Conversations with Stephanie Sabin

WARNING: This contains general spoilers about the scope of the Karen & Ellen Letters story. We talk around how the investigation ends, without giving away exact or detailed information.

Stephanie Sabin is a writer for WYDaily.com. More than that, she's a dear friend. And The Karen & Ellen Letters played a very significant role in both Stephanie's career and our friendship. Stephanie was a superfan of the podcast in its initial run; and now we're discussing it in depth, for the first time, since that initial investigation ended. We look at how the listening experience has changed, how society and culture have changed, and how these letters and their reality have changed us.

This is a Studio BOTH/AND production: www.truecrimebullshit.com / www.bothand.fyi
For an ad-free experience: www.patreon.com/studiobothand

Episode Transcript

(00:09):
This is a studio both and production. Hi everyone, I am here for
our second episode of Karen and EllenConversations, and I have a very special
guest who is a dear, dearfriend who I made through the Karen and

(00:30):
Ellen Letters. Stephanie Sabin was auber Karen and Ellen fan on the first
run of the podcast and then startedwriting for the blog and then became an
admin on the Facebook group. Andit's now just it's weird to think that

(00:50):
you have not been with me thewhole time. I know, I was
looking back, I thought, Ifeel 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 fora few reasons. First is I
think you know these letters, maybeat this point better than I do.

(01:14):
And because these letters have had kindof a profound impact on your life.
So why don't you tell me howyou came to the podcast and I guess
your journey through the Karen and EllenLetters? All right, Well, I
guess I had just come back tothe United States. We had lived overseas

(01:37):
for a year, and that's whenI really got into the podcast and started
listening to them because when I livedin Asia, trying to stay connected with
the States and being alone and notknowing anyone in Asia, I kept my
headphones on all the time. Sogot into podcast and came back to Virginia

(01:59):
where we live, and scrolling onlinelooking for something new, because honestly,
I'd listened to everything, and therewas 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 manychoices back then, and especially independent podcast.
So, like most of the OGpeople here that were in the Roomy's

(02:23):
group, I was on that podcastpage. You know, everyone was talking
about different things, and I foundthe Karen and All letters and started listening
to them. And there is stillto this day on the Roomy's page,
my very first post, and Idid find it the other day because it

(02:44):
was interesting to me, and Iremember the day so vividly. I was
listening to headphones, I was cleaninga house, I was unpacking, and
it just struck me. It wasfunny and it was organic and something really
stupid because I'm kind of clumsy andsilly, kind of ellen like, and

(03:07):
I slipped on some water with mysocks, and I remember stopping everything and
saying, that is such a Karenand Ellen thing to do. I should
tell my landlord. And I mighthave been only an episode two or three.
This may be karma that I'm inepisode three talking to you now.

(03:30):
And I stopped and I joined theFacebook 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 wasabout asking my landlord for a payback from
my wet sox on the floor,and I remember being kind of star struck

(03:53):
that you answered it like you laughedat it, and you said something to
the effect of that is the mostEllen thing, you know. You made
a comment back, and I justimmediately was accepted in that group. And
those that were the O g roomies, I guess will understand that the internet

(04:14):
and that Facebook page was very specialand 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, butif I called or sent a message to

(04:38):
one of them, we're there foreach other still to this day. And
the fact that it brought me inyou 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 getthat very much in this world. Very
very rarely do you find something that'sspecial. And then that journey when you

(05:03):
asked me about writing, because I'dbeen writing silly post essentially on the page,
and we had gotten to know eachother and build a relationship, and
I started writing the blog and thatblog reminded me how much I loved writing.
I was not a writer in thepast. I didn't have writing background.

(05:27):
I was not a journalist, andit sparked something in me. And
over lots of conversation and helping youresearch your other podcast, it led me
to love that piece and really thinkI can do this. So at our
years of age, in my fifties, I went back to college to get

(05:55):
my master's degree in journalism and nowI write for a living. And I
don't know that I would have donethat 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 whatthat Facebook group was, and it's

(06:17):
funny now six years later, youknow, I dabble in Facebook, and
you know, obviously promote the showsand chat with people who listen to them.
But Facebook has changed, and Ithink the way we all relate to
Facebook has changed. But you goback to that group and it was in

(06:39):
one of the most divisive political timesever or even social times, and yet
there are all these very different peoplewith different opinions and experiences and political views
coming together to laugh at, ofcourse, how ridiculous these letters were and
how quote unquote stupid these girls were, but also to appreciate their own stupidity.

(07:04):
You know, it was we weren'tKaren and Ellen were never the butt
of the joke, And I thinkthat's really special. Might be rob for
sure, we could all bond overthis. And you know, my journey
with the Karen and Ellen letters untilthe podcast was friends getting together to laugh

(07:24):
about these letters, and then nowall of a sudden, it was these
letters were creating friendships, which isreally beautiful. And then to see the
way that this what could have beenconsidered a very silly podcast kind of like
profoundly affected people. You know,I've seen people who listen to the show

(07:46):
who are now good friends, whohave like supported each other through debts and
the family or like financial strain oryou 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 specialand I think it's the only time I've
been able to see, like firsthandwhat podcasting can be beyond just entertainment.

