Remembering Rookie: A Collage of 2010s Girlhood
we were teenage girls together
I would choose to be reborn just to be a teenage girl again and finally dare to submit to Rookie Mag. Logging on to read Rookie was many an alt-angsty-teenage girls after-school ritual. Rookie was truly the first of its kind, a digital platform created by and for teenagers. Online communities seemed so much more intimate during Rookie’s heyday than they do today. The teenagers who read and wrote for Rookie all had a few things in common; the perception of an unsatisfying reality (which shifted with the help of Rookie and other internet forums like Tumblr), questions no one in their world could answer (or who they were comfortable asking), and a penchant for messiness (universal teenage trait). I’m not sure why I’m thinking about Rookie this week, maybe I’m struggling to be present. I look to the past and the future often and have heard it’s better to exist in the now. But how can one be present when you need to revisit the past to learn from it, so you don’t make the same mistakes now or in the future? I’ll leave that thread of thought for my poetry, but in connection to this post, sometimes all a girl writer wants to do is remember her muses fondly.
Scrolling through the Rookie archive site feels like opening a box of old keepsakes. Whoever you were at the time is still in there somewhere, is still in you fluttering around at the act of being revisited. I hope Rookie’s archive never disappears the way Man Repeller’s recently did. Ask any writer why they chose to write, and they’ll probably say they loved magazines as a kid, which is true for generations of writers, but for writers my age, Tumblr and Rookie made us feel like our writing could be an extension of ourselves and that whatever adult version of us we imagined in the future, would write with the same spirit we wrote and observed with then. It wasn’t just for writers though, it was for teenagers who had something to say, welcoming of any medium. Stylists, filmmakers, makeup artists, musicians, actors, painters, and photographers were all welcomed at Rookie.
I was bummed when high school wasn’t the under-the-bleacher romance, girls gossiping in the bathroom, slumber party fantasy the movies had made it out to be. Rookie was real and fantastic in that way, in that it made all the ugly look dreamy and ethereal too. The visual style of Rookie was inspired by the 90s DIY, which was manipulated and reimagined by Petra Collins into the feminine dream state we remember it for, and has served as a basis for the nostalgia-based aesthetics we still draw inspiration from today. Rookie was the perfect representation of the first truly digital teenager who was nostalgic for analog aesthetics. We all wanted to be captured on film and to later post that photo on Instagram. If no one around us seemed to be interested in the same things, we turned to our internet besties to make each other feel less alone.
Should any teenagers find themselves here, curious to learn about the niche interests of those who came before them, I’ll give you a bit of background on Rookie Mag:
Teen Girl in an Adult World: Tavi Gevinson
Let’s get into the phenomenon that is Tavi Gevinson. She’s not the first child/tween to step into and dominate an adult industry (think Amanda Steele or James Charles (???) idk I don’t have many other examples but they exist!), but the birth of Style Rookie and Rookie Mag was perfectly timed to revolutionize teenage media. Gevinson, born on April 21, 1996, in Chicago, gained recognition for her fashion blog, Style Rookie, which she launched at just twelve years old. It was 2008, the golden age of the girl blog and her writing style and personal style read mature and informed, while still child-like (something adults tend to lose touch with).
As the popularity of her blog grew (gaining over 30,000 visits a day), her writing on fashion trends led to interview requests by major publications like the New York Times and invitations to exclusive fashion events like New York and Paris Fashion Weeks. She was thirteen and sitting front row at John Galliano’s 2010 Dior Haute Couture show and was even guest of honor at a Comme des Garcons holiday party, fucking iconic. Of course, adults love to hate on teenagers and despite facing criticism and backlash for her early success in the fashion industry, she continued to make a name for herself in the fashion realm.
Like any teenager though, her interests were rapidly shifting and she became more interested in things like “outsider art, feminism, gender identity, and media.” By the time she was fifteen, she transitioned her focus from fashion to broader cultural discussions and feminist discourse. In 2011, at the age of fifteen, Gevinson, inspired by 90s riot grrrl zines and the archival teenage magazine “Sassy,” launched a digital platform by teenagers for teenagers, Rookie Mag.
