Ask Me Nothing Is Back — A Letter from Asha Moné

Last year, my not-so-little cousin said something that has echoed in my mind ever since.

"Life be lifing."

If you've been a longtime reader of Ask Me Nothing — formerly AshaMone.com, and before that Streets and Runways — you know that 2025 and 2026 have been the quietest years I've had on this platform in fifteen years. Life really does be lifing. And the world, especially the arts and culture, is in a beautiful yet uncertain place.

But we're here now. So let's talk. Let's be real with each other.

Why did I step back, aside from life itself?

Money.

Why am I coming back?

Money — or should I say, a purpose bigger than money.

When I started blogging, my goal was simple: document beautiful places, spaces, and artists I discovered, and share them with the world. I was a designer with a camera, obsessed with writing, creating, and exploring. Somewhere down the line, that love for life became a job.

The world turned its back on blogs. Instagram took over. Suddenly everything changed. I became a full-time photographer and writer embedded in the fashion industry — dependent on the fashion calendar, pushed to meet deadlines for clients and publishers who cared little for art or whimsy. I felt like Tinker Bell following a system of Lost Boys, just trying to pay her rent by any means necessary. The principle I held so dear — do what makes you happy — muddied by the harness of day-to-day life and opinions I did and didn't ask for.

When you are part of a machine, storytelling matters less than deadlines. Deadlines matter as much as clicks. Creations multiplied tenfold, but the rooms you were allowed into shrank — depending on your follower count, your sex, your relationship status, your ethnicity, your race, your skin color. Can you tell I live in LA? Sorry, LA. I do love you. But the breathing room I found during my months back home in the Northeast revived something in me. The whimsy came back. The desire to create and document without worrying about who was watching — just about how I felt about my contribution to an art form I saw as increasingly overlooked.

And to be honest? I got burnt out. Fifteen years is a lot of time and energy to pour into a dream — especially when you don't have many people around you who truly understand the mission.

The world is in a strange place right now.

There's a renaissance brewing, but I'd be lying if I said the oversaturation of content, algorithms flattening everything, music coverage turning into product placement, and the influx of fashion photographers without real fashion history knowledge didn't weigh on my soul. The entertainment industry loves a layoff just as much as it loves an industry plant — and now, just as much as it loves Artificial Intelligence. We've repackaged the blog era into livestreaming, subscriptions, and paywalls. What's the fun in that?

The way we consume music has become uninspiring. Much of concert culture died with the pandemic — the camaraderie, the energy, the magic that once lived inside a live show. On top of that, there's still a lack of diversity in major lineups. As a Black woman in music and fashion, it's disheartening to see so little representation in the rooms that matter most. And fashion — what I've always loved about it is dissecting the references, analyzing the press releases, reading the fabrics and the design details. Now it feels like a mishmash of ready-to-buy pieces fighting for space in an industry dominated by fast fashion and content without context.

It was discouraging. Dream-crushing, even. What is all of this, really?

But something made me want to come back.

The Kanye show at SoFi Stadium, Night 1, put fire back into my soul that I didn't realize I had been missing. No matter the hiccups, there are moments that remind you why live music matters. Why being there, in the room, with your camera, with your eyes wide open — matters.

I always say: when everything loses its fun, you lose the vision. And honestly, it only has to make sense to you. You are the plan. You are.

Something else kept me away longer than I expected — the idea of bringing other people into this space before I was ready. When there are too many voices in the room, your vision gets quietly discarded. You start building around other people's ideas of what this should be, and somewhere in that, you lose the thread back to yourself.

I had to be selfish. And I mean that in the most loving way possible. This dream is mine. Whoever wants to be a part of it will be — because they need to be, not because of obligation or noise. That's just how that is.

It's hard to believe in yourself when everything across this country costs so much and the world feels so uncertain. But you have to. For a while, I lost that belief. Too many people in the kitchen, all convinced they were pushing me forward, when in reality they were quietly minimizing the plans I had for myself — for this website, for the overall dream of my life.

I had to come back to myself. Back to the things I love. Back to the reason I started.

So I'm back.

The intention is the same. I'm older, yes — but still that crate-digger, that art and fashion aficionado, that traveler eager to explore. Still someone who believes that media, storytelling, and documenting life are the things that make our world richer. Still someone who does this work because she loves it, not for pretense.

And I want to come back to you.

For fifteen years, this space was a place for people to live through — intimate moments from places they had never been. From the streets. From the runway. From the crowd. That girl in the front row at a show you couldn't get to. That eye at the fashion week presentation you only saw on a screen. That voice documenting the culture from the inside, not the press box.

I want to give that back. I want Ask Me Nothing to feel like an antidote to the FOMO — a reason to explore, to show up, to live your life fully and out loud. Not behind a paywall. Not filtered through an algorithm. Just real, documented, shared with love.

This is still my vision. My eye. My voice. But this time, I'm leaving the door open — for photographers, artists, writers, and creatives I admire and trust to come through and add to it. Friends along the way, not chefs in my kitchen. The perspective is still mine. The conversation just gets richer. Expect more music, more fashion, more honest cultural writing. Less noise, more soul.

If it ever stops being fun, I'll step back and reevaluate. But right now? I'm ready.

Welcome back to Ask Me Nothing — built on experiences, on life, on love. From the mind of Asha Moné and friends along the way.

This is the new era. Thank you for still being here.

— With Love, AM