(08:09):
And I think it created a familyand a culture and it's really really cool.
And I think the other great thingis none of us knew how it
was going to end, so wewere all kind of in the same position
in that we were just going onthis journey together, me as a host

(08:31):
and producer and y'all as listeners andthe actors kind of finding out new information
in real time all together and reactingin real time all together, which is
I think a very unique experience slewthing together. Yeah, for better and
worse, of course. So I'mglad you're here for this because this episode

(08:58):
in particular has some of I thinkthe most iconic letters in it. You
know, my the vacuum cleaner tome, I every time I visualize her
trying to get an upright vacuum cleanerinto a refrigerator to clean it out,
like I audibly laugh all these yearslater, I you know, the alligator

(09:22):
it just like you know, wetalked in the Last Conversations episode about how
Karen and Ellen has created a vernacularinside jokes, and I think this episode
started it. Yeah, yeah,So what were your standpoint or standouts for
this episode? Well, and Idon't know, you know, it seems

(09:43):
more serious to me now I don't. It sounds really strange. But when
I first listened, and I thinkthe last time I listened to the series,
I bet at this point it's beenclose to two and a half years,
just because I in college and nowI'm working all the time. And
I think the last time I listenedit was still light. And not that

(10:09):
it's not light and silly, butit 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 muchas I could, because I also

(10:31):
just you know, this is beforewe could afford quality, right, But
they didn't rerecord their lines though,right. No. So one of the
things that really stood out to mewas Jeff's portrayal of Mark, and it
seems so different, almost like Iwas listening to something completely different this time
around. Again, we're older,we're wiser, our lives have changed.

(10:54):
Those of us that were there arenow in the no so we understand where
this is going. But the firsttime around, I haven't note that.
The first time around, Mark wasexasperated, he was a little irritable,
funny, snarky. When I reallylistened this weekend, he's more irritable,

(11:18):
he seems more annoyed. He actuallyseems really mean, And I didn't get
that the first time around. AndI don't know if that's just my new
perception, but it felt like itwas almost a different Mark from the first
time around. And again I'm notsure if that's because I know where it

(11:39):
is, but I remember listening tothis multiple times after season two and not
feeling the same way. It's funnybecause I my experience going back, because
I haven't listened to these in probablythree or four years, and my experience
has not been dissimilar. Like Ilistened to these letters now and I think

(12:01):
of them as what they actually were, you know, particularly Ellen's and Marks.
I think Karen is kind of astatic character, even though you know,
we know what her life was andhow it translated into these letters,
but you know, knowing what weknow now and hearing Ellen's letters and when

(12:26):
Mark chooses to respond to them andwhen 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. Itis poking fun at them. Not
maybe maybe slightly mirrors, but butmostly like ha ha, you know,

(12:48):
spiritable, but poking fun at them. Yeah, kind of like he's mean,
spirited. Yeah, it's like hetook a weird situation and like made
the most of it. And nowit's like he is taking joy in making
these girls feel stupid and like youknow, in the letters sometimes they are

(13:09):
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 inJeff, and you know, Mark,
I think the same thing I wroteJeff on your my notes Mark. You
know, now that we know whatwas happening on Mark's and it just feels

(13:31):
like he was intentionally teeing these girlsup 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 wasaware of about their own personal journeys at
the time, but it just feelsincredibly unkind almost like bullying, you know,

(13:54):
especially with the letters in this episodetalking with Uncle Albert, the way
he talks about them almost it's it'svery and again that's a new perception.
Think about how the world has changedand what we now consider cyber bullying or
even bullying in letters. And itdid fill a little bit like that.

(14:16):
I know he wasn't doing it totheir face, and yet now knowing what
I know and having more wisdom anda new understanding of the world because we
all grow, just like Karen andAllen had to do a little bit.
It did. It just felt different. And I know that seems really weird
because I was so excited, notthat I'm not excited. I'm still you

(14:37):
know me, I love I'm thebiggest Karen Allen stand there is and everybody
has ever been in the group knowsthat, and you know that. But
it did feel very different this time. I went into it like just ready
for that warm, comfy blanket againto just envelope me and make me feel
those feelings, and it just suddenlyfelt a lit little different, kind of

(15:01):
a little off. Well, Ithink, you know, as a culture
uncomfortable. Yeah, we have changedas 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 kindof reframed the way we've treated and looked
at young women, particularly young womenwho found themselves in situations that were beyond

(15:28):
their maturity or experienced levels. AndI think that has like knowing the outcome,
but then also that the way weengage with women who have been maligned
has changed so much that I don'tthink this podcast or these letters could ever
be the same even if we didn'tknow what the outcome was. I just

(15:50):
think now we look through it witha lens of empathy and humility as opposed
to you know, mockery, andthat's great. And I do have this
feeling of like, I wish theseletters could be funny again, but that's
kind of the whole point, right, Like they shouldn't be funny because we're

