I've been following Tavi Gevinson's story for a while, and I continue to be so fascinated by her and the mini media empire she's built up around her. (See the bottom of this post for the NYT's new profile.)

There is something so modern about it all—that she's a master marketer of her own person, that she celebrates the very millennial trait of possessive individuality, that Tavi Gevinson wouldn't have gotten the chance to be Tavitulle or Style Rookie without the broadcast power (and pseudonymity) of the internet.

Do you quietly follow her progress, too?
What is it about this girl that I'm so interested in?
Would you call her—as I've toyed with doing from time to time—a performance artist?

Can you even be a performance artist at 13?

I *do* quietly follow her progress, too!

Even so, I know nothing about Tavi Gevinson beyond what reporters have written. I'm not even sure what she stands for, aesthetically. But I'm just totally fascinated by precocious, driven teenagers. Ten-somethings that seem to really know what they want and are talented enough to achieve it. In essence, the antithesis of my high-school self. Who are these alien children?

Part of me sees the same behaviors in her as in me at that age (e.g. I recoded my Myspace in HTML to make it white with pink text and Trebuchet MS font with a scrolling Jack Kerouac "yellow roman candles" quote and an accompanying fireworks gif... No big.), but for Tavi, it's on steroids—and it's a business.

I think it might be a reflection of the internet we grew up with.

We had to sort of strong arm our identities into the web (You couldn't really customize Myspace, Facebook, blogs, or AIM except in a few specific and usually small ways.), but kids Tavi's age grew up with Tumblr, Twitter, and Instagram—point of view and self-expression are baked in.

Do you think it feels like less of a leap now for kids to do what Tavi's done?

Defining "do what Tavi's done" as establish a cult following / audience based solely on... you. The haul video phenomenon also sort of fascinates me for the same reason. (I think we've talked over dinner about my theory that kids are becoming master self-marketers...)

Interesting, too, that both of these examples are inherently commercial.

(P.S. Check the view count for that video! >1.5 million!)

I agree: Super-public self-expression appears to be oodles easier today than, say, ten years ago. Still, it amazes and impresses me that someone so young has such a seemingly developed persona — genuine or otherwise.

I wonder: What happens to these über-expressers as they enter their twenties? Do they feel obligated to retain more of their teenage persona than might someone who didn't have a large blog/Twitter/YouTube following?

That haul video reminds me of how little I understand about the Internet. Or maybe more accurately: No matter how much time you spend poking around online, there will always be something insanely popular that you had no idea existed or be so popular.

I'd love to see someone build a browser extension for YouTube that compared a video's views to the current audiences for 60 Minutes, the Daily Show, and other TV shows.

Bringing this branch back. Look how much she's grown up! I didn't realize.

I love that she corrects him and says "I'm still growing up," too. So great. And she has every excuse not to have stayed grounded.

WHAT POISE. It's fun — and seemingly, though decreasingly, rare — to watch a stranger grow up. Compare that video to any of these from the past year: youtube.com, youtube.com, youtube.com

She looks increasingly comfortable, makes decreasingly clichéd jokes, and (just as you point out) reveals more and more of her own, wry sense of humor. Which makes me think her real superpower is not being embarrassed by the fact she's "still figuring it out" — embracing it, even.

Saw that @Max was reading this article about Rookie's first-year anniversary. I didn't realize it'd been that long! I kind of want a copy of the Yearbook they mention just to have it...

Also @Jeremy - I wonder whether she's had media training? There's just such a huge gap between where she was on Fallon and any of the videos you posted. Then again, I remember in high school it sometimes felt like a switch had flipped and in a certain way or two I looked/felt way more grown up, so maybe we're watching that happen to her, too.

I... yeah. I think Tavi's aces. I think she's super genuine and super smart and I'm always rooting for some slice of this fucked up world to be decent and supportive of young women in ways that—as a young asshole—I was not.

I bat for Tavi.

And I bat for Tavi's friends, Rookie crew and otherwise. I admire the brave adults who saw her and helped build Rookie as something other than a spectacle. I think the site is rich and well-paced and sincere.