This is a studio both and production. Hi everyone, I am here for
our second episode of Karen and Ellen Conversations, and I have a very special
guest who is a dear, dear friend who I made through the Karen and
Ellen Letters. Stephanie Sabin was a uber Karen and Ellen fan on the first
run of the podcast and then started writing for the blog and then became an
admin on the Facebook group. And it's now just it's weird to think that
you have not been with me the whole time. I know, I was
looking back, I thought, I feel like I've known you forever, but
really this is what brought us together, so I won't know what that means.
I wanted to chat with you for a few reasons. First is I
think you know these letters, maybe at this point better than I do.
And because these letters have had kind of a profound impact on your life.
So why don't you tell me how you came to the podcast and I guess
your journey through the Karen and Ellen Letters? All right, Well, I
guess I had just come back to the United States. We had lived overseas
for a year, and that's when I really got into the podcast and started
listening to them because when I lived in Asia, trying to stay connected with
the States and being alone and not knowing anyone in Asia, I kept my
headphones on all the time. So got into podcast and came back to Virginia
where we live, and scrolling online looking for something new, because honestly,
I'd listened to everything, and there was very few things to listen to,
if you remember back then their podcast. Now we have a million choices,
but we didn't have quite as many choices back then, and especially independent podcast.
So, like most of the OG people here that were in the Roomy's
group, I was on that podcast page. You know, everyone was talking
about different things, and I found the Karen and All letters and started listening
to them. And there is still to this day on the Roomy's page,
my very first post, and I did find it the other day because it
was interesting to me, and I remember the day so vividly. I was
listening to headphones, I was cleaning a house, I was unpacking, and
it just struck me. It was funny and it was organic and something really
stupid because I'm kind of clumsy and silly, kind of ellen like, and
I slipped on some water with my socks, and I remember stopping everything and
saying, that is such a Karen and Ellen thing to do. I should
tell my landlord. And I might have been only an episode two or three.
This may be karma that I'm in episode three talking to you now.
And I stopped and I joined the Facebook page right away, and there was
very few people on the page, I think when I joined and you responded
to my initial posts, which was about asking my landlord for a payback from
my wet sox on the floor, and I remember being kind of star struck
that you answered it like you laughed at it, and you said something to
the effect of that is the most Ellen thing, you know. You made
a comment back, and I just immediately was accepted in that group. And
those that were the O g roomies, I guess will understand that the internet
and that Facebook page was very special and very organic in that we sort of
flowed and ebbed with the podcast, I feel like, and we talked and
we were very involved with each other. I made friends to this day that
maybe I have never met, but if I called or sent a message to
one of them, we're there for each other still to this day. And
the fact that it brought me in you closer, and I've met you and
we've spent time together and you know, vacations, you know, is very
special. I don't think you get that very much in this world. Very
very rarely do you find something that's special. And then that journey when you
asked me about writing, because I'd been writing silly post essentially on the page,
and we had gotten to know each other and build a relationship, and
I started writing the blog and that blog reminded me how much I loved writing.
I was not a writer in the past. I didn't have writing background.
I was not a journalist, and it sparked something in me. And
over lots of conversation and helping you research your other podcast, it led me
to love that piece and really think I can do this. So at our
years of age, in my fifties, I went back to college to get
my master's degree in journalism and now I write for a living. And I
don't know that I would have done that without Karen and Ellen and you.
It's I mean, I hey, I'm impressed, and I think I just,
you know, going back to what that Facebook group was, and it's
funny now six years later, you know, I dabble in Facebook, and
you know, obviously promote the shows and chat with people who listen to them.
But Facebook has changed, and I think the way we all relate to
Facebook has changed. But you go back to that group and it was in
one of the most divisive political times ever or even social times, and yet
there are all these very different people with different opinions and experiences and political views
coming together to laugh at, of course, how ridiculous these letters were and
how quote unquote stupid these girls were, but also to appreciate their own stupidity.
You know, it was we weren't Karen and Ellen were never the butt
of the joke, And I think that's really special. Might be rob for
sure, we could all bond over this. And you know, my journey
with the Karen and Ellen letters until the podcast was friends getting together to laugh
about these letters, and then now all of a sudden, it was these
letters were creating friendships, which is really beautiful. And then to see the
way that this what could have been considered a very silly podcast kind of like
profoundly affected people. You know, I've seen people who listen to the show
who are now good friends, who have like supported each other through debts and
the family or like financial strain or you know, go fund mes, or
people are staying with each other. There was a relationship out of it.
It just it's a really really special and I think it's the only time I've
been able to see, like firsthand what podcasting can be beyond just entertainment.
And I think it created a family and a culture and it's really really cool.
And I think the other great thing is none of us knew how it
was going to end, so we were all kind of in the same position
in that we were just going on this journey together, me as a host
and producer and y'all as listeners and the actors kind of finding out new information
in real time all together and reacting in real time all together, which is
I think a very unique experience slew thing together. Yeah, for better and
worse, of course. So I'm glad you're here for this because this episode
in particular has some of I think the most iconic letters in it. You
know, my the vacuum cleaner to me, I every time I visualize her
trying to get an upright vacuum cleaner into a refrigerator to clean it out,
like I audibly laugh all these years later, I you know, the alligator
it just like you know, we talked in the Last Conversations episode about how
Karen and Ellen has created a vernacular inside jokes, and I think this episode
started it. Yeah, yeah, So what were your standpoint or standouts for
this episode? Well, and I don't know, you know, it seems
more serious to me now I don't. It sounds really strange. But when
I first listened, and I think the last time I listened to the series,
I bet at this point it's been close to two and a half years,
just because I in college and now I'm working all the time. And
I think the last time I listened it was still light. And not that
it's not light and silly, but it feels so much kind of darker.
