that’s when I watched it, and because the show’s extravagance and romantic melodrama articulate some of the things I used to wish high school might be.

But in any case, Ira puts it better than I could, so here’s a transcription of the segment (which, if you care to listen, is about 4 minutes long, and starts at 33:20):

(In the background, Mates of State plays a soft, instrumental version of “California.”)

Ira Glass: So, the strangest experience I had, during this period–the strangest thing I actually learned from TV–came while we were putting together our “Television” show, but it didn’t actually come from anything we worked on. One Thursday night, I was watching “The O.C.” with my wife, Anaheed. And, I don’t know if you’re watching the O.C., or were watching it before it got taken off, just—I love that show. It’s a great, funny, interesting…show. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, go to season one, rent the Chrismukkah episode, okay?

It was a teen soap opera on the FOX network. And the main couple was Seth and Summer, NOT Marissa and Ryan. They could’ve killed off Marissa back in season one, as far as I was concerned. And uh, and so there’s this scene, on this particular Thursday night, where Seth is in his room, talking to his girlfriend, Summer, on the phone and a girl is in his room–Taylor, who is basically the same character as Paris on The Gilmore Girls, but that’s a whole other thing–and so there’s this girl in his room. And Summer hears this girl’s voice in her boyfriend’s room, and she asks him about it, and this moment happens:

Summer: Sounded kind of like a girl.

Seth: Did it? Uh, yeah. Well, sure. Um, because I’m listening to the radio, and This American Life is on, and so, there’s a girl talking.

Ira Glass: Okay, and then Summer makes this reply, which I have to say, just totally…

Summer: Is that that show by those hipster know-it-alls who talk about how fascinating ordinary people are? Ugh, god.

Ira Glass: “Is that that show by those hipster know-it-alls who talk about how fascinating ordinary people are?” Phew. I have to say, I had this experience where it was just like–it was like having…these fictional character’s on the FOX network, like they said my name, and I really like, stood up, and went like: Did that just happen?? It was totally…like, is this on everybody’s TiVo, or is this just…? (Laughs.)

And you know, radio is so different from television. And as we’ve been making our television show, people keep asking me, “Which is better?” You know what I mean? People ask me this all the time, you know, “So which is it gonna be? Is it gonna be radio or TV? Which is better?” Like we’re all gonna have to choose sides between radio and TV, ‘cause there’s gonna be a big war. In fact, actually, there was a war, and radio kind of lost that war.

And, the fact is, you know, radio and TV, they’re just for different things. Radio, radio is so intimate and personal, and TV, TV can be so weirdly grand in what it does. And um, just thinking about the O.C., and the other shows I love, I have to say, like thinking this moment, I realize that my feelings about my favorite shows on television, they are exactly the same as my feelings about my favorite shows on the radio. The things I love, I love completely, and it’s totally personal, my feelings about these shows. It’s personal in the deepest possible way.

And like, I’m a kind of dorky fan when it comes to stuff. My wife is here in the room so maybe it’s bad to be telling this story… But every week the O.C. comes on, my wife, Anaheed, and I, we sit on the couch, and when the theme comes on, “California,” we sing along with it, in full voice, you know what I mean? Like think about what that takes. Like, I’m 47 years old. I’m a grown-ass man, you know, we’re a married couple, you know, sober, we are sober, singing the theme to a FOX show, and I gotta say, every single week, it makes me love my wife, and love TV, and love everything in the world all at once, and last week when the O.C. went off TV, I cried and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

(At this point, Mates of State launches into a cover of “California.”)