(16:10):
laughing at someone's hardship, and theyhave been painted by Mark and by me
and by many other people who havecontributed to the various productions of these letters
to be dumber than they are sothat we can laugh at them. And
I think that's the saddest part aboutthese letters and also the greatest growth that

(16:34):
I've seen, and how we respondto them today versus six years ago.
Well, and I love the nostalgiapiece of it. I was their age
at their time. I was eighteenand 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

(16:57):
period, the nostalgia for being young, the nostalgia for getting out on your
own, the nostalgia of not knowingthe 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

(17:18):
couldn't google something like what's the greenslimy 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 thedumb choices and not knowing things. I
mean, it wasn't that dumb,and I don't mean dumb naive. I

(17:41):
wasn't that naive. But I understoodwhere they were coming from, having lived
in that period of time. AndI think that now I also look at
it through the same lens of myage now that how would I want someone
to judge who I was for whoI am now based on those experiences?

(18:04):
And so now I'm thinking they didn'tknow 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 thatthey thought should help them. And while
they were goofy and silly, andyes, I'm still going to always laugh
at half of the things they say, he wasn't a great role model.

(18:30):
I should say. He didn't reachback out and think, well, they're
just young and silly. He gotsnarky and a little mean with them.
And I think that that's kind ofsome of that lens we were just talking
about that I now see it throughin that regard. It's also and you
know, I'm guilty of it throughoutthe podcast, and you know, in

(18:52):
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 hadsome poor judgment and I think he started

(19:12):
off with like I'm going to makethe most of the situation, and like,
at least I can laugh at this, because you know, if I
were in his shoes, I wouldbe miserable having to deal with these I
think we all would, especially nowknowing my age. I'd been like,
God, bless you. You're irritatingms snot out of me, so I
can understand his frustration. I justthink that initially it was so funny,

(19:37):
and not that it's not funny.It is funny, but it's also that
journey of where we were versus wherewe are now, and I think that's
actually kind of cool that we don'tnecessarily see it the same that that journey
has changed us and changed them aswell. What's interesting, though, is
because I was going through the oldFacebook group at some of the posts for

(20:02):
those you know, uninitiated, itwas mostly just people going on and like
writing about their own experiences as Karenand Ellen, and even back then when
I think Mark was more of asympathetic character. For all of us,
the people we were identifying with werealways Karen and Ellen. No one was
ever identifying with Mark, and unlessit was like I have sympathy or I

(20:25):
can't imagine, but when we wererelaying 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 wealways did kind of relate to them more
than anyone else. They were alwaysthe heroes of the story, whether we
were cognizant of it or not.Oh, I agree, And I was

(20:47):
always an Ellen girl. Karen wasfunny, but I was always an Ellen
girl. She just was sweet,and she was again naive, and she
was trying to find her way inthe world and negotiate where she fit in,
and she wasn't enigma. And Ithink some of that was told through
the way Sarah voiced her. Again, Like we're talking about how it sounds

(21:12):
different how Jeff is voicing Mark,but how she seemed less confident than Sarah
Stapleton voiced Karen. It almost soundedmore timid, it sounded more sweet.
It just the way she voiced thecharacter always had this little soft spot where

(21:33):
I just I just wanted to giveher a hug. Just always felt like
I she was the one who Iresonated the most with. She was the
young me, so to speak,even if she was doing silly things,
but she was She was the onetrying to looking at the gurus and trying
to figure out the world and lookingat it through a little bit of a

(21:55):
quirky lens and kind of not reallycaring what people thought about her, where
Karen cared what people thought. ButEllen was out there just being Ellen.
And I think that that's always madeher so endearing. I also one letter
that really struck me differently this timewas the I guess it's a few letters

(22:19):
the Free Firewood series. I obviouslywatch a lot of the Housewives, and
I notice when when one wife hasbeen accused of doing something shitty, what
she will do is like parse theaccusation in such a way that, rather
than being accountable for her behavior,she makes the other person look silly.

(22:42):
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 wayyour other tenants are, and you're doing
things for them that you're not doingfor us. And rather than acknowledging that,
Mark made it about the firewood itself, and it was like, No,
the firewood was always just representative ofhow you made them feel by not

(23:07):
treating them the same way you treatedyour other tenants and stuff like that.
I wonder, do you think thegirls really felt that way? I,
knowing what I know now, Icould see them feeling that way, you
know, and we'll never know.I don't think obviously, right, Yeah,

(23:27):
but I I could see it goingeither way. But I think again,
like brief spoilers, so if youdon't want to know too much,
like skip ahead twenty seconds. Butthey did not have quote unquote fair childhoods.
I think you know, they hadto hustle and struggle and they you

(23:51):
know, got screwed over quite abit, and so I could see them
being hyper focused on the inequities thatwere around them, particularly in the eighties
in the Bay Area when there wasa lot of like social economic inequity.
Yeah, now, I think you'reyeah, that would track. I didn't

(24:11):
really consider it that way until yousaid that, but yeah, I do
think that would track. But Iknow, I think it again. I
think in the end, it's aboutthem trying to learn about the world around
them and the best way they canwith the tools they have available to them,
because again we know, maybe theyweren't given a lot of those tools