It's weird. But I wrote, I wrote a few notes like did you
rerecord Sarah the Sarah's and Jeff? Are they new? No? I mean,
I I edited the audio as much as I could, because I also
just you know, this is before we could afford quality, right, But
they didn't rerecord their lines though, right. No. So one of the
things that really stood out to me was Jeff's portrayal of Mark, and it
seems so different, almost like I was listening to something completely different this time
around. Again, we're older, we're wiser, our lives have changed.
Those of us that were there are now in the no so we understand where
this is going. But the first time around, I haven't note that.
The first time around, Mark was exasperated, he was a little irritable,
funny, snarky. When I really listened this weekend, he's more irritable,
he seems more annoyed. He actually seems really mean, And I didn't get
that the first time around. And I don't know if that's just my new
perception, but it felt like it was almost a different Mark from the first
time around. And again I'm not sure if that's because I know where it
is, but I remember listening to this multiple times after season two and not
feeling the same way. It's funny because I my experience going back, because
I haven't listened to these in probably three or four years, and my experience
has not been dissimilar. Like I listened to these letters now and I think
of them as what they actually were, you know, particularly Ellen's and Marks.
I think Karen is kind of a static character, even though you know,
we know what her life was and how it translated into these letters,
but you know, knowing what we know now and hearing Ellen's letters and when
Mark chooses to respond to them and when he does not, and how he
is mean and he's taking you know, when I first listened to these or
first read them, it was like, oh, he's having fun, right,
That's what I thought too. It is poking fun at them. Not
maybe maybe slightly mirrors, but but mostly like ha ha, you know,
spiritable, but poking fun at them. Yeah, kind of like he's mean,
spirited. Yeah, it's like he took a weird situation and like made
the most of it. And now it's like he is taking joy in making
these girls feel stupid and like you know, in the letters sometimes they are
stupid, but it means spirited. I think that's the best way to describe
it. And and I think also, now we know what was happening,
and I keep pointing a call in Jeff, and you know, Mark,
I think the same thing I wrote Jeff on your my notes Mark. You
know, now that we know what was happening on Mark's and it just feels
like he was intentionally teeing these girls up over and over and over again to
say stupid stuff and to look stupid, and considering how young they were,
and I don't know what he was aware of about their own personal journeys at
the time, but it just feels incredibly unkind almost like bullying, you know,
especially with the letters in this episode talking with Uncle Albert, the way
he talks about them almost it's it's very and again that's a new perception.
Think about how the world has changed and what we now consider cyber bullying or
even bullying in letters. And it did fill a little bit like that.
I know he wasn't doing it to their face, and yet now knowing what
I know and having more wisdom and a new understanding of the world because we
all grow, just like Karen and Allen had to do a little bit.
It did. It just felt different. And I know that seems really weird
because I was so excited, not that I'm not excited. I'm still you
know me, I love I'm the biggest Karen Allen stand there is and everybody
has ever been in the group knows that, and you know that. But
it did feel very different this time. I went into it like just ready
for that warm, comfy blanket again to just envelope me and make me feel
those feelings, and it just suddenly felt a lit little different, kind of
a little off. Well, I think, you know, as a culture
uncomfortable. Yeah, we have changed as a culture because you think since these
the podcasts came out, you know, we've had it Tania, We've had
Jessica Simpson's memoir. We've really kind of reframed the way we've treated and looked
at young women, particularly young women who found themselves in situations that were beyond
their maturity or experienced levels. And I think that has like knowing the outcome,
but then also that the way we engage with women who have been maligned
has changed so much that I don't think this podcast or these letters could ever
be the same even if we didn't know what the outcome was. I just
think now we look through it with a lens of empathy and humility as opposed
to you know, mockery, and that's great. And I do have this
feeling of like, I wish these letters could be funny again, but that's
kind of the whole point, right, Like they shouldn't be funny because we're
laughing at someone's hardship, and they have been painted by Mark and by me
and by many other people who have contributed to the various productions of these letters
to be dumber than they are so that we can laugh at them. And
I think that's the saddest part about these letters and also the greatest growth that
I've seen, and how we respond to them today versus six years ago.
Well, and I love the nostalgia piece of it. I was their age
at their time. I was eighteen and nineteen eighty eight, so I think
the first time I heard it, it was a reminder of who I was.
I mean, I wasn't them necessarily, but that nostalgia for the time
period, the nostalgia for being young, the nostalgia for getting out on your
own, the nostalgia of not knowing the world, because at eighteen nineteen twenty,
you don't really know all those things. And in the eighties, you
know, we didn't have the Internet, we didn't have cell phones, we
couldn't google something like what's the green slimy stuff and my refrigerator, And so
the first time listening to it, it really came through in the I really
related as far as some of the dumb choices and not knowing things. I
mean, it wasn't that dumb, and I don't mean dumb naive. I
wasn't that naive. But I understood where they were coming from, having lived
in that period of time. And I think that now I also look at
it through the same lens of my age now that how would I want someone
to judge who I was for who I am now based on those experiences?
