As a poster child for Gen X, I’m finding that as I age, I’m largely still enmeshed in the culture I grew up with. That said, I never wanna become that guy we all went to high school with, who is still stuck in a bygone cultural context, listening to the same classic rock fare, and opining about how everything was better back when. For instance, I’m always looking for new music, new films, and a new cultural language. But I’ll be honest, it’s getting harder. Twenty years married, with three kids, I don’t get out as regularly as I once did, and when I do, I’m usually touring, or working in some capacity. It’s a natural continuum, I think, aging out of a culture, but damnit, I’m gonna go down fighting!
With these thoughts in mind, this week’s Fresh Face in Hell, Kim Hunt, is our youngest guest to date. Kim is an online “influencer,” which, if I’m being honest, is a cultural construct I’m still not terrible comfortable with. But with hundreds of thousands of IG followers, Kim’s influence cannot be denied. Her IG handle is @SlaytheGOP, which as the moniker suggests, is a political platform with a decidedly left of center ethos. Kim makes her living debunking conservative (particularly MAGA) talking points, rebutting the popular right-wing memes and reels that run rampant on the interwebs. She’s smart, thoughtful, and unlike some of her fellow young, progressive influencers, not too smug, or condescending, which I think is paramount when we talk about putting the brakes on the culture wars. What really impresses me about Kim is her childhood story, which is a harrowing tale void of many of the entitlements so many Americans take for granted. Thus, Kim’s ideological soapbox feels earned, and her determination to identify and rebut conservative hypocrisy a natural extension of her experience. As usual, you can bet I’ll ask her some dumb questions, but hopefully that will yield some illuminating answers.
Xoxo,
Johnny
