Tavi Gevinson is, among many, many other things, the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Rookie. Gevinson got her start as a fashion blogger, launching Rookie in 2011 as a way of moving beyond fashion to include her other interests. Rookie itself is an online publication that caters to teenage girls, but offers plenty of content that engage a broader audience as well. Gevinson is obviously not responsible for creating all the content, but a collaborative approach is part of what makes the website such an effective platform for her to express her worldview, allowing topics outside her expertise but within her sphere of interest to be covered.

That’s all well and good, but what makes Rookie so personally relevant to me, and, more to the point, what does a teen girl magazine have to do with technology and society? Well, part of the reason I chose to profile Tavi Gevinson/Rookie in the first place is precisely because teenage girls seem like unlikely tech experts. The fact is, girls are avid consumers and producers of technology, and as such have a thing or two to say about it. Unfortunately, they are typically shut out of conversations surrounding technology, despite being at the centre of so much adult anxiety concerning tech trends like selfies, sexting, and online bullying. Rookie gives girls an opportunity to combat this issue; its “Saturday Links” are often especially rich with tech tidbits from around the web.

As for personal relevance, while I may not be a teenage girl, I am a young person, and seeing other young people discuss things that affect us as young people is immensely gratifying. Instead of having to listen to a bunch of 30-and-40-something dudes wax poetic on whatever new digital plague is supposedly destroying young minds, I get a perspective close to my own, but different enough to expand my own worldview.