Sasha Stone is a fellow Substacker whom I’ve first encountered a long time ago on Twitter due to our mutual interest in film—a topic she (like me) has covered for many years for her own website, AwardsDaily.com.
Really love Sasha. Love that she is super honest the she came from the left. All the way up to 2020, even. She's always been honest about it. She has a way of writing and speaking that elevates and humanizes, while also not being afraid to use humor. 💜🫶
I love this conversation. I was banned from Twitter a while back, and that has been very good for my mental health. I have tweeted terrible things at people on Twitter that I would never say to a fellow human being. On Twitter, I never felt as if I were interacting with my fellow humans, just empty mechanical avatars.
I once tweeted at you, Katherine, that I thought you did not care about survivors of sexual abuse. I know that tweet was unfair and irrational, but I am not rational when it comes to sexual abuse, and I tweeted that in a "triggered" state of mind.
I apologize if you remember that tweet (I assume you don't) but please be aware that sometimes people tweet things in the moment that they realize later was wrong, and even immoral.
You are so brave, and that's why you are getting hate from both "sides".
Stay brave and strong. Your integrity will not earn you millions of followers (the worst people have the most followers), but integrity is a rare and precious gift these days. Keep it.
When Sasha talked about movies bludgeoning the audience directly with a message instead of inserting it as subtext, my mind went to the Barbie movie. I saw it, and all of the women I know in real life who spoke to me about it liked it a lot. I personally was entertained but I felt I was bludgeoned with an unsubtle message that didn’t seem to acknowledge any progress since 1990 or so. That said, I can see why it spoke to many women and I don’t mind at all that many loved it, yet I got taken to task a bit for not being effusive with praise. I just replied “isn’t it enough that to say the movie wasn’t made with me in mind as its audience but I can see how it speaks to others” and yet I still faced consternation that surprised me. Anyway, the movie was the most intense example of not subtle sub-text.
One area where I think culture is still pretty strong is in popular fiction and thrillers, which has become my favorite genre over the last 6 years or so. There are many excellent authors writing these books and I read about 9 or 10 of them, every book they write. I think the “wokeness” and political messaging generally is largely kept outside of them and one can genuinely relax and just read human stories in these novels. Lisa Jewell is my favorite, but others like Ruth Ware, Shari Lapena and even super-popular Freida McFadden all write super fun books. Just sounding a positive note on culture here, even if not on movies.
Also, I think around ~11:00 Katherine may have been thinking of R Kelly. He has been tried and convicted. I think Puff Daddy has only been accused at this point.
Really love Sasha. Love that she is super honest the she came from the left. All the way up to 2020, even. She's always been honest about it. She has a way of writing and speaking that elevates and humanizes, while also not being afraid to use humor. 💜🫶
Sasha Stone is the most dishonest grifter. You all don't realize this woman has zero moral center.
You will soon enough, sadly.
https://www.sashastone.com/blog/2017/01/01/i-dreamed-donald-trump-was-president/
https://medium.com/rx3-magazine/for-hillary-clinton-the-girl-who-dared-f6682a5c69b2
In other words, y'all are just a means for attention and $.
This was amazing and needs to be a regular thing
I love this conversation. I was banned from Twitter a while back, and that has been very good for my mental health. I have tweeted terrible things at people on Twitter that I would never say to a fellow human being. On Twitter, I never felt as if I were interacting with my fellow humans, just empty mechanical avatars.
I once tweeted at you, Katherine, that I thought you did not care about survivors of sexual abuse. I know that tweet was unfair and irrational, but I am not rational when it comes to sexual abuse, and I tweeted that in a "triggered" state of mind.
I apologize if you remember that tweet (I assume you don't) but please be aware that sometimes people tweet things in the moment that they realize later was wrong, and even immoral.
You are so brave, and that's why you are getting hate from both "sides".
Stay brave and strong. Your integrity will not earn you millions of followers (the worst people have the most followers), but integrity is a rare and precious gift these days. Keep it.
Enjoyed the conversation quite a bit!
When Sasha talked about movies bludgeoning the audience directly with a message instead of inserting it as subtext, my mind went to the Barbie movie. I saw it, and all of the women I know in real life who spoke to me about it liked it a lot. I personally was entertained but I felt I was bludgeoned with an unsubtle message that didn’t seem to acknowledge any progress since 1990 or so. That said, I can see why it spoke to many women and I don’t mind at all that many loved it, yet I got taken to task a bit for not being effusive with praise. I just replied “isn’t it enough that to say the movie wasn’t made with me in mind as its audience but I can see how it speaks to others” and yet I still faced consternation that surprised me. Anyway, the movie was the most intense example of not subtle sub-text.
One area where I think culture is still pretty strong is in popular fiction and thrillers, which has become my favorite genre over the last 6 years or so. There are many excellent authors writing these books and I read about 9 or 10 of them, every book they write. I think the “wokeness” and political messaging generally is largely kept outside of them and one can genuinely relax and just read human stories in these novels. Lisa Jewell is my favorite, but others like Ruth Ware, Shari Lapena and even super-popular Freida McFadden all write super fun books. Just sounding a positive note on culture here, even if not on movies.
Also, I think around ~11:00 Katherine may have been thinking of R Kelly. He has been tried and convicted. I think Puff Daddy has only been accused at this point.
I was there. I loved your post Kathryn. I left that group because of that absurd event. You were perfect, they were insane.
That is so lovely to hear ! Thank you so much for the support.