Rookie Magazine Is Ending, Tavi Gevinson Announces

Online magazine Rookie, which broke new ground in the way teenage girls were given a voice in digital media, is ceasing operations, Editor-in-Chief/Founder Tavi Gevinson announced today (November 30). In a six-page post, Gevinson details the life and business decisions behind Rookie’s closure. “In one way, this is not my decision, because digital media has become an increasingly difficult business, and Rookie in its current form is no longer financially sustainable,” Gevinson writes. “And in another way, it is my decision—to not do the things that might make it financially sustainable, like selling it to new owners, taking money from investors, or asking readers for donations or subscriptions.”

Gevinson writes toward the end of the Editor’s Letter:

Now onto the celebrations. To everyone who has bared their souls through their writing and art on Rookie, making us all feel seen, heard, connected, and inspired; making Rookie better, smarter, and more human: Thank you. It has been an absolute gift—I don’t know how else to describe it—to see you interpret Rookie’s monthly themes in your own work. To learn about you through your art. I will really miss that exchange of ideas and experiences. And now I am actually starting to cry, thinking about how much love and vulnerability have gone into the thousands of articles, essays, poems, advice, stories, interviews, photos, illustrations, comics, collages, playlists, and videos on Rookie. Thank you.

Gevinson started her blog Style Rookie when she was 11 years old. She launched Rookie in 2011 at age 15. The site, which also published several books, served as a launching pad for many writers and editors, including many Pitchfork contributors. It also profiled up-and-coming female artists, like a 16-year-old Clairo. “It was so awesome to be able to go on that website and see boys in makeup and be exposed to completely new perspectives, because I lived in a super small town where there was no diversity whatsoever,” Clairo told Pitchfork of her Rookie experience.

Among Rookie’s most notable series were “Ask a Grown Woman” and “Ask a Grown Man,” in which adult artists would answer teenagers’ questions. Sleater-Kinney, Tori Amos, Vampire Weekend’s Ezra Koenig and Chris Baio, Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino, Girl Talk, Run the Jewels, Stephen Malkmus, Beastie Boys’ Ad-Rock, and many others participated in the series. Rookie also published a series of Yearbooks that featured contributions from Grimes, Lorde, Solange, Charli XCX, Ariana Grande, Hayley Williams of Paramore, Dev Hynes of Blood Orange, Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend, Ed Droste of Grizzly Bear, and many more.

Revisit Pitchfork’s 2015 interview with Tavi Gevinson.