And so now I'm thinking they didn't know any better. They just didn't know,
and they didn't have the help, and they reached out to the person
they thought could help them or that they thought should help them. And while
they were goofy and silly, and yes, I'm still going to always laugh
at half of the things they say, he wasn't a great role model.
I should say. He didn't reach back out and think, well, they're
just young and silly. He got snarky and a little mean with them.
And I think that that's kind of some of that lens we were just talking
about that I now see it through in that regard. It's also and you
know, I'm guilty of it throughout the podcast, and you know, in
some senses still to this day, of getting carried away with something and not
thinking about the bigger implications of it. Because I don't think Mark is a
bad person. I think he had some poor judgment and I think he started
off with like I'm going to make the most of the situation, and like,
at least I can laugh at this, because you know, if I
were in his shoes, I would be miserable having to deal with these I
think we all would, especially now knowing my age. I'd been like,
God, bless you. You're irritating ms snot out of me, so I
can understand his frustration. I just think that initially it was so funny,
and not that it's not funny. It is funny, but it's also that
journey of where we were versus where we are now, and I think that's
actually kind of cool that we don't necessarily see it the same that that journey
has changed us and changed them as well. What's interesting, though, is
because I was going through the old Facebook group at some of the posts for
those you know, uninitiated, it was mostly just people going on and like
writing about their own experiences as Karen and Ellen, and even back then when
I think Mark was more of a sympathetic character. For all of us,
the people we were identifying with were always Karen and Ellen. No one was
ever identifying with Mark, and unless it was like I have sympathy or I
can't imagine, but when we were relaying our own experiences, it was always
through the lens of Karen and Ellen. So regardless of the outcome or how
society has changed, I think we always did kind of relate to them more
than anyone else. They were always the heroes of the story, whether we
were cognizant of it or not. Oh, I agree, And I was
always an Ellen girl. Karen was funny, but I was always an Ellen
girl. She just was sweet, and she was again naive, and she
was trying to find her way in the world and negotiate where she fit in,
and she wasn't enigma. And I think some of that was told through
the way Sarah voiced her. Again, Like we're talking about how it sounds
different how Jeff is voicing Mark, but how she seemed less confident than Sarah
Stapleton voiced Karen. It almost sounded more timid, it sounded more sweet.
It just the way she voiced the character always had this little soft spot where
I just I just wanted to give her a hug. Just always felt like
I she was the one who I resonated the most with. She was the
young me, so to speak, even if she was doing silly things,
but she was She was the one trying to looking at the gurus and trying
to figure out the world and looking at it through a little bit of a
quirky lens and kind of not really caring what people thought about her, where
Karen cared what people thought. But Ellen was out there just being Ellen.
And I think that that's always made her so endearing. I also one letter
that really struck me differently this time was the I guess it's a few letters
the Free Firewood series. I obviously watch a lot of the Housewives, and
I notice when when one wife has been accused of doing something shitty, what
she will do is like parse the accusation in such a way that, rather
than being accountable for her behavior, she makes the other person look silly.
And the free Firewood to me, was like, it wasn't about the firewood,
it was about inequity and saying like, you know, we're here,
we're paying rent in the same way your other tenants are, and you're doing
things for them that you're not doing for us. And rather than acknowledging that,
Mark made it about the firewood itself, and it was like, No,
the firewood was always just representative of how you made them feel by not
treating them the same way you treated your other tenants and stuff like that.
I wonder, do you think the girls really felt that way? I,
knowing what I know now, I could see them feeling that way, you
know, and we'll never know. I don't think obviously, right, Yeah,
but I I could see it going either way. But I think again,
like brief spoilers, so if you don't want to know too much,
like skip ahead twenty seconds. But they did not have quote unquote fair childhoods.
I think you know, they had to hustle and struggle and they you
know, got screwed over quite a bit, and so I could see them
being hyper focused on the inequities that were around them, particularly in the eighties
in the Bay Area when there was a lot of like social economic inequity.
Yeah, now, I think you're yeah, that would track. I didn't
really consider it that way until you said that, but yeah, I do
think that would track. But I know, I think it again. I
think in the end, it's about them trying to learn about the world around
them and the best way they can with the tools they have available to them,
because again we know, maybe they weren't given a lot of those tools
and they were just chucked out into the world and now they have to figure
it out. Well, I think again spoiler, So skip ahead ten seconds.
Even looking at Ellen today, she is hyper focused on inequity. She
is like a leading heart liberal who is worried about others and wants to make
sure everyone has their fair share. So you do see this, you know,
through line of like evolution of like, yes, like she has grown,
thank God, as a person immensely, but the heart of her caring
about others and making sure everyone is treated fairly has not changed at all now.
And I think that's partially why I love herself, because she is true
to herself. Like I said, I think Karen feels like she has more
of a wall around her an I think she does have a wall around her.
