there is no saving what we love
on rookie, junior inquirer, and coming of age in an era of disruption
Manila, 13 December—I read with a heavy heart Tavi Gevinson’s last Editor’s Letter announcing the end of Rookie Mag, an online magazine for young women that she spearheaded when she was 15.
Started in 2011, Rookie was a safe space for young women to share their thoughts, words, and art. And for many, this was where they actually found their tribe. It was nothing like the magazines I grew up with, which were obsessed with things I couldn’t care less about, like cute boys, lipstick, and long hair.
Before I continue: Let me stress right here that there is nothing wrong with caring about these things! It was just that I didn’t care much about them, and there seemed like nowhere to go for a queer girl like me who liked different things (e.g. none of these things).
Long story short, I loved how Rookie Mag was that space. I always tell myself to be that older person I needed when I was younger—I believe Rookie was the magazine equivalent of that. I loved the idea that girls all over the world who were looking for elseplaces to fit had Rookie. I loved that the idea that there was this space on the Internet where young women could read and write about mental health, girl friendship, books, etc.—without getting pandered to or marketed to.
And now, it’s gone (the site archive will be up for the next few months). Long story short, Rookie had to grow up.
Today, 22-year-old Gevinson and her 7-year-old Rookie had to grapple with the deteriorating digital media landscape—pretty much like every other digital outfit out there and journalism in general, actually. These days, publications are expected to generate content at a surreal rate while the financial models propping up the business are disintegrating under their desks. It’s a horrible time.
This is how it is to come of age in an era of digital upheaval: There is only one way to survive, and that is to be viable. And to be viable is to be monetizable.
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There was one particular paragraph in this Longreads piece by Soraya Roberts on Rookie, “My So-Called Media: How the Publishing Industry Sells Out Young Women”, that made me incoherently sad and mad at the same time:
Because in truth there was nothing Gevinson could have done, because the failure of Rookie was not about her, or even about the poor state of media as a whole. It was about what it has always been about, which is that as much power as women have online — as strong as their voices are, as good as their work is, as valuable as it is to women, especially young women — its intrinsic worth is something capitalism, dominated by men, feels no obligation to understand. This is what ultimately killed Rookie.
This brought me back to an even earlier heartbreak this year: In February, Junior Inquirer, the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s youth-driven magazine, was discontinued on print. I wrote about it at length here.
Basically, Junior Inquirer was by, about, and for youth—dedicated staff members recruited, trained and guided young reporters called “Snoops”, and made journalists out of them. They covered real events, wrote real stories, endured real editing and worked under pressure and real deadlines. Their primary audience: Children like them. It was honestly among the Inquirer’s finest programs introduced under the editorship of the late Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc. (Built by a woman, yes.)
Now, Junior Inquirer is gone, too. Today, more than ever, it seems to me that niche publics do not deserve publications unless they generate much-coveted $$$. Which is why in times of upheaval, the least understood are the first to go on the chopping block: Young women (Rookie) and children (Junior Inquirer).
I felt for Gevinson, who discussed in her letter the torturous decision-making process that led her to decide that folding the publication was ultimately for the best. I think the letter, all six pages of it, was a pretty accurate depiction of a creative’s struggle between focusing on creating and focusing on business. I truly admire artist-entrepreneurs who could be both—it must be maddening through and through.
From Gevinson’s letter:
One woman venture capitalist told us, after hearing my very nervous pitch, “I hate to say this because I hate that it’s true, but men who come in here pitch the company they’re going to build, while women pitch the company they’ve already built.”
And why not? Tavi has built something amazing, the same way the JI team built something amazing with generations of young journalists. Truth be told, after everything I have seen since 2016, I can’t stress enough how much I NO LONGER WANT to see the things men can build; instead, I want to see these wonderful things that women have built SURVIVE. I want to see them supported so they could keep going. Because sometimes that is the best recourse.
And especially with Rookie and JI, I could only wish that was what we did here.