June 21, 2017 • 30 mins
Teen Vogue has gone in a distinctly "woke" editorial direction this past year. Emilie and Bridget unpack how this rad change in tone came to be - and how it’s been received.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Emily and this is Bridget and you
are listening to stuff Mom never told you. Today we
are tackling a fun topic that I'm excited to talk about,
and it really is a great story behind how teen
(00:28):
Vogue got what you might call woke. Emily, what is woke?
Can you define one? Girl? Now? I think we need
a whole other episode over that. But I think what's
awesome is there have been headlines written about teen Vogues
sort of change in direction in recent months, one might
even say the last year to incorporating more politically socially conscious,
(00:54):
activisty type content for its young female readers. So I
think woke has to do with being aware and spreading
that awareness and turning your awareness and consciousness raising into
actual action taking. I like that definition because they also think.
One of the ways that teen Vogue is a very
woke is that they make this argument that, like, it's
(01:14):
okay if you care about lip gloss and also social justice,
it's cool to care about both, Yes, which, honestly, we're
gonna We're gonna unpack many layers of that this episode.
Because I'm a little late to the party, I had
I think baggage you thought it was uncool to be
into social justice. I thought it was unco Yeah, l
L you got me. Oh man, I'm so gulliable sometimes. Basically,
(01:38):
I used to have feelings about women who spent all
this time on beauty products and shopping for clothes, and
I used to make really unfair judgment calls about the
awareness or activism, and that's that's not cool. So let's
let's go back to the beginning here. Teen Vogue really
started to become a phenomenon around one specific article that
(02:00):
was published in teen Voge last year, and the title
of that article was Donald Trump is Gaslighting America. Yeah,
like hardcore as titles go, that title is going forward, right,
Like I remember seeing funny tweets that were like teen
Vogue table of contents, how to achieve the perfect liquid liner,
(02:20):
the best you know sandals for summer? Donald Trump is
gaslighting America? Yeah? It is so intense. And what's great, though,
is that they took a conversation around gas lighting, which
I know we might already know what that means, but
just to reiterate, it's when someone makes you feel crazy. Specifically,
this is something that happens often to women when you're
(02:44):
making your voice heard, or you're advocating for yourself for
complaining righteously and with good reason about being mistreated, and
they make you feel crazy for having that complaint. Yeah,
it's a tactic of making like you or whoever is
being the victim of this, making them not believe their
own perceptions. And so it's like, it's right, it's a
(03:07):
totally So I think Donald Trump's relationship with the truth
is sketchy at best. You think, um, and I think
they really unabashedly broke down how Donald Trump is using
that same tactic of gas lighting that happens in one
on one conversations in a very public narrative way with
the media and with his own Twitter feed, and with
(03:29):
all the ways that he communicates. So they write this
article and the reaction is insane. I'm someone who pays
attention to like articles that are written about politics, and
I have not seen anything blow up exactly. So, web
traffic apparently jumped to seven point seven million unique visitors
(03:50):
that month, according to calm Score, from three million a
year earlier. Okay, so enormous traffic. That traffic held and
expanded over the month, hitting a high of nine point
two million unique views, according to Conde Nast. So shout
out to the journalists behind that article. Laura Duca, Um,
(04:10):
she is amazing. She If you, if you are looking
for someone like hilarious to follow on Twitter, definitely give
her a follow. Um. But I also think she's someone
even before teen Vogue. She's someone who's been very vocal
um in writing and writing and tweeting and posting about Trump,
and you know, like like most women who do that,
like she has done so at like great personal risk,
(04:33):
Like she has like the trolls that she has, Like
one of her trolls is that who's that awful AIDS
drug Pharma bro Martin's He's like a very one of
her notable trolls to the point where like he I've
seen things that he's posted about her and it's scary.
It's like it's like she posted a picture of her
(04:54):
and her husband or her and her boyfriend on on
on Instagram and he put his face over her husband
in face and it was the weirdest thing I've ever seen.
So she's done this, like many women, at great personal
wet To do an episode on the kind of online
harassment of female journalists get should definitely do that. Definitely. Um, well,
that is an unfortunate byproduct of being well known for
(05:16):
an amazing kick ass article that she wrote. But what's
funnier is the response that she got from people who
were pleasantly but suspiciously surprised. I don't know funny is
the right word here, but let's take Dan Rather for example.
