Tavi Gevinson, former prepubescent fashion blogger and darling of the fashion world circa 2009–2010 (she started blogging at 11; her parents didn’t really know about it until she had to ask their permission to be in a New York Times Magazine article), has just started Rookie, “a new site for teenage girls.”

They’ll post three times a day: “Roughly when school ends, when dinner starts and when it’s really late and you should be writing a paper but are Facebook stalking instead.” She said in an interview with New York magazine this week, “After being in all these meetings with publishing companies and advertisers and stuff, it’s like everyone just wants to trick people into reading their website. If the content is good, people will read it—you don’t have to create some funny little ‘trying to be cutesy’ gadget or whatever to coax them.” She’s 15.

It’s pretty much the today-version of that zine your cool arty friend drew with a sharpie and xeroxed in the teacher’s lounge. Actually, Tavi’s so well-connected, this is really supposed to be the today-version of Sassy, the beloved ’90s magazine. She used to hang out with Anna Wintour; now she hangs with Ira Glass.

It’s totally adorable, and it makes me feel so old when I look at it that my bedtime is now 6:00 p.m.

14 replies on “Remember Tavi?”

  2. Reading a blog by a 15 year old sounds about as interesting as reading a blog by a mop.

    Actually a sentient mop would be really interesting.

    But teenagers aren’t even people. They’re just hormones and water in a vaguely person-shaped sack.

  9. I’m thinking Dan’s there because Ira Glass was advising Tavi on her new business venture, and Dan and Ira are friends. This is good; I’ll definitely be checking her new blog again.

  10. Look, I ran an ezine on the ‘net when I was 14 & 15 (in 1993 and 1994), and it had >100 subscribers which was a lot in those days. It went out via a mailing list server @ MIT.

    That doesn’t change the fact that as a 33 year old now a 15 year old has anything to say that is going to be new or interesting or remotely relevant to me.

    You say Tavi is super awesome, OK, so she only has one actual article on the site so far:

    http://rookiemag.com/2011/09/getting-ove…

    That is a great article *for kids in high school or freshmen college* to read. It’s not something adults should be bothering with.

    Also “fashion” is a balloon full of glitter.

  11. @10 I’m talking about her first blog, style rookie, which is what got her all this attention in the first place. She’s got, as I said, a really good eye. I look forward to her development and seeing how her aesthetic changes as she changes from a girl to a woman.
    As far as fashion being a balloon full of glitter, unless you are a nudist, you participate in fashion every single day. When you chose one t-shirt rather than another, when you go with jeans instead of cargo shorts, you are part of fashion.
    Good luck getting all that glitter out of your hair

  12. @10, I’m 42 years old, you youngster you, and I’ll read what I choose to read, whether it’s about Tavi’s developing aesthetic sense on her old blog, or Dan Savage’s stories on the new one. I occasionally work with kids and I like to know what they’re up to, plus what other writers are up to, so take your stuffy attitude and stuff it!

  13. It’s not something adults should be bothering with.

    Maybe you could save us all some time and just make a list of things adults should and shouldn’t be bothering with? Since you seem to think you actually know.

  14. @13: One assumes David’s List of Acceptable Adult Occupations and Pastimes would be limited to those thing that he himself finds compelling, and the rest of us would be banished to the howling wilderness of his disapproval where we would be doomed to battle glitter filled balloons for all eternity.

Comments are closed.