Ethan Abides

Sunday, July 17th was Sasha’s (SilenceHippie’s) 30th birthday. I told her in the livestream that her 30s were her reward for surviving her 20s, which is a saying I came up with when I was her age, seventeen years ago. She saw it, and totally dug it, read it out loud to the stream, texted it right then to her boyfriend and other people she knew, and posted it on her Instagram, 57.9k followers. And didn’t give me any credit. Of course I’m kidding. 🙂 I’m tickled pink that something I wrote was that well-received.

So technically, I said it to the chat in addition to saying it to her. I think there were about 150 people on the stream at that point. Then she tells it to family and friends, and she says it to 57,900 Instagram followers, and sha-blam. I’m gonna live forever. Not in name. But my words will persist. I take no small satisfaction in this.

While I’ve got you here, let me tell you more about Sasha, now that you know how old she is. I’ve been wanting to write about her for years, but I was keeping my herbal pursuits on the down low. Sasha, as mentioned, is SilencedHippie, one of the old-school WeedTubers, that is, YouTubers who feature cannabis content. That’s the fancy way of saying it. The unfancy way of saying it is, they film themselves smoking weed and post it on YouTube. Non-stoners might wonder what the appeal is there, but as a stoner I can tell you that we are starved for representation. Or at least I was at the time. Seeing media of people actually smoking weed (not movie smoking, the real fucking thing) was electrifying the first few times. Then it just became comforting. People who are attractive and/or engaging can garner subscribers who want to watch them smoke and be stoned. Subscribing to a WeedTuber’s channel is a little like having a smoking buddy. That’s how it started. The WeedTube scene has morphed, shifted, and matured over the years. Sasha is a “cannabis influencer” now.

However, Sasha has recently sorta shifted her YouTube focus to a different channel, one that can be monetized. This means it will not have weedy content. This is the SashaLee channel. It’s still finding its legs. Mostly it’s been gardening content, which is good, I’ve really enjoyed it. But a lot of her audience is particularly drawn to the weedy content. So they are gonna take some winning over. Personally, I’ve already been won over. Weed was what drew me to Sasha’s channel in the beginning, but I’ve stayed because of Sasha. You see, to me, Sasha is like serotonin in cannabis influencer form. Her content is universally peaceful, calming, and full of love.

The old videos where she does bong rips and talks about her life and hangs out and stuff are all still at the SilencedHippie channel. New content in this vein has moved to Twitch, a livestreaming platform. That kind of “hang out and smoke” content is a perfect fit for Twitch. And there’s a whole community of people who do weedy streams. On Twitch, Sasha is SashaHippie.

I’ve been regularly looking in on the Twitch streams since April. The first time I went on, there was a giveaway. I entered on a lark, and I won! Thus guaranteeing that I would seek to win another. I haven’t yet. There have been a few. Perhaps someday. I did come in 9th place on one recently, but that’s the closest I’ve gotten.

I never thought I would say this, but the best SilencedHippie experience is on Twitch these days. I resisted going to Twitch from YouTube; I no longer remember why. Twitch is so much better than YouTube for this content, and Sasha streams six days a week. On YouTube, you’re lucky to get one video a week, that’s maybe 10-15 minutes long. Sasha’s usually on for at least an hour when she streams. An hour of calm, peace, serenity, and quiet joy.

Happy birthday, Sasha. I find your content to be therapeutic, and over the years you’ve helped me get through a lot, so thanks. You make people’s lives better.