(24:34):
and they were just chucked out intothe world and now they have to figure
it out. Well, I thinkagain spoiler, So skip ahead ten seconds.
Even looking at Ellen today, sheis hyper focused on inequity. She
is like a leading heart liberal whois worried about others and wants to make
sure everyone has their fair share.So you do see this, you know,

(24:59):
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 istreated fairly has not changed at all now.
And I think that's partially why Ilove herself, because she is true
to herself. Like I said,I think Karen feels like she has more

(25:22):
of a wall around her an Ithink she does have a wall around her.
But the Ellen that we knew isjust herself. You know. What
you see is kind of what youget with her. And I think that
as we go through we see thatand it's unchanging. Like I think I
see Karen through a different lens now, and I can, you know,

(25:45):
be sympathetic to or apologize for someof her behaviors because I'm like, oh,
I understand why you were the wayyou were, and so my opinion
of you and my viewpoint of viewhas changed. But my view has never
wavered with Ellen. I've always foundher to be the same person that I
find her to be today. Yep, Yep, that's that's exactly how I

(26:08):
feel. That's just who she is. And I think some of the differences
this time around is also in yourhosting, your more serious tone this time
around. It just drives the lettersa little differently. It's not that it's
just slightly it's another lane. You'restill driving down the highway, but now

(26:32):
you're in the left lane instead ofthe right line, which is something I
struggled with because, like for theyou know, the whole point was,
I wanted new people to find theseletters, and there was a larger audience
for that, and I wanted themto have the same experience we had,
and so I wanted the tone tobe these are funny until they're not.
But it just was impossible to goback and tell the story the same way.

(26:57):
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 reallystrike twice exactly the same way. So
I kind of like listening to ita little differently. I was just surprised

(27:17):
at how different it felt, notbad, just how much more introspective it
felt. I was really stopping myselfbecause 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

(27:38):
say these things. They're part ofus. Literally, Karen Ellen has become
a part of who I am asa 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 isthrough watching their journey, and like you,

(28:00):
I went from a listener to aninvestigator, a different investigator than you,
but it did alter and change nowwho I am and how I approach
things, all because you've found orwe're given some letters. Well, I
think the response now, you knowhasn't changed, but it's more knee jerk,

(28:25):
you know. I can hear theseand laugh and then rather than like
four months down the road or youknow, 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 Ilaughing at? And is it okay?
And I'm curious to see, likewhat other lessons this will provide us this

(28:49):
time around, because I think theyalways teach us something different well, And
I'm also interested in what new listenersare 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 andwe just sort of went with it.
I remember you were writing things andrecording the same day some days.

(29:15):
That's how organic and how quickly thingswere 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 onand something is happening. If I had

(29:37):
knew that those things were happening,definitely it would have been a different experience.
So I'm interested to see how otherpeople react to them from this quote
new lens that we have, butit's their original lens. And I think
that that's kind of a cool part. And as someone who does watch people

(29:57):
and listens to their story, worriesto me, that's the interesting part of
a community is how did the communitygrow and evolve and how is someone who's
new to the process going to feelabout it? And I think that that
would be a cool conversation to havewith a brand new listeners never heard it,
you know, is what do youthink? You know? Are they

(30:19):
feeling nostalgic like we did, Dothey have the same feelings we had six
years ago? Or are they kindof feeling a little doubt? I remember
so I but it's funny. Iwent to go get my scripts to like
rewrite my narration and then I realized, like, I never wrote scripts.

(30:40):
I just was it was very organic. Yeah, but I listened to some
old episodes and I remember the disclaimerwe used to have, which was like,
these will make you feel good aboutthe stupid people in your life.
It did, it did, andit did, but it's also like I
couldn't say that now, like maybeI could to the people coming back because

(31:03):
they know it's tongue in cheek,But like, I don't know socially or
even personally that I could call anyyoung woman stupid at this point in my
life, and so seeing that itwas just like wild to think how we
I treated these girls before they werereal people. I think it was just

(31:26):
an evolution for you. I don'tthink it was done again like connecting it
to the mark. Maybe I don'tthink it was mean spirited. I just
think now you've grown and learned andyou see things slightly differently, and the
world has changed, because I don'tWhen you reminded me of that disclaimer,

(31:48):
I'm like, yeah, I didsay that, and I can hear it,
and it's like I rehear it inmy you know, my brain all
over again. And at the timeI never thought, oh, that sounds
terrible. Why would he call themstupid? But I don't think those of
us that were listening then felt thegirls were stupid. Yeah, we thought
they were silly, We thought theydidn't always make good choices. We thought

(32:12):
they really needed a dictionary and theyneeded to learn to count on their fingers
better. But I don't think wethought 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 lookat them as stupid as much as

(32:32):
I did. Naive and care free, you know, they just didn't think
before they acted. They were justso young and care free that they were.
They were just putting pen to paperand writing what like what came to
your brain and just putting it downwithout thinking first. Well, I think

(32:54):
like we as a society do areally 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 themis how you characterize them as a whole
person. And I think what theseletters have taught me is like these girls

(33:15):
did and said stupid things, butthat does not make them stupid. Or
they did and say aggressive, demanding, privileged things, but that does not
make them aggressive or demanding. Andthey certainly were not privileged. And what's
interesting is the way they are paintedin the letters is that they were privileged.
And you kind of have to wonderwhy was that choice made? And

(33:39):
was it to make someone feel betterabout themselves? Well? And that comes
up in this episode specifically because ittalks about Karen's trust fund, and this
episode talks about how she has tomake 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 becausehe controls that. So this early on

(34:00):
we are very much led to believethese 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. Theword trust fund comes up in this We
know that she's going to get married, She's now going to go to Paris.

