Tavi Gevinson Is (Almost) All Grown-Up

How a 17-year-old built a media empire
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 21, 2014 9:52 AM CST
Updated Jan 21, 2014 10:57 AM CST
Tavi Gevinson Is (Almost) All Grown-Up
Writer-director Nicole Holofcener, second right, of the film "Enough Said," poses with cast members, from left, Tracey Fairaway, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tavi Gevinson on Sept. 8, 2013 in Toronto.   (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)

Tavi Gevinson became a fixture in the fashion world at age 11, thanks to her blog Style Rookie. Today, she's 17 and running Rookie, an online magazine delving into everything from pop culture to feminist issues to love to body image to celebrity interviews. Tavi and Rookie have come a long way since the magazine launched in 2011. Tavi now oversees an 80-person staff; the magazine's 43-year-old editorial director quit her job at the New York Times to come work for the teen. "My rule for bosses and therapists is they have to be smarter than I am—and Tavi completely fits that bill," Anaheed Alani tells the Los Angeles Times.

Tavi also does book signings (Rookie puts out a print anthology of its best work, plus new content, each year), speaking engagements, and photo shoots; she's been interviewed by Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon; she even had a role in the film Enough Said. But she's also a senior at a public high school in suburban Illinois who has to get by on a $25-a-week allowance. (She's not yet drawing a salary from Rookie, though it gets more than 4 million page views a month and features jewelry and makeup ads; her dad says she may start getting paid soon.) Of the magazine, she says, "The goal has become more to make people feel included, that they're cool enough or smart enough." The Times' full profile is worth a read. (More Tavi Gevinson stories.)

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