Articles.
Fandoms, Tech, and the Internet Mess We Love.
These articles dive into everything from wild online fandoms to the drama of tech culture and sports obsessions. Whether it’s about fans building and tearing down internet empires, finding safe spaces online, or just geeking out over something you love, there’s a lot of good stuff to unpack about how we connect and clash in the digital world.
Browse articles.
Embracing the Meme
Conversation with Gemma Gracewood (editor-in-chief at Letterboxd) about fans, merch, cosplay, conventions, and the power of audience, June 2021
Fans Built Her an Internet Empire. Now They’re Tearing It Down
Former fans of Colleen Ballinger talk to Rolling Stone, June 2023
Public Passions / Private Spaces
Reflects on the spaces we inhabit online, and how to create safe communities in the midst of the internet hellscape, Pantograph Punch, February 2023
Killing our darlings
A fandom expert on why we urgently need to get to grips with the hate engine, Letterboxd, September 2022
Puck this year
How 2020 turned a sports hater into an ice hockey superfan - The Spinoff, October 2020
I made partner at 32. By 40 I’d left the law behind
Auckland University Law Review Alumni Dinner - The Spinoff, September 2018
Business is Boring
What the tech sector can learn from pop culture - December 2017
Harry Styles and the uninhibited joy of being a fan
Internet fandom, groupchats, and the joy of being all in - The Spinoff, October 2017
Kicked in the shins
How to stop tech's toxic bro culture - A Women's Thing, August 2017
The Google Manifestbro
How some things aren't up for 'debate' - The Spinoff, August 2017
What we love matters
A unifying cultural theory to fix tech's diversity problem - The Spinoff, July 2017
Cold toast and indecipherable notes
On working remotely and the myth of productivity - The Human in the Machine, July 2017
Why the tech industry needs to fix its gender problem
New Zealand Herald, May 2017
Rei Kawakubo is my Harry Styles
The importance of fandom - Teen Vogue, May 2017
Eat Sleep Work Repeat
Fresh thinking on diversity issues - April 2017
Absolutely, delete Uber. Then go to work and start changing things there
On Uber, hashtag activism, and real change - The Spinoff, February 2017
Going from start-up to stay-up
The startup landscape in New Zealand - The Wireless, May 2014
NZX or NZ8? The startup money scramble
Raising capital - National Business Review, September 2013
Avoid common startup mistakes
Legal issues for startups - National Business Review, September 2012
Endorsements.
Sacha was the very first person whose work I read that made me feel understood as a fangirl. It was like – yes! I spent a lot of my time reading fan fiction, building online communities and learning how to Photoshop, but actually, these were valuable skills and ones that have led me to build a successful business! I’m incredibly lucky that Sacha now writes for Shit You Should Care About (as our number one Harry Styles correspondent, among other things), and our audience simply adores her.”
– Lucy Blakiston, founder of Shit You Should Care About and author of Make It Make Sense.