Dan Rather is a an outspoken, um freedom of the
press sort of person after his long tenure on air,
(05:40):
and he says in his Facebook post from December eleven,
he says, some might consider teen Vogue an unlikely source
for a detailed examination of gas lighting and Donald Trump
dot dot dot, but there you have it, dot dot dot.
First of all, journalist to eclipses Dan Come on, J
(06:02):
school peeps would be happy with um yeah, I mean
I I've seen this Dan Rather's take, even on my
own personal Facebook feed from very well meaning, might you say,
benevolent friends who are like who would have thought that,
like teen Vogue could be leading the resistance? And I
would have thought that, Like I think the surprise I
think is meant to be complimentary, like, oh, we're pleasantly
(06:24):
but actually it's it's it's illustrating a kind of underlying
assumption that like young women and young women's publications can't
tackle very same topic. I will be the first to
admit that I was surprised to hear that. I mean,
I think there were a lot of people who were
surprised by that, and I think it pulled upon our
unconscious bias and our unconscious assumptions there just sort of
(06:47):
check ourselves, because before I even had a chance to
repost it, I started seeing the counter narrative to that narrative. Right,
the initial narrative was like, oh my god, teen Vogue
is killing it. Check this out. How surprising is that?
Then immediately the counter narrative is, if you're surprised by this,
your sexist? So interesting? How different? Um? Two different arguments
(07:08):
really like bubbled up. They went very quickly quickly. I
mean there were like thirty thousand tweets. Um. I think
right after that that article went public a public um,
including from journalists on NPR, CBS News, Fox News host
Tucker Carlson Show, where he had Lauren on and then
(07:29):
braided her for covering both politics and fashion, saying, quote,
you should stick to those thigh high boots You're better
at that. But he's not a sexist. That wasn't benevolent women, right, Yeah,
he's like just trying to help, providing editorial support. And again,
I mean, this is something that is a personal and
I know it's something that you have feelings on too,
(07:50):
but it's a personal pet peeve of mine because I
feel like we live in a society where it's totally
fine for men to have dual interests like ever brates
or lectures a man. No one would be like stick
to football, sir, right, Like think about Playboy. They literally
have pornographers your hard hitting journalism, and everyone took that seriously.
And I've actually seen it like maybe this is me,
(08:12):
you know, seeing sexism in everything because it's everywhere so pervasive.
But like when something is happening, particularly around Beyonce or
the Kardashians, and everyone is talking about it, there's always
someone who's like, wouldn't it be great if people cared
this much about war or poverty? That's like, yeah, first
of all, shut up, but also it's like who's that?
(08:35):
Like who let us there about you know both? I know,
women with our complex identities, like can we not hold
space for the real housewives and reading The New York Times,
he certainly can. And no one says that about men.
No one says, you know, if you care about the
super Bowl, then you're not caring about you know, serious shallow.
So I think it's time for us to unpack a
(08:56):
little bit of the history behind how teen Vogue went
from a publication that primarily covered sort of lighter subject topics,
subject matter, lighter subject matter in general, um to getting
to this point of wokeness and allowing us women with
multiple passions and very different kinds of interest to feel
(09:17):
recognized and catered to when opening the pages of something
like teen Vogue, and specifically a very young readership that
they have. Um And there's there's an interesting story behind that, Bridget.