But the Ellen that we knew is just herself. You know. What
you see is kind of what you get with her. And I think that
as we go through we see that and it's unchanging. Like I think I
see Karen through a different lens now, and I can, you know,
be sympathetic to or apologize for some of her behaviors because I'm like, oh,
I understand why you were the way you were, and so my opinion
of you and my viewpoint of view has changed. But my view has never
wavered with Ellen. I've always found her to be the same person that I
find her to be today. Yep, Yep, that's that's exactly how I
feel. That's just who she is. And I think some of the differences
this time around is also in your hosting, your more serious tone this time
around. It just drives the letters a little differently. It's not that it's
just slightly it's another lane. You're still driving down the highway, but now
you're in the left lane instead of the right line, which is something I
struggled with because, like for the you know, the whole point was,
I wanted new people to find these letters, and there was a larger audience
for that, and I wanted them to have the same experience we had,
and so I wanted the tone to be these are funny until they're not.
But it just was impossible to go back and tell the story the same way.
Well, because like we said, we're different now, we've evolved,
and the world, like you said, the culture, the climate is different
now. And also lightning can't really strike twice exactly the same way. So
I kind of like listening to it a little differently. I was just surprised
at how different it felt, not bad, just how much more introspective it
felt. I was really stopping myself because initially I was sort of writing notes
and oh, I remember this, and when you told me which episode,
I'm like terrifical, you know, it was my first thought. And yeah,
we do, like Charlie said, we use these words, we still
say these things. They're part of us. Literally, Karen Ellen has become
a part of who I am as a person and have shaped me. And
some of that is through silly words, some of it just through the people
we met. Some of it is through watching their journey, and like you,
I went from a listener to an investigator, a different investigator than you,
but it did alter and change now who I am and how I approach
things, all because you've found or we're given some letters. Well, I
think the response now, you know hasn't changed, but it's more knee jerk,
you know. I can hear these and laugh and then rather than like
four months down the road or you know, eight investigations down the road,
it's immediate where I'm like, Okay, these are funny, but what's the
route here? Like who am I laughing at? And is it okay?
And I'm curious to see, like what other lessons this will provide us this
time around, because I think they always teach us something different well, And
I'm also interested in what new listeners are going to take away because we didn't
know where this was going to go. We literally were on a journey blindfolded,
and we just trusted the process and we just sort of went with it.
I remember you were writing things and recording the same day some days.
That's how organic and how quickly things were happening, and how when new things
would drop, you'd be like, I can't record this, I have to
rewrite this because something new happened. And it was very different versus those who
know that we know something's going on and something is happening. If I had
knew that those things were happening, definitely it would have been a different experience.
So I'm interested to see how other people react to them from this quote
new lens that we have, but it's their original lens. And I think
that that's kind of a cool part. And as someone who does watch people
and listens to their story, worries to me, that's the interesting part of
a community is how did the community grow and evolve and how is someone who's
new to the process going to feel about it? And I think that that
would be a cool conversation to have with a brand new listeners never heard it,
you know, is what do you think? You know? Are they
feeling nostalgic like we did, Do they have the same feelings we had six
years ago? Or are they kind of feeling a little doubt? I remember
so I but it's funny. I went to go get my scripts to like
rewrite my narration and then I realized, like, I never wrote scripts.
I just was it was very organic. Yeah, but I listened to some
old episodes and I remember the disclaimer we used to have, which was like,
these will make you feel good about the stupid people in your life.
It did, it did, and it did, but it's also like I
couldn't say that now, like maybe I could to the people coming back because
they know it's tongue in cheek, But like, I don't know socially or
even personally that I could call any young woman stupid at this point in my
life, and so seeing that it was just like wild to think how we
I treated these girls before they were real people. I think it was just
an evolution for you. I don't think it was done again like connecting it
to the mark. Maybe I don't think it was mean spirited. I just
think now you've grown and learned and you see things slightly differently, and the
world has changed, because I don't When you reminded me of that disclaimer,
I'm like, yeah, I did say that, and I can hear it,
and it's like I rehear it in my you know, my brain all
over again. And at the time I never thought, oh, that sounds
terrible. Why would he call them stupid? But I don't think those of
us that were listening then felt the girls were stupid. Yeah, we thought
they were silly, We thought they didn't always make good choices. We thought
they really needed a dictionary and they needed to learn to count on their fingers
better. But I don't think we thought they were stupid. I at least
I didn't. Maybe some people did. I thought they made some stupid choices,
maybe sometimes, but I didn't look at them as stupid as much as
I did. Naive and care free, you know, they just didn't think
before they acted. They were just so young and care free that they were.
They were just putting pen to paper and writing what like what came to
your brain and just putting it down without thinking first. Well, I think
like we as a society do a really bad job of characterizing people by the
few traits we see or acknowledge. Like you can meet a complete stranger and
whatever, your initial interaction with them is how you characterize them as a whole
person. And I think what these letters have taught me is like these girls
did and said stupid things, but that does not make them stupid. Or
they did and say aggressive, demanding, privileged things, but that does not
make them aggressive or demanding. And they certainly were not privileged. And what's
interesting is the way they are painted in the letters is that they were privileged.
