Online journal Rookie, which broke new floor in the best way teenage women got a voice in digital media, is ceasing operations, Editor-in-Chief/Founder Tavi Gevinson announced today (November 30). In a six-page put up, Gevinson particulars the life and enterprise selections behind Rookie’s closure. “In a technique, this isn’t my resolution, as a result of digital media has grow to be an more and more troublesome enterprise, and Rookie in its present kind is now not 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 towards the top of the Editor’s Letter:
Now onto the celebrations. To everybody who has bared their souls by their writing and artwork on Rookie, making us all really feel seen, heard, linked, and impressed; making Rookie higher, smarter, and extra human: Thank you. It has been an absolute present—I don’t understand how else to explain it—to see you interpret Rookie’s month-to-month themes in your individual work. To study you thru your artwork. I’ll actually miss that trade of concepts and experiences. And now I’m really beginning to cry, fascinated with how a lot love and vulnerability have gone into the 1000’s of articles, essays, poems, recommendation, tales, interviews, images, illustrations, comics, collages, playlists, and movies on Rookie. Thank you.
Gevinson began her weblog Style Rookie when she was 11 years outdated. She launched Rookie in 2011 at age 15. The web site, which additionally revealed a number of books, served as a launching pad for a lot of writers and editors, together with many Pitchfork contributors. It additionally profiled up-and-coming feminine 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 advised Pitchfork of her Rookie expertise.
Among Rookie’s most notable collection have been “Ask a Grown Woman” and “Ask a Grown Man,” during which grownup artists would reply youngsters’ 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 plenty of others participated within the collection. Rookie additionally revealed a collection 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 plenty of extra.
Revisit Pitchfork’s 2015 interview with Tavi Gevinson.
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