Farewell Rookie: Tavi Gevinson’s teen magazine folds

“Thank you for growing up with us”, begins Tavi Gevinson’s farewell editor’s letter for Rookie magazine as the publication announces the news of its closure. For those who read the magazine as budding teenager, it is with a “very full heart” that the founder announces the the last post on Rookie. The young fashion blogger started the magazine when she was just 15 years old, garnering millions of international followers eager to hear what the young editor-in-chief had to say about the state of the world.

In April 2010, Tavi posted about the unfortunate state of “teen girl” magazines, offering an alternative on Rookie which explored adolescent social issues and feminism for young people of an impressionable age. Hailed for its unapologetic voice that deconstructed the canon of female adolescence, Rookie’s readers undoubtedly benefited from the non-prescriptive view of female identity.

On the website’s homage, Tavi writes “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.” In the six-page editor’s note, the founder touches on topics of mental health, American politics and the struggles of keeping a new start-up financially afloat while maintaining ethical integrity.

Signing the note with love, Tavi lastly mentions how “The changes people create in one another do not go away. The people you grow up with stay forever. You made Rookie with us, and its spirit will love on in whatever comes next for us all.”