And you kind of have to wonder why was that choice made? And
was it to make someone feel better about themselves? Well? And that comes
up in this episode specifically because it talks about Karen's trust fund, and this
episode talks about how she has to make a choice for where she's going on
her honeymoon, but her dad. She doesn't really make a choice. Her
dad makes the choice for her because he controls that. So this early on
we are very much led to believe these are girls with silver spoons, at
least Karen. At this point, we Ellen can't afford to have the rent
on her own, so we don't. We're like, okay, but definitely
Karen has something going on. The word trust fund comes up in this We
know that she's going to get married, She's now going to go to Paris.
Your first thought is, oh, that's why she's that way, and
that sounds really shitty that we automatically jump into, Oh, she's privileged.
Oh she thinks everything should be handed to her. That's why she writes these
demanding letters. I remember that being a turning point the first time I heard
the letters. Is not oh she's necessarily naive. Yes she is, but
oh she doesn't know how to clean a refrigerator because someone's always cleaned it for
her versus she wasn't taught that because of circumstances, and I think that that's
now this if you've not listened to the letters, give me everything away.
But if you were listening to the first time, you might have that same
epiphany, Oh, she's privileged, and then later on you have a different
epiphany that really she's not. And it's like he, you know, went
out of his way to strip them of their humanity, and I think a
way that would make people feel fine with not interrogating what they were reading.
So it's like, oh, if they're spoiled, rich kids who were dumb
and demanding, like, I'm not going to give them a second thought,
and I'm certainly not going to give Mark's responses to them a second thought because
poor belieguered Mark. So it does also it gives us permission to laugh at
them. Yeah, Mark's responses and the way he painted them gives us permission
to laugh. And that is kind of really shitty, you know, And
I think that that's kind of what happens in a way. And maybe that's
why I asked specifically if Jeff had re recorded, because again, it comes
back to listening with new ears, you know, a new perspective. But
I did listen to it, like I said again several years ago, and
I didn't come across it came across snarky, but not quite as mean spirit
and as it felt over the weekend. Yeah, I wonder if it's like
because it's very clear in my narration this time around, like things are not
as they appear. And so maybe two years ago it was like you knew
how it ended, but you could suspend the truth to like sit with these
letters. And now it's like, oh no, it's getting hammered at you
constantly. That's probably very true because that's one of the things that you,
like I said, you're much more serious and you're much more open. You're
in the first a liter literation of this. Sorry, words are hard,
I write for a living. You did not quite pull the curtain back,
But then again, you didn't know what was behind the curtain. Now you
know what's behind the curtain. Some of us know what's behind the curtain.
And now you're opening that curtain a little bit to give people a peek inside.
The first time you didn't because you didn't know. But now it's different
because now you're kind of telling people that there's something different and it's funny and
that well, I think true crime, oddly enough, has a lot to
do with that, you know. I last year was that a festival,
which is a weird and I met the Mariah Day, who is the daughter
of the thing about Pam the series her victim, and we were talking about
the show and which she was not a fan of, and she said,
you know, like they stripped away my mother's humanity so that people could laugh
at the jokes. And I think that's what has happened here is like we
know, we can no longer see it for anything other than what it is.
It's like, oh, choices were made, like you said, to
dehumanize them so we could laugh at the jokes. And we're in a different
world now where we're thinking bigger picture and we're seeing these types of manipulation more
clearly. Well. And also we didn't know were they real or were they
not real? Yeah? Was this all something made up? Was it based
in truth? Was it all truth? At the time, we could suspend
disbelief. We did not know what was happening, and so we just took
them at base value. Literally, here's a letter. Read the letter,
take it for face value, move on, Read the next letter, and
I think that that's now we cannot suspend that disbelief. As you said earlier.
Now we kind of have a better idea, and I think we demand
more from comedy now, just as a culture like we you know, slapsticks
still exists and like raunchy comedies still exists, but for the most part,
like the comedies we want or are attracted to, our comedies that have more
hearts to them, like there's more there than just the laughs, a much
more intellectual as far as but let's be honest, they are still goofy things
in this circling back to episode three that are so goofy that you have to
just laugh. Vacuuming a refrigerator also, I remember it one time I tried
to count how many different ways of vacuous spell. I don't remember now,
but I do remember at one point sitting and reading and trying to figure out
how many different ways. I notice that somebody today asked on the Facebook page
about the vacuum and I said, no, they're reading it the way it
was spelled, And it was spelled different ways a lot of the time.
There was never one, just bad spelling. It's like she knew there was
an odd spelling, so she was just going to try different variations every single
time at the board. I don't know. The circuity in which she writes
always cracks me up. And that is not even like I'm laughing at her.
It's like I can know her story and appreciate her story and still just
think, like the writing style is hilarious, and that's not poking fun at
anyone. It's just funny. Well. And the way that it's read,
the way we hear it in our ears, the voice actors, the way
they again, they gave them life. And I remember sitting with you and
reading letters, which was very different than the way it was vocally portrayed.