(34:22):
Your first thought is, oh,that's why she's that way, and
that sounds really shitty that we automaticallyjump into, Oh, she's privileged.
Oh she thinks everything should be handedto her. That's why she writes these
demanding letters. I remember that beinga turning point the first time I heard
the letters. Is not oh she'snecessarily naive. Yes she is, but

(34:45):
oh she doesn't know how to cleana refrigerator because someone's always cleaned it for
her versus she wasn't taught that becauseof circumstances, and I think that that's
now this if you've not listened tothe letters, give me everything away.

(35:07):
But if you were listening to thefirst 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. Andit's like he, you know, went
out of his way to strip themof their humanity, and I think a
way that would make people feel finewith not interrogating what they were reading.

(35:32):
So it's like, oh, ifthey're spoiled, rich kids who were dumb
and demanding, like, I'm notgoing to give them a second thought,
and I'm certainly not going to giveMark's responses to them a second thought because
poor belieguered Mark. So it doesalso it gives us permission to laugh at
them. Yeah, Mark's responses andthe way he painted them gives us permission

(36:00):
to laugh. And that is kindof really shitty, you know, And
I think that that's kind of whathappens in a way. And maybe that's
why I asked specifically if Jeff hadre recorded, because again, it comes
back to listening with new ears,you know, a new perspective. But

(36:23):
I did listen to it, likeI said again several years ago, and
I didn't come across it came acrosssnarky, 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 narrationthis time around, like things are not
as they appear. And so maybetwo years ago it was like you knew

(36:44):
how it ended, but you couldsuspend 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 becausethat's one of the things that you,
like I said, you're much moreserious and you're much more open. You're
in the first a liter literation ofthis. Sorry, words are hard,

(37:05):
I write for a living. Youdid not quite pull the curtain back,
But then again, you didn't knowwhat was behind the curtain. Now you
know what's behind the curtain. Someof us know what's behind the curtain.
And now you're opening that curtain alittle bit to give people a peek inside.

(37:27):
The first time you didn't because youdidn't know. But now it's different
because now you're kind of telling peoplethat 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,

(37:50):
which is a weird and I metthe Mariah Day, who is the daughter
of the thing about Pam the seriesher victim, and we were talking about
the show and which she was nota fan of, and she said,
you know, like they stripped awaymy mother's humanity so that people could laugh

(38:12):
at the jokes. And I thinkthat's what has happened here is like we
know, we can no longer seeit for anything other than what it is.
It's like, oh, choices weremade, like you said, to
dehumanize them so we could laugh atthe jokes. And we're in a different
world now where we're thinking bigger pictureand we're seeing these types of manipulation more

(38:36):
clearly. Well. And also wedidn't know were they real or were they
not real? Yeah? Was thisall something made up? Was it based
in truth? Was it all truth? At the time, we could suspend
disbelief. We did not know whatwas happening, and so we just took

(38:58):
them at base value. Literally,here's a letter. Read the letter,
take it for face value, moveon, Read the next letter, and
I think that that's now we cannotsuspend that disbelief. As you said earlier.
Now we kind of have a betteridea, and I think we demand
more from comedy now, just asa culture like we you know, slapsticks

(39:20):
still exists and like raunchy comedies stillexists, but for the most part,
like the comedies we want or areattracted to, our comedies that have more
hearts to them, like there's morethere than just the laughs, a much
more intellectual as far as but let'sbe honest, they are still goofy things
in this circling back to episode threethat are so goofy that you have to

(39:47):
just laugh. Vacuuming a refrigerator also, I remember it one time I tried
to count how many different ways ofvacuous spell. I don't remember now,
but I do remember at one pointsitting and reading and trying to figure out
how many different ways. I noticethat somebody today asked on the Facebook page

(40:13):
about the vacuum and I said,no, they're reading it the way it
was spelled, And it was spelleddifferent ways a lot of the time.
There was never one, just badspelling. It's like she knew there was
an odd spelling, so she wasjust going to try different variations every single
time at the board. I don'tknow. The circuity in which she writes

(40:42):
always cracks me up. And thatis not even like I'm laughing at her.
It's like I can know her storyand appreciate her story and still just
think, like the writing style ishilarious, 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 ourears, the voice actors, the way

(41:05):
they again, they gave them life. And I remember sitting with you and
reading letters, which was very differentthan the way it was vocally portrayed.
It just completely sort of changed howyou saw them and what you thought,

