Tavi Gevinson
Tavi Gevinson
Tavi Gevinsonis an American writer, magazine editor, actress, and singer. She came to public attention at the age of 12, due to her fashion blog Style Rookie. By the age of 15, she had shifted her focus to pop culture and feminist discussion. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of the online Rookie Magazine, aimed primarily at teenage girls. In both 2011 and 2012, she appeared on the Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media list. In 2014, she was named...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth21 April 1996
CityOak Park, IL
CountryUnited States of America
There's danger in glorifying negative emotions as fuel for art.
I've never really felt like a journalist. I've felt like a writer and a diarist. I have made myself vulnerable in my writing, and I think that vulnerability makes people strong. My favorite performances or works of art are always people showing that side of themselves.
I think it was my mom's attitude about art and being part of the narcissistic digital generation or whatever that made me think anyone would care what I had to say about anything!
One thing that I always liked about fashion was that it was tied in with music and art and film.
Fashion intersects a lot with art and film and music, and that was appealing to me. I read a bunch of fashion blogs and wanted to be part of the community.
If you are intimidated by the artists who came before you, understand you too have a place, right next to them.
I feel lucky in that I don't really have to go to college to study something job-specific. I just want to go to learn about what is interesting to me and learn about the classes that you don't really get to take in high school because you have to take the basics.
I understand that a lot of girls feel encouraged by what I have been able to do, but I've never felt like I'm a role model. I'm not concerned with building a great legacy or anything because I'll be dead so it won't matter.
I get kind of sad when I look at all of my magazines and think about how at one time I was much more impressed with a certain fashion editorial, or how I feel like I can't really relate to being that excited about fashion anymore. Maybe it's being jaded, but I honestly like that now, when something's really good, I feel more affected by it.
There are moments when I am really not happy with how I look, or I think it would be an easy way out to try and do the conventionally attractive thing. But part of it is that I don't have the energy to put on, like, makeup. If people want to do that, that's fine. But I've learned that it's not for me.
If the next thing I do is not necessarily filling the role of 'the future of journalism,' it'll probably be whatever is making me happiest, and that's enough for me.
I think people get excited about someone discovering something that blew their mind when they were younger. I think it makes people kind of nostalgic and happy. That's one of the really great things about the Internet, that it can bring people together in that way of just being interested in the same stuff.
If I'm extremely bored and I don't have a book with me and I'm being an obnoxious teenager, I'll read 'BuzzFeed' on my phone. But even that just leaves me feeling icky because I think for some reason my comfort zone is to just not really be in the loop about stuff like awards shows or things like that.
When you're a kid you're already trying to create your own world and organize the one in front of you, but then you get all insecure around 6th grade and don't think you have a right to share that.