It just completely sort of changed how you saw them and what you thought,
because when you read Mark on paper, he doesn't seem quite as he's not
a great guy all the time, but he doesn't seem so bad. Then
you listen to Jeff's portrayal of them the way he heard him in his head,
and then you're like, oh, wait a minute, it changes how
you what you think about it, And isn't that also crazy how writing something
and reading it versus hearing it out loud changes your perception as well. And
I think about that a lot as a writer. You know, I'm writing
all day long, So for me, a lot of times I read things
out loud to wonder how they would sound to someone else. I think that's
just been a life lesson. That's the joy and the challenge of podcasting is
like there is this responsibility to say things in a way that is more intentional,
Like I can't just read this, I have to read it in a
way where like you understand the perspective that I'm trying to paint here, because
it can be very easy to read or hear a sentence and see it ten
different ways to personalize it or project your own shit onto that. So I
give them credit, all four of them for the ways that they did this.
And it's funny because Jeff's performance is nuanced, but it's also very Jeff.
Like he and I in our late twenties, so more than a decade
ago, to go to this like gay bar, and we would just sit
at the bar stool and kind of like make fun of people, like,
you know, in like a fun light way, like oh my god,
those shoes and you know, stuff like that. And so I do see
a lot of Jeff in his portrayal of Mark, and I'm eager to talk
to him when he comes out for the launch party about how he feels now,
because I was on the phone with Sarah Stapleton last week and she was
saying, I hate the way that I voiced her, and I'd never heard
Yeah, I'd never heard her say that before. And she's going to come
on at some point and we'll have a chat, and I'm eager to hear
why that is, because I didn't ask at the time, and if it
is like what we know now has changed the way that she sees Karen,
or if it was, if it was something, you know, more pedantic,
like she hated the voice that she gave her, like I imagine it's
the former. But yeah, I think it'll be interesting to talk to people
and see how their opinions about their portrayals have changed over time. Well.
The other thing I think that the current new people that are finding may not
get or feel as much as the original group did is those voice actors were
many celebrities. I mean they were celebrities to us, and we when when
anybody would jump on, Sarah was always active and you got to know her,
and you know. Now we're just regular Facebook friends, and you know,
she's like you, and I'm meeting that way. I've never actually had
the privilege of meeting her face to face, but I know her story,
I know who she is, and but back then we didn't, and it
was like this little celebrity culture. As a groomy group we were. We
were very rapid group. I don't know, you have to go back and
reread some of the and I don't know if it feels that way, but
we were our own little cult almost. That's almost seems really sad to say,
but it became its own little cult more so than just a group of
friends. We followed the story, We followed the characters, We followed the
people who voiced the characters. We followed the journey. We were sluice.
We created our own, like you said, family, our own dynamic.
There were times we all got along and agreed on certain letters. There were
times we disagreed on letters. There were times we agreed just to send mail
to each other, and then times we would be mad because someone said mail
and I didn't get mail or whatever. It was this very strange dynamic that
came out from the group, and yet it all stemmed back, you know,
to you and those group of people that portrayed those people. I mean
sometimes it was more about the actual humans than it was about the letters.
Yeah, well it's I think it's like feeling like you're a part of something
both special and underground. I think that was like, you know, I
think five hundred people listened to this podcast in its first iteration, and funnily
enough, I think all of them were in the Facebook group I was gonna
say, I think most of us exactly. It was very niche, and
it was this like we have this shared secret. And I remember two years
ago, either NPR or This American Life had reached out to me and they
wanted to do an episode about the Karen and Ellen letters. And I just
thought, like, I feel like that would take a lot of what makes
the special way and that it was this like cult thing that you know,
you only knew about if you knew about it. And I just kept thinking,
like, what are the Karen and Ellen letters if hundreds of thousands of
people know about them? And it just to me didn't feel the same,
but it felt robbed of its humanity in a lot of ways. What change
that made you rerelease it now, because if that was two years ago,
now you're rereleasing it and opening it up to people, so clearly that changed
for you. Yeah, I think it's a few things. I think I
wanted to revisit these letters personally. You know, there's something strange about having
this open ended mystery for close to two decades and then all of a sudden,
it's like there's no mystery left. So I wanted to revisit that.
I also wanted to look at like how I engaged with the letters in my
own behaviors, especially with hindsight. And I also thought just culturally, were
at a really great point where we can have insightful, lovely conversations about maligned
women in a way that we weren't having six years ago. So it just
felt like the right time. Also, for as successful as I've been,
I am not NPR and so I imagine like instead of five hundred listeners will
have like two thousand. But so I don't think it'll ever be a huge
thing, and I do want to keep it small, but I do want
to be able to invite more people in and like have bigger conversations around these
letters. Yeah, crack it open just a little bit more because it is.
And I think a lot of people feel this way about podcast in general.
We listen to them for entertainment, but we also listened to them for
education, and we like following a journey. We're listening to a story,
true or not, and that has changed how we listened. I think podcasting
has changed how we absorb information, especially those that are really big into podcast
you know, I used to just be a very voracious reader. I still
read, but mostly I have my headphones in, you know, because I
can't hold a book in my hand and wash my dishes. But I can
listen to a story in my ears, whether it's an audible or whether it's
a podcast, and get my information that way. And I think that that's
kind of changed the dynamic as well. Since Karen and Ellen, who actually
wrote pen and Paper, put it in the mail and send it out,
you know, now we're doing quick text to each other. Can you imagine
what it would sound like if they were now? It would be these snarky
texts back and forth. And I thought about that, what if it was
now, what would this sound like? Because it wouldn't be these long,
weird letters it would be totally different in the communication style. It's funny.