Rookie Magazine
The founder of Sassy caught wind of her ideation and reached out to her to help make it happen and thus Rookie was born. Rookie aimed to empower teenage girls and address issues relevant to them. At first, Rookie was kind of what you’d expect from a skinny suburban white girl, predominantly skinny and white, but they learned from their feedback and throughout their seven-year run diversified and created space for ethnic and BIPOC teenage experiences. Rookie highlighted what it was to be a teenage girl. The people who contributed to the magazine talked about all kinds of things from fashion, feminism, and politics to mental health and sex and sexuality. They posted three times a day: “after school, at dinner time, and when it’s really late and you should be writing a paper but are Facebook stalking instead.” Under Gevinson’s leadership as founder and editor-in-chief, Rookie became an inspiration for young women worldwide, offering a space for authentic voices and inclusive dialogue.
Known for its romantic, hazy, collage-crazy, and DIY aesthetic, the platform was an online space for sharing your perspective as a teenage girl and asking the usual existential questions teenage girls have. They accepted interviews, essays, poetry, DIY guides, playlists, advice columns, and photo stories, among other media formats, and featured interviews with celebrities and a recurring video column called “Ask a Grown Man/Woman” where famous adults answered questions from readers. Each month meant a new digital issue of Rookie and a new theme for said issue. The first three themes were Beginnings, Secrets, and Girl Gang, and the last three were Rebirth, Spirit, and Evolution. The Rookie staff and contributors were scattered across the country and communicated with each other through Facebook groups, many of whom would go on to carry Rookie’s essence in the work they’d do afterward, most notably Petra Collins and writers like Arrabelle Sicardi, Hazel Cills, and Ashley Reese.
Rookie released four “yearbooks” which compiled online submissions and contributions from celebrities like Donna Tartt, Ariana Grande, and Solange. After the release of Rookie Yearbook One in 2012, Gevinson embarked on a cross-country tour, organizing zine-making events, banner-making parties, pinball tournaments, and meet-ups like Rookie Prom and the Rookie Road Trip for both fans and staff. In November of 2018, Gevinson announced Rookie would cease publication.
Style Rookies to Cultural Authorities
I think the point is that Rookie lives on in the same way we each still have an angry teenage girl inside of us. I simply cannot let go of the past because she’s a perennial being within me. On the topic of Rookie Magazine, former Rookie staff member Arrabelle Sicardi told Teen Vogue “The people that have created the Rookie ecosystem are also creating culture. That's how it's living on. Olivia Rodrigo, the number one pop star in the world, owes her aesthetic to Petra Collins and the Rookie ecosystem. Pop culture is Rookie. It's all still there. It just doesn't need to be on that particular website anymore. We've grown out of that particular space.” Rookie, and the teens who read it, helped weave the space-time continuum to breed contemporary understandings and aesthetics of girlhood and the intellectualized conversations surrounding fashion we’re enamored with today. The youth will always be the ultimate arbiters of taste, whether it’s whoever’s young today or the echoes of our youthful selves. You should thank your teenage self for making you so fucking cool.
What Do Today’s Teenagers Look Forward to Afterschool?
It’s a question that keeps me up at night, what teen-specific media do teenage girls turn to nowadays? I worry about them as I worry about the past version of me who is struggling in another timeline. I just want to protect them, hug them, and answer whatever freaky questions they might have. I had an iPhone in high school, but I didn’t always have access to the internet (shoutout school firewalls and shitty signal) and I genuinely looked forward to going home after school and reading online magazines or physical ones, but what is it to have an iPhone in high school today? Teens don’t “log on” anymore, do they? I’m afraid the modern teenage girl might not see this because modern teenage girls may not be into blogs and video essays. I’m out of touch, but should a teenage girl stumble on this post who daydreams about their niche interests, tell me, what do you look forward to after school?
Sources
https://www.teenvogue.com/story/the-legacy-of-rookie-mag-ten-years-later
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/30/18119866/rookie-mag-teen-magazine-tavi-gevinson-closes-down