But before we go there, I think it's time for
us to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
(09:39):
And we're back, and we want to peel back the
layers of teen Vogues Awakening awoken that that sounds like
a horror movie about becoming like hip hit, Like, yeah,
somebody run with that. I think that that that would
be fun. I would watch that, Okay, So the awokening
of teen Vogue has some interesting history behind it. Well,
(10:01):
let's first acknowledge that it was actually created in two
thousand and three, so it's not that old old. And
at the time, Teen Vogues founding editor in chief described
its mission to New York Times as she said, We're
going to do what we do well, which is fashion,
beauty and style. And for many years they stuck to
that content. And there's something wrong with that, anohing wrong
(10:22):
with that they have. You have to find your niche, Okay,
like that was their niche. What I love here and
this is from the Brown Daily Herald, my own newspaper
that I used to work for, which I loved its
coverage here, so shout out to Emily Miller class of
nineteen nineteen for her great piece on the politics of
(10:46):
teen Vogue. She showed us that after a sixteen editorial
shake up that led to the promotion of Elane welter Off. Okay,
oh god, Elaine, I adore her, and I really hope
I didn't butcher her name there. But after the promotion
of Elaine, who by the way, is the youngest and
only the second African American Conde Nast editor for across
(11:09):
all of their publication, which pause that that is like
on the one hand, go her, but on the other
hand kind of a third Yeah, and you know, I
can speak to that a little bit, and that like
publishing is very very white, very male, but like specifically
very white, And so for me, not only is that
like sad, but also it makes her accomplishment that much,
you know, more significant exactly And who was it? It
(11:31):
was Shawnda Rhimes in her book Year of Yes, who
talked about being the first or only right first, or
only is the first or only There was one other
she it's good to be the first, but you want
to make sure you're not the only, yeah, saying something
about it's hard to sort of carry that mantle when
you're when you're busy trying to achieve what you're trying
to achieve. But Elaine rocked it. She gets up the
(11:54):
food chain at teen Vogue, and at that time, in
great part to her work, teen Vogue actually amended its
mission to include providing sophisticated yet readable commentary on a
broad range of social and political topics. Snaps Snaps snaps amazing.
(12:15):
I mean, and I think that it's a great case
study for like what happens when young people of color
are not just included, but like listen to and right,
and so something that kind of like burns my beans
a little bit in the is that an expression? I
don't know, something that burns my beans will go with it?
Is this idea that like diversity is just having people
(12:35):
of color and women in their room. And it's like, no,
like do they feel comfortable of wasting their opinions? Do
they feel comfortable making, you know, making decisions when they
make major decisions, are they listened to and valued and like,
you know, And I think this is a good case
study for what happens when those when young people of color,
young women of color are given the reins and given
leadership positions and really having that leadership respected. Yeah, I
(12:59):
mean versity. I think, like Shonda Rhymes says, to pull
from her again, it's not about promoting just to promote
more diverse voices. It's about normalizing because I'm sure that
teen vogues readership doesn't look as pale as teen vogues
leadership exactly. So like Shanda normalized TV with taking over
(13:21):
Thursday nights, right, like having people of color in positions
of power is about normalizing our media landscape. So it's
been kind of incredible to see the changes in coverage
that's happened have happened since Eline took took the Wasted.
It's so free because you see this, like I was
saying earlier, this mix of both fashion and hair and
(13:43):
clothing advice alongside really heavy hitting issues. And they have
they have, Like I remember seeing one article that's not
even necessarily political that I remember thinking, like, gee, that
I would have never found that in a magazine when
I was growing up, and that's the thing that people
need to like young women need to know about. It
was like what to do if your boy and asks
you to sex with him and like send you pictures
(14:03):
of yourself, you know, And it was like, that is
content that like I would never have thought that I
would have seen in like a magazine, for a magazine
for young women. But are today's young women actually meet
that kind of content, Like I'm sure that's a situation
that happened exactly. Just to jump on that too, because
I actually heard from Joanna Coles, the former editor in
chief over at Cosmopolitan Magazine, about how in today's day
(14:27):
and age, young girls need more information and need access
to information that's traditionally been left out of those kinds
of publications. So I think it was Cosmo back in
two thousand fifteen or two thousand and sixteen. I can't
quite recall that did a huge spread on planned parenthood,
on birth control in general. And this is like to
some very political content, but really it's the spreading of
(14:50):
real information that's backed by science about making sure that
young women, teens and girls understand their options and understand
what's available to them. And I think, just like anyone else,
young women are better served or they have more information,
not less, right, like more information about their bodies, about
the side, right, isn't it insane though, I mean, like
(15:13):
more more information. No, I want my kids to have
less information. People do feel that way, which is interesting. Yeah,
And so I mean, I just I applaud teen Vogue
for for making those choices, and I just love what
Essence Magazine said about it. So they said, for exploring
Native American girls thoughts on cultural appropriation to taking a
stand on resisting trump Donald Trump's America, teen Vogue has
(15:33):
been at the forefront of the most pertinent issues facing
young adults. And I just love that because it's true. Right,
like a yell, if you're like a fourteen year old
woman in this country. You need to understand what's happening
when people talk about Donald Trump on the news. You
also need to understand what's happening with your body or
what to do when your boyfriend asked for, you know,
a tompless picture. You also need to understand, like you
(15:54):
might need to understand how to get a good liquid
line on your eyes, or how to like, you know,
match your belt and your shoes or whatever. Yeah, I
think there's a I think it also reflects a broader
trend in infotainment, you know what I mean? Like I
think about how we're getting news these days. BuzzFeed is
covering hard hitting news like buzzfeeds exposing some political scandals,
(16:14):
and alongside like Whatton, Yeah, what Disney character? Are you right?