I actually, God, I love that you said that. You know,
I think you know the story of family member of mine wrote me like pretty
shitty letter about seven years ago, and I remember reading it and thinking about
all the intention that had to go into that letter arriving to me, Like
they had to write it, probably reread, reread it, print it,
put it in an envelope, put a stamp on it, take it to
the postbox, and like there were so many steps along the way of like
should I be doing this, or like could I have thought this through differently?
Or could I have been kinder? And I think, yeah, like
text messages now, we've become so flippant and often unaccountable for the way that
we communicate with people because it's just immediate and there isn't a lot of time
to think about what we're saying or be intentional about the words we're using.
And then even when there is, it's usually we're responding to someone's response,
so it's like there is no thought anymore about how we communicate. And that
is the joy of going back now, is like all these letters were written
with intention for regardless of like how crazy they seem. It's like she really
stood by that because she wrote it down, she put it in an envelope,
she popped it in the post office box like yeah. And Mark sat
and read that letter three or four times and determined how he was going to
respond. The girls might have just picked up a pen and written, but
I feel that he had would have to just his personality. He really had
to think about what he was going to say, because he does have some
back candid remarks, you know, his letter to you know, his his
referral letter for example, which is genius to still the totally it is you're
not wrong. But he really thought about how he was going to Oh,
Karen was going to cry. It was so sweet, but then you're like,
dude, that wasn't sweet at all. He was definitely making sure other
people knew where he stood in that very passive, aggressive way that she didn't
pick up on. Well, And I think, like, you know,
no giving spoilers whatever is true or fiction or however these letters came to be.
Like Mark was the final person holding this package taking it to Kinko's,
so Mark got to edit it in whatever way he wanted it to be.
Read, whether it was by an attorney or whomever these letters were going to.
He got final say, he got final drafts. So it's always going
to skew in his favor, at least back then, because he could make
the girls look as stupid as he wanted, and he could edit his letters
as much as he wanted. And yeah, he could have rewritten them,
he could have added letters, he could have taken away letters from either one
of them. So yeah, it very much plays like in his favor for
sure. But I'm glad in some ways that some of those things he kept
or left in, so to speak. But it's also interesting what might he
have left out? Yeah, well, I think about how he doesn't respond
to many of Ellen's letters, which led to some of my favorite like conspiracy
theories about the truth behind these, And I think like, was he not
responding or was he did he decide that he did not want those letters to
be read exactly, because there's a lot of Ellen letters he does not send
an immediate response or a direct response to. Yeah, he just glosses over
like they didn't happen. He picks, he picks and shooses what he thinks
we want to read or what he wants us to read. Yeah, I'm
kind of a little sup pd that the whole George Bush letter stayed in and
a lot of me if you were going to take one out, maybe that
was the one. Yeah. So I'm going to ask you what I asked
Charlie, which is, if you are new to this, is it okay
to laugh? And I think it's okay to laugh because sometimes we have to
laugh at ourselves. When we were talking earlier. I think everybody will find
a little piece of themselves in every single character, as naive or as vile
as they may be. We are imperfect people, and I can see myself
snapping off of Mark response, and quite frankly, when I write sincerely and
something on an email, I'm not necessarily being sincere about it. And I
do hear that sincerely the way you did it, it was like drawn out,
it was, and I to me that has taken on a whole new
phrase. But I also kind of giggle. I go to write it and
I think, oh, man, come on, you know, I mean,
I'm being I'm being a pastor agressive here. But I do think it's
okay to laugh, because I think in some ways we are laughing at ourselves.
Yeah, And I do think we laugh at the nostalgia a little bit
of those of us that lived in that certain period of time. And I'm
I'm not being agist. I'm just saying that those of us who truly didn't
grow up with internet and cell phones understand what Win, like you said,
the intention and what went on back then, and it's it kind of I
don't know for me personally, it's a it's a mirror. It's a little
bit of a mirror. It's not perfect. And I can laugh at that
goofy eighteen year old that I was, and I think it's okay to laugh.
I I did still laugh, even though I looked at it and went,
dude, you know, I think I wasn't laughing, you know,
especially at Albert. I remember the first time thinking, oh, uncle Albert
talking, you know, kind of zoning out. This time, I found
myself really listening more and really hearing him. And he he is unintentionally funny.
I don't think he's written to be funny. He is very unintentionally funny
to me now. And I found myself laughing at some of those pieces that
I didn't laugh at before. It's I think it's like taking something very ridiculous
and treating it quite seriously. That makes it so funny. Oh he's so
serious. Yeah, even Mark is not doing that. You know. Mark
is, you know, just as ulous as the girls are in his behavior
towards these letters. But Uncle Albert is like, like, I'm sharing these
with people and now I'm considering alligators and allegations. And I looked it up
in the dictionary. You know, really you went through all that trouble,
and I will say to give Mark credit. And I'm just now thinking of
this. I, you know, have a fraught relationship with my mother,
who is a character all her own, and when things were like really kind
of hitting a fever pitch a writer around the time of these letters as a
blog, I started a blog just like chronicling my mother's most ridiculous stories.