(41:28):
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 themthe 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

(41:53):
and reading it versus hearing it outloud changes your perception as well. And
I think about that a lot asa 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 wouldsound to someone else. I think that's

(42:15):
just been a life lesson. That'sthe joy and the challenge of podcasting is
like there is this responsibility to saythings 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 perspectivethat I'm trying to paint here, because

(42:36):
it can be very easy to reador hear a sentence and see it ten
different ways to personalize it or projectyour own shit onto that. So I
give them credit, all four ofthem for the ways that they did this.
And it's funny because Jeff's performance isnuanced, but it's also very Jeff.
Like he and I in our latetwenties, so more than a decade

(42:59):
ago, to go to this likegay bar, and we would just sit
at the bar stool and kind oflike make fun of people, like,
you know, in like a funlight way, like oh my god,
those shoes and you know, stufflike that. And so I do see
a lot of Jeff in his portrayalof Mark, and I'm eager to talk
to him when he comes out forthe launch party about how he feels now,

(43:22):
because I was on the phone withSarah Stapleton last week and she was
saying, I hate the way thatI voiced her, and I'd never heard
Yeah, I'd never heard her saythat before. And she's going to come
on at some point and we'll havea chat, and I'm eager to hear
why that is, because I didn'task at the time, and if it

(43:42):
is like what we know now haschanged the way that she sees Karen,
or if it was, if itwas something, you know, more pedantic,
like she hated the voice that shegave her, like I imagine it's
the former. But yeah, Ithink it'll be interesting to talk to people
and see how their opinions about theirportrayals have changed over time. Well.

(44:07):
The other thing I think that thecurrent new people that are finding may not
get or feel as much as theoriginal group did is those voice actors were
many celebrities. I mean they werecelebrities to us, and we when when

(44:28):
anybody would jump on, Sarah wasalways active and you got to know her,
and you know. Now we're justregular Facebook friends, and you know,
she's like you, and I'm meetingthat way. I've never actually had
the privilege of meeting her face toface, but I know her story,
I know who she is, andbut back then we didn't, and it

(44:49):
was like this little celebrity culture.As a groomy group we were. We
were very rapid group. I don'tknow, you have to go back and
reread some of the and I don'tknow if it feels that way, but
we were our own little cult almost. That's almost seems really sad to say,

(45:09):
but it became its own little cultmore so than just a group of
friends. We followed the story,We followed the characters, We followed the
people who voiced the characters. Wefollowed the journey. We were sluice.
We created our own, like yousaid, family, our own dynamic.
There were times we all got alongand agreed on certain letters. There were

(45:31):
times we disagreed on letters. Therewere times we agreed just to send mail
to each other, and then timeswe 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, andyet it all stemmed back, you know,

(45:54):
to you and those group of peoplethat portrayed those people. I mean
sometimes it was more about the actualhumans than it was about the letters.
Yeah, well it's I think it'slike feeling like you're a part of something
both special and underground. I thinkthat was like, you know, I

(46:19):
think five hundred people listened to thispodcast in its first iteration, and funnily
enough, I think all of themwere in the Facebook group I was gonna
say, I think most of usexactly. It was very niche, and
it was this like we have thisshared secret. And I remember two years
ago, either NPR or This AmericanLife had reached out to me and they
wanted to do an episode about theKaren and Ellen letters. And I just

(46:45):
thought, like, I feel likethat would take a lot of what makes
the special way and that it wasthis like cult thing that you know,
you only knew about if you knewabout it. And I just kept thinking,
like, what are the Karen andEllen letters if hundreds of thousands of

(47:05):
people know about them? And itjust to me didn't feel the same,
but it felt robbed of its humanityin 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 itup to people, so clearly that changed
for you. Yeah, I thinkit's a few things. I think I

(47:28):
wanted to revisit these letters personally.You know, there's something strange about having
this open ended mystery for close totwo 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 likehow I engaged with the letters in my

(47:51):
own behaviors, especially with hindsight.And I also thought just culturally, were
at a really great point where wecan have insightful, lovely conversations about maligned
women in a way that we weren'thaving six years ago. So it just
felt like the right time. Also, for as successful as I've been,

(48:12):
I am not NPR and so Iimagine like instead of five hundred listeners will
have like two thousand. But soI don't think it'll ever be a huge
thing, and I do want tokeep it small, but I do want
to be able to invite more peoplein and like have bigger conversations around these
letters. Yeah, crack it openjust a little bit more because it is.

(48:35):
And I think a lot of peoplefeel this way about podcast in general.
We listen to them for entertainment,but we also listened to them for
education, and we like following ajourney. We're listening to a story,
true or not, and that haschanged how we listened. I think podcasting

(48:55):
has changed how we absorb information,especially those that are really big into podcast
you know, I used to justbe a very voracious reader. I still
read, but mostly I have myheadphones in, you know, because I
can't hold a book in my handand wash my dishes. But I can

(49:17):
listen to a story in my ears, whether it's an audible or whether it's
a podcast, and get my informationthat 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 itin the mail and send it out,
you know, now we're doing quicktext to each other. Can you imagine

(49:40):
what it would sound like if theywere now? It would be these snarky
texts back and forth. And Ithought 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 differentin the communication style. It's funny.