What is what Disney Princess? Would you be? Definitely? Oh? Yes, girl.
I was such a super fan of The Little Mermaid.
I think I memorized every word to the songs when
I was like four. Okay, and I pretended did you
play Mermaid? Oh? Yeah, I played Mermaid in the pool. Yeah,
(16:37):
it was a good game. My dad also cried at
the end O Littlemaid love because she says goodbye to
her father Trayton, and then leaves for a whole of
the world. My dad's like, oh that's different, Aladdin, but
also great Jasmine shoot to Jasmin too, Okay, Um yeah,
I think this this does reflect a broader trend of
(16:59):
be be okay to get a mix of media in
one publication totally and then it's okay. Like just I mean,
I actually really like it when you know, outlets or
whatever go high low where it's like highbrow lowbrow, and honestly,
there's nothing I hate more than when, like, I just
feel so isolated from Mike, whether it's a media outlet
(17:20):
or a person who was like Taylor Swift never heard
of her. All I do is read books, Like what
that kind of vibe when people are like, oh, like,
how dare you be interested in like a lowbrow thing,
Like I'm too busy, like you know, reading proofs or whatever.
It's like purposeful ignorance. I hate that. I hate. It
(17:40):
has to be a name for that. There has it
must be. Like I was once at a dinner party
where someone I kid you not, was pretending he had
never heard of Beyonce, not saying he had not heard
a song. He was acting like he didn't know. He
was like, I'm not familiar he was, and he was like, oh,
I don't even own a TV. I was like, oh,
come on, it was excruciating. Now it's means chameed not
(18:00):
on a TV. Does he still rag about it? Probably
my own cable at least, probably Wowser's okay, liar, did
you call him out? No? I just smiled politely and
nurse to drink. I wish I were there to take
me back to them. Let's go there again so I
can call him that and we'll talk about reality TV
the whole time, and you can read a book. Yeah,
(18:22):
I mean I someone should write a book about reality
TV if that hasn't happened yet. Let's talk about meta
media anyway. So I think the moral of the story
here is that teen Vogue got woke and is serving
up the kind of information that young girls want to see,
with a healthy mix of the lighter topics, which are
not you know, liking makeup and liking fashion and beauty
(18:44):
does not make you dumb. And I think this was
hard for me, Like this idea of respecting your readership
at teen Vogue, Cosmo or wherever BuzzFeed and saying I
like a good cat gift and I like hard hitting
journalism out of city. What was what was your discomfort
around this idea that you weren't supposed to like makeup
(19:05):
or like I think it's the tomboy child that I
was saying, Like I want to rebel from a gendered
stereotype that I was expected to fill, and so instead
of liking frilly dresses and fashion, I still to this
day say like I don't know how to dress myself,
and in reality I really enjoy dressing myself, but like
(19:25):
there's something to sort of being demure about the lady
like hobbies and habits, Like I will be on Reddit
of all places, looking at streetwear inspiration for women, and
I'll be like, I'm really like spending forty five minutes
here looking at fashion stuff, Like I shouldn't be embarrassed
about this, There's nothing wrong with that. So I don't know,
(19:45):
I think there's I think I still especially in a
city like d C, which is almost inrogynous, it's fashion.
We were talking about New York versus DC recently, right,
or maybe it was with my friend Jesse actually who
she and I were talking about how she dresses very
boho and and very florally and very feminine, but she
(20:06):
works in a downtown Washington, d C. Political consulting firm
and is a hard hitting boss over there, and we
were talking about how in d C. I think there's
this feeling of shoulder pads and suits and the pants
suit phenomenon that that more and more of us are bucking.
