Tavi Gevinson, 18-year-old editor of “Rookie Magazine,” started a fashion site that grew rapidly to 30 million daily readers when she was just 11. Tuesday, she stood in front of a crowd largely older than she and preached the “importance of fangirling,” and how she used it like a religion when starting her blog.
Gevinson began the latest installment of the Wisconsin Union Directorate’s Distinguished Lecture Series by telling anecdotes about the depression stemming from her first breakup in high school and debunking the myth that mental distress leads to great and original art.
“I think a lot of people around our age feel this pressure to be original and authentic and have something new to say,” Gevinson said. “I’ve begun to understand the danger in trying to find justification for bad things happening in your life in the hopes that you will one day … feel validated.”
Attributing her success to the Internet, Gevinson said it wasn’t until she began blogging online that she realized she didn’t hate writing.
However, she said the Internet’s vast possibilities also create a great deal of stress over how to stand out. Gevinson turned to the “art of fangirling” to combat this pressure, looking to artists and authors for inspiration.
“Most of my world is a composite of the worlds of others,” Gevinson said. “As editor of Rookie, my job is really to curate … so this fangirling is kind of my job.”
While Gevinson said being enthusiastic and resisting the urge to act cool is an important aspect of fangirling, she has also journaled throughout middle and high school as an outlet for “fanning out” without worrying about an audience.
“I think if you eliminate economies like fame or a conventional idea of success, you become really comfortable with your own level of ambition as a content observer,” Gevinson said.
She also warned of the dangers of fangirling, like feeling stifled by one’s influences or growing out of one’s obsessions, but said these shouldn’t be deterrents.
“A lot of fangirlism ends in learning that the thing you liked didn’t mean what you thought it did or isn’t as important to you now, but you still shouldn’t feel all silly and stupid because of it,” Gevinson said. “Artists are, according to history, not the most reliable or consistent people.”
Recently, Gevinson has shifted her focus to acting but she said she will continue writing and journaling, something UW-Madison student Katy Stankevitz said inspired her.
“I came to see Tavi because I’m really interested in writing, and I think she’s really inspirational because she started at such a young age,” Stankevitz said.