(50:00):
I actually, God, I lovethat you said that. You know,
I think you know the story offamily 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 gointo that letter arriving to me, Like
they had to write it, probablyreread, reread it, print it,

(50:21):
put it in an envelope, puta stamp on it, take it to
the postbox, and like there wereso many steps along the way of like
should I be doing this, orlike could I have thought this through differently?
Or could I have been kinder?And I think, yeah, like
text messages now, we've become soflippant and often unaccountable for the way that
we communicate with people because it's justimmediate and there isn't a lot of time

(50:44):
to think about what we're saying orbe 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 thoughtanymore 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 howcrazy they seem. It's like she really

(51:07):
stood by that because she wrote itdown, she put it in an envelope,
she popped it in the post officebox like yeah. And Mark sat
and read that letter three or fourtimes and determined how he was going to
respond. The girls might have justpicked up a pen and written, but
I feel that he had would haveto just his personality. He really had

(51:29):
to think about what he was goingto say, because he does have some
back candid remarks, you know,his letter to you know, his his
referral letter for example, which isgenius to still the totally it is you're

(51:50):
not wrong. But he really thoughtabout how he was going to Oh,
Karen was going to cry. Itwas 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 thatvery passive, aggressive way that she didn't
pick up on. Well, AndI think, like, you know,

(52:13):
no giving spoilers whatever is true orfiction or however these letters came to be.
Like Mark was the final person holdingthis package taking it to Kinko's,
so Mark got to edit it inwhatever way he wanted it to be.
Read, whether it was by anattorney or whomever these letters were going to.

(52:35):
He got final say, he gotfinal drafts. So it's always going
to skew in his favor, atleast back then, because he could make
the girls look as stupid as hewanted, and he could edit his letters
as much as he wanted. Andyeah, he could have rewritten them,
he could have added letters, hecould have taken away letters from either one
of them. So yeah, itvery much plays like in his favor for

(53:00):
sure. But I'm glad in someways 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, whichled to some of my favorite like conspiracy

(53:23):
theories about the truth behind these,And I think like, was he not
responding or was he did he decidethat he did not want those letters to
be read exactly, because there's alot of Ellen letters he does not send
an immediate response or a direct responseto. Yeah, he just glosses over

(53:45):
like they didn't happen. He picks, he picks and shooses what he thinks
we want to read or what hewants us to read. Yeah, I'm
kind of a little sup pd thatthe whole George Bush letter stayed in and
a lot of me if you weregoing to take one out, maybe that

(54:07):
was the one. Yeah. SoI'm going to ask you what I asked
Charlie, which is, if youare new to this, is it okay
to laugh? And I think it'sokay to laugh because sometimes we have to

(54:27):
laugh at ourselves. When we weretalking earlier. I think everybody will find
a little piece of themselves in everysingle character, as naive or as vile
as they may be. We areimperfect people, and I can see myself
snapping off of Mark response, andquite frankly, when I write sincerely and

(54:51):
something on an email, I'm notnecessarily being sincere about it. And I
do hear that sincerely the way youdid it, it was like drawn out,
it was, and I to methat has taken on a whole new
phrase. But I also kind ofgiggle. I go to write it and
I think, oh, man,come on, you know, I mean,

(55:12):
I'm being I'm being a pastor agressivehere. But I do think it's
okay to laugh, because I thinkin some ways we are laughing at ourselves.
Yeah, And I do think welaugh at the nostalgia a little bit
of those of us that lived inthat certain period of time. And I'm
I'm not being agist. I'm justsaying that those of us who truly didn't

(55:34):
grow up with internet and cell phonesunderstand what Win, like you said,
the intention and what went on backthen, and it's it kind of I
don't know for me personally, it'sa it's a mirror. It's a little
bit of a mirror. It's notperfect. And I can laugh at that

(55:54):
goofy eighteen year old that I was, and I think it's okay to laugh.
I I did still laugh, eventhough I looked at it and went,
dude, you know, I thinkI wasn't laughing, you know,
especially at Albert. I remember thefirst time thinking, oh, uncle Albert
talking, you know, kind ofzoning out. This time, I found

(56:16):
myself really listening more and really hearinghim. And he he is unintentionally funny.
I don't think he's written to befunny. He is very unintentionally funny
to me now. And I foundmyself laughing at some of those pieces that

(56:42):
I didn't laugh at before. It'sI think it's like taking something very ridiculous
and treating it quite seriously. Thatmakes it so funny. Oh he's so
serious. Yeah, even Mark isnot doing that. You know. Mark
is, you know, just asulous as the girls are in his behavior
towards these letters. But Uncle Albertis like, like, I'm sharing these

(57:06):
with people and now I'm considering alligatorsand allegations. And I looked it up
in the dictionary. You know,really you went through all that trouble,
and I will say to give Markcredit. 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

