You guys. We did it.
Tonight on The Daily Whatever Show we hosted GenX icon Jane Pratt —of Sassy, Jane, xoJane, and now Another Jane Pratt Thing. The woman whose magazines told a generation of weirdos, queer kids, music nerds, and isolated red-state teenagers that they were not, in fact, alone. That Jane Pratt.
I shot my shot months ago—I sent her an invitation to the show, expecting the void—and to my astonishment, she wrote right back. We then proceeded to play email tag for months while I was just amazed I had Jane Pratt’s email address. But I persisted. Tonight we finally did it, and I’m still a little spun.
Getting to meet a hero is rare. Getting to thank a hero is rarer. Tonight we got both.
What unfolded over the next hour was part oral history, part reunion, part love letter to the weird girls, outsider kids, queer teens, music obsessives, and future writers who found themselves inside the pages of Sassy and Jane when almost nothing else reflected them back accurately.
Lawrence told a story about secretly reading Sassy as a closeted teenager because it was one of the first places he’d ever seen gay kids portrayed as just… normal people. Jane got emotional hearing what that meant to him. Honestly, a lot of us did.
Then the stories just kept coming.
Stephanie Drury talked about hiding copies of Sassy from her evangelical parents because the magazine became a lifeline while she was growing up depressed inside purity-culture America. LizRiley talked about how an R.E.M. story in Sassy changed the trajectory of her life and ultimately helped spark Three Imaginary Girls (the indie-pop music website we launched in 2002). I talked about reading Jane in my twenties and realizing, for the first time, that weird women with voices and opinions could build culture instead of just consuming it.
And through all of it, Jane kept returning to the same core idea: she wanted people to feel less alone than she had at fifteen. That was the mission. Everything else came from there.
Then—because we all love some serious tea 🫖—Jane casually mentioned she dated Michael Stipe for many, many, many years. WHOA NOW WHAT??! The chat broke. We hosts visibly recalibrated entire Gen X childhoods in real time. Lawrence: y'all kept that secret? That's cool. (Yes she did. For years.)
It was funny, emotional, deeply GenX, and one of my favorite conversations we’ve had on The Daily Whatever Show.
Not because it was nostalgic.
But because it reminded us all that being seen at the right moment can change the course of a life. And changing the course of a generation of lives? Why, that can move the world.
We’re all living proof of it.
And while we have you here—go order a retro Sassy t-shirt! Proceeds go to Planned Parenthood, so you’re not just rocking your Sassy boobs. You’re helping to support a cause that’s more vital today than ever.
We adore you, Jane Pratt.
You’re welcome on The Daily Whatever Show always and forever.
xoDana
xoLawrence
Thank you Jason Odell, Amy Gabrielle, Dr. Amber Hull, Cat: Poli-Psych, Liz LaPoint, Dana VonAllmen, Dana Walker Inskeep, and many others for tuning in. Special thanks to Karen Marie Shelton and Yanni Hamburger for being such amazing moderators—especially when the chat pops off as hard as it did last night.
We love you all, mean it!
