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A Day in the Life (Oct. 2025)
By Olivia Lee
On the homepage of the Paperblog Writers, we claim that it was started by two friends who had “met in middle school.” Technically, yes, I did meet Serenna in middle school. But I didn’t actually meet her until August 29th, 2025.
Let me explain. During the pandemic, one of my middle school friends had moved from Washington to Arizona. Despite the move, we still kept in touch, calling every weekend to discuss things like Alice in Chains and pre-algebra, you know, real important topics for middle schoolers. While living in Arizona, she became friends with a girl named Serenna. Inevitably, Serenna and I became mutual friends, sending the occasional “Hi how are you?” text to each other but nothing else beyond that.
Paperblog Writers founders Serenna Zingg (left) and Olivia Lee (right). (Photo by Lauren Lee).
That was until during the summer of 2022. I had done some stalking on her Spotify and she had a decently popular Big Thief playlist (with 8k saves at the time of writing). Being a Big Thief fan myself, I was curious to see if we shared similar tastes in music. I reached out and we reconnected, but this time on a deeper level, bonding over our love of Radiohead, Bob Dylan, and of course, The Beatles. The more I learned about her, the more I realized how similar we were and wished I had reached out sooner. It’s kind of incredible that sometimes your greatest friends lie in the people you expect the least.Turns out, music wasn’t the only interest we shared. Both of us were planning to pursue journalism as a career path, something we revealed to each other this year while discussing our college plans. Ecstatic, I pitched an idea to her that I had been thinking about for years: a music blog, where we could write about the music that means the most to us AND explore our local scene, connecting with the artists shaping its diversity. She was just as enthusiastic as I was about the idea. And so, with my connections to Ground Zero, I recruited her and we got to work bringing our blog vision to life. We had always hoped to meet in person, but these plans were always hypotheticals. However, our chance finally came in August 2025. Serenna was staying in Oregon for the summer and was going to be in Washington during late August, the same time Bumbershoot was happening. I suggested the obvious, why don’t we cover Bumbershoot together for our first blog piece? The planning was arduous but a 7 hour drive and several cups of espresso later, I finally got to meet her face to face.Despite it being our first time meeting, it felt like we had been friends for a lifetime. And after the success of our coverage at Bumbershoot, I knew this was the right person to start the blog with.So without further ado, welcome to the Paperblog Writers! On the blog you’ll find reviews, lists, guides, and our opinions on all sorts of musical topics — plus interviews with rising local artists to keep you in the know about what’s happening in our local music scene. Music exists at the core of our friendship, shrinking the 1500 miles between us to 0. That’s the power it has over people. It allows us to view the world through someone else’s eyes, to empathize with them, to understand their pain and their joy, no matter how far away they live. It reassures us that there are others out there who feel the same things as we do, making the world feel just a bit nicer.And that’s the whole point of the blog. We’re not professionals. We’re not demanding you take our opinions as gospel. We’re just 2 teenage girls who want to talk about the music we love and hope you come to love it too. Because after all, what’s the point of music if there’s no one to share it with?
Cheers, Olivia xx
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