(57:30):
of hitting a fever pitch a writeraround the time of these letters as a
blog, I started a blog justlike chronicling my mother's most ridiculous stories.
And it was comedic and it mademe laugh at It was also my way
of like finding the humor and levityin a toxic situation. And I would

(57:54):
like to give Mark the credit oflike having done the same thing. And
whether that be like these girls weregrating on him and he had to make
the most of it, or whetherit be he was seeing something quite sad
and the only way he could copewith that was to turn it into a
comedy. Yeah. Well, andwriting, as we know, as a

(58:19):
form of therapy sometimes, and that'sI don't know, it's just even knowing
what we know to this day,I still have questions. Yeah, I
just do. I mean, Ithink all of us, when you get
to the end, have a fewquestions. We'd really like to ask each
individual person that wasn't involved. Yeah, you know, if I could.

(58:43):
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 asseriousness in questions I have on the other
side, as much as I loveyou and I listened to true crime bullshit.
You know, you know Israel caseis great, but you know he's

(59:04):
not great. But he's not whoI would pick. I would I would
be sleuthing the Karen and Ell atwhich I did. I was one of
those bad ones at sleuth. Youwould you would let a little thing slip
and not know that you gave usthis teeny tiny tidbit, and we would
run with it. And we wouldrun, I mean, we would run

(59:28):
miles and Miles, and I thinkthat that was part of this journey for
you. It's been really cool towatch your journey and you asked me about
mine. But one of the thingsthat I'm so proud of as your friend
is watching your journey. How youtook what you learned from something that we

(59:51):
didn't know about back then, youknow, 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 itwas going to end. It was
barely a real investigation, so Idon't think I have a really thought out

(01:00:15):
what happens if. And then bythe time I had, I had given
enough information out that these people werefindable and it was I couldn't put them
back in the box no, AndI was like, oh, I have
like put these people into a socialconversational spectrum without their permission and made them

(01:00:44):
findable. And I've made them I'vedone exactly what Mark did with the letters,
Like I dehumanized them in a waybecause I wasn't thinking about the big
picture and how this show would affectthem and that they didn't sign up for
any of this, and that forsure is like what I took into true
crime bullshit when I thought about Keys'skid and his family, and it's like,

(01:01:07):
I'm not going to make that mistakeagain. And it'll be interesting watching
people react to how I initially treatedthis investigation with just like naivete and ignorance,
and how I made some very bigmistakes that I'm not proud of but
have also made me better at myjob. Well, I think it was

(01:01:28):
more curiosity. It wasn't even meanspirited. It was let's see if there's
any truth to this, what isthe truth? And it was again just
a general curiosity. Nowadays we wantthe tea, right, I mean.
And wasn't it good that it wasa group of five hundred? And I
will say in that group, whilemost of that group we're able to find,

(01:01:57):
we were also respectful enough to notblast 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 outor try to verify some things. But
I think for a group of fivehundred, statistically speaking, we were really

(01:02:19):
just curious and wanted to We justwanted 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 theirhouses. 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 thegirls, I mean, you know,

(01:02:43):
in Mark, I guess too.I guess we respected him. You know.
I think that there was a standdown that happened, and I think
if people were there, they knowexactly what I'm talking about that it got
to a fever pitch, and itreally was a fever pitch. It got
r p up, it got hard, and we did follow your lead a

(01:03:04):
little bit. Initially you were looking, so we were looking too, and
then we also took your lead whenyou said stand down. Stop. This
is feeling invasive, this is notgood, this is kind of feeling icky
right now. And I think weall started feeling that about the same time.
That they didn't ask for this,you know, and we really didn't

(01:03:28):
need to be looking at what theywere doing. I can say that you
know you know what, I knowprobably and I will say Honestly, since
that time, I have never goneback and looked to see where they are.
I just went, oh, okay, and I walked away. And

(01:03:49):
I feel okay about that. Ifeel really good about that. I mean,
there are times I think I wonderwhat 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 goingon? But that chapter closed because it
happened already. Again, they didn'task for it. And how weird would

(01:04:10):
it be if some random person sentme a message and said, oh,
I listened to on this one aftershow, 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

(01:04:30):
how lovely it's been because through thatprocess you and I have become friends and
we've made friends. It's it's blossomedinto something bigger than what we thought at
the time, and we still cheereach 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,

(01:04:56):
we're bonded by something that was youknow, big than just letters. And
I think it was this collective experiencethat I talked about in the beginning of
this conversation, where we all wereon 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 thenI think we all became very protective of

(01:05:20):
the girls together as we learned moreabout 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 valuablelife lessons through it together. Now I
don't regret it. It led meto where I am today, and I'm
really proud of where I am today. And I'm proud that you're my friend

(01:05:43):
and watching you grow and watching yourjourney. So I mean, I think
it's kind of cool, you knowif you know what that means. Well,
with that, I'm going to letyou go, mostly because I have
someone coming it for, but Igot it. Thank you so much.
Anything else, I will thank youfor your friends. I'm having to love
you all right, Bye bye.About the pick about about that you can

(01:07:06):
think about the captain. About thatyou can about the captain