And it was comedic and it made me laugh at It was also my way
of like finding the humor and levity in a toxic situation. And I would
like to give Mark the credit of like having done the same thing. And
whether that be like these girls were grating on him and he had to make
the most of it, or whether it be he was seeing something quite sad
and the only way he could cope with that was to turn it into a
comedy. Yeah. Well, and writing, as we know, as a
form of therapy sometimes, and that's I don't know, it's just even knowing
what we know to this day, I still have questions. Yeah, I
just do. I mean, I think all of us, when you get
to the end, have a few questions. We'd really like to ask each
individual person that wasn't involved. Yeah, you know, if I could.
You know, they always say, oh, if you could find the answer
to one murder case, you know, he's true crime. You know,
Look, those are not nearly as seriousness in questions I have on the other
side, as much as I love you and I listened to true crime bullshit.
You know, you know Israel case is great, but you know he's
not great. But he's not who I would pick. I would I would
be sleuthing the Karen and Ell at which I did. I was one of
those bad ones at sleuth. You would you would let a little thing slip
and not know that you gave us this teeny tiny tidbit, and we would
run with it. And we would run, I mean, we would run
miles and Miles, and I think that that was part of this journey for
you. It's been really cool to watch your journey and you asked me about
mine. But one of the things that I'm so proud of as your friend
is watching your journey. How you took what you learned from something that we
didn't know about back then, you know, our sleuthing, and how that
is now made you a better journalist. I think I learned a lot from
my mistakes in this. And again, like when this first became a podcast,
like we did not know how it was going to end. It was
barely a real investigation, so I don't think I have a really thought out
what happens if. And then by the time I had, I had given
enough information out that these people were findable and it was I couldn't put them
back in the box no, And I was like, oh, I have
like put these people into a social conversational spectrum without their permission and made them
findable. And I've made them I've done exactly what Mark did with the letters,
Like I dehumanized them in a way because I wasn't thinking about the big
picture and how this show would affect them and that they didn't sign up for
any of this, and that for sure is like what I took into true
crime bullshit when I thought about Keys's kid and his family, and it's like,
I'm not going to make that mistake again. And it'll be interesting watching
people react to how I initially treated this investigation with just like naivete and ignorance,
and how I made some very big mistakes that I'm not proud of but
have also made me better at my job. Well, I think it was
more curiosity. It wasn't even mean spirited. It was let's see if there's
any truth to this, what is the truth? And it was again just
a general curiosity. Nowadays we want the tea, right, I mean.
And wasn't it good that it was a group of five hundred? And I
will say in that group, while most of that group we're able to find,
we were also respectful enough to not blast out. I know there was
one or two things that happened, and there were a couple of people who
did want to email and reach out or try to verify some things. But
I think for a group of five hundred, statistically speaking, we were really
just curious and wanted to We just wanted to open the door and look inside.
We didn't necessarily want to go. We wanted to look in, We
didn't necessarily want to walk in their houses. And I think that that was
something that once you saw it happening, you were kind of able to reel
it back in a little bit. And because of the respect we had for
you and your story and for the girls, I mean, you know,
in Mark, I guess too. I guess we respected him. You know.
I think that there was a stand down that happened, and I think
if people were there, they know exactly what I'm talking about that it got
to a fever pitch, and it really was a fever pitch. It got
r p up, it got hard, and we did follow your lead a
little bit. Initially you were looking, so we were looking too, and
then we also took your lead when you said stand down. Stop. This
is feeling invasive, this is not good, this is kind of feeling icky
right now. And I think we all started feeling that about the same time.
That they didn't ask for this, you know, and we really didn't
need to be looking at what they were doing. I can say that you
know you know what, I know probably and I will say Honestly, since
that time, I have never gone back and looked to see where they are.
I just went, oh, okay, and I walked away. And
I feel okay about that. I feel really good about that. I mean,
there are times I think I wonder what they would be doing now that
I'm relistening. I think, oh, wonder if I could ask them or
what are you know? What's going on? But that chapter closed because it
happened already. Again, they didn't ask for it. And how weird would
it be if some random person sent me a message and said, oh,
I listened to on this one after show, I want to know about your
life. Oh god, that's weird. It is strange. Yeah, you
you you know you've set yourself off. But then again, also look at
how lovely it's been because through that process you and I have become friends and
we've made friends. It's it's blossomed into something bigger than what we thought at
the time, and we still cheer each other on. Maybe we don't talk
like we did, you know, on that original roommate group, but I
still think any one of those people, if they sent me a message,
we're bonded by something that was you know, big than just letters. And
I think it was this collective experience that I talked about in the beginning of
this conversation, where we all were on this journey together experiencing it at the
same time, and so you know, we all learned that we were laughing
at something heartbreaking together, and then I think we all became very protective of
the girls together as we learned more about what was really happening. And I
think that, like in many ways, collectively bonded us to have gone through
this experience and learned some very valuable life lessons through it together. Now I
don't regret it. It led me to where I am today, and I'm
really proud of where I am today. And I'm proud that you're my friend
and watching you grow and watching your journey. So I mean, I think
it's kind of cool, you know if you know what that means. Well,
with that, I'm going to let you go, mostly because I have
someone coming it for, but I got it. Thank you so much.
Anything else, I will thank you for your friends. I'm having to love
you all right, Bye bye. About the pick about about that you can
think about the captain. About that you can about the captain