But I'm like, where's the yoga pants phenomenon? Like, can
(20:28):
I be a smart, powerful person and where yoga pants?
Like nine nine out of ten days, I mean, the
answer is yes, but it's been it's taking me a
little bit. We're all learning and growing together. Yeah, I
mean I think that teen Vogue does a great job
of showing that, like that's okay, it's okay, Like we
are multifaceted individuals, but I think the patriarchy makes us
(20:52):
feel like we have to be one or the other.
That if we're going to be we have to either
like embrace you know, the feminine and be like the
early girl or reject the them like I'm you know,
and it doesn't allow for us to just be our authentic,
multifacet itself. And so snaps to places like teen Vogue,
who are really allowing young girls to expose to be
(21:14):
exposed to, you know, hard hitting journalism, political activist de
type stuff, and you know, not feel bad about having
that across the page, across the fold from Spring trends
or whatever, and that's okay. But there has been a
pushback on that because sometimes those political pieces are heavy, right,
So there was a critique that I came across in
(21:35):
the journalism on the journalism, on the meta journalism journalism,
but on teen Vogue sort of editorial choices, which was saying,
doesn't feel a little insensitive to have something about police
brutality across the page from you know, the best slip
glass for your Instagram selfies? Like, there are interesting conundrums
that you fall into there. I mean, I think I
(21:56):
definitely get that argument. But I think for me, like
I think, with your example police brutality, that's I mean,
I hate to say it, and this sounds awful, but
that is the reality of how we have to live
with police brutality. It's not it's easy to think that
it's the siloed off thing where like you deal with
it when you you know, want to have something summer, right,
like it's like you no, like you are dealing with
(22:17):
it alongside your everyday life, and like, um, there's a
great movie called Dope that I love and like one
of the points of the movie is that kids that
live in areas where they are plagued by violence, it's
not this like, it's they're they're living their lives, and
their lives are the same as anyone else, as like
a teenager's life where they listen to music and love,
have crushes. Their lives are just punctuated by extreme violence,
(22:40):
and that they are still living what what might seem
like ordinary you know, adolescent lives and ordinary adolescents concerns,
but like they are not able to then silo off,
you know, and so like why should we as readers
be able to be like, well, when I want something
bumming like a bummer magazine, when I want something that's
like light and fuffee, everach for this when that's not
(23:00):
how it happens, not how it happens. That it's a
really good point. Well, I think it's been a sign
of the bold leadership at teen Vogue that they are
willing to go there and push those limits and gain
get some flak in the process and deal with these
sexist reactions of saying, like, who the hell does teen
Vogue think they are? But I was really pleasantly surprised
(23:21):
to hear from Anna wint Or her quote um about
Elaine taking the helm. She said, Elaine is incredibly in
tune with the teen Vogue audience and has used that
unique insight to engage and connect with her readers on
a very personal level. Over the last year. She's demonstrated
a fearless leadership in her pursuit to make teen Vogue
(23:42):
the voice of a new generation, and we look forward
to all she will accomplish. So we have a bit
of like, I think we should take a break before
we provide the happy ending to this story, which is
even more exciting about Elaine's role at teen Vogue. Does
that sound good to you? Okay, So we'll be right
back after a quick break and a quick word for
our sponsors. So Bridget, we've got some exciting news to
(24:13):
share about where this story went next now that we're
back from the break. So in very exciting teen Vogue news,
Elayne was officially named as the editor in chief of
teen Vogue, which is a great for her. Like I
couldn't be more happy. And again, like, there are just
so few women of color, purely black women in the
media space. Having there be black editor in chief is huge,
(24:36):
I mean, just the mass head of any big, you
know publication, there's so few you know, non white faces
and so. And now she's not just in charge of
making editorial like decisions on single stories or in the
digital realm where she was really focused previously, along with Piccardi,
digital editor as well, who also played a big role,
(24:59):
by the way, we have to give he played a
big role alongside Elane and making this content of activism
and political awareness more of a priority in gateen Vogue.
But it's it's great to have someone like her now
in charge of thinking about the future of teen Vogus
brand and really making sure that we're aligning media with
the new media landscape that teens are consuming. I think
(25:23):
it was a smart move on Conde Nast's part. I
think so too. And I think I mean when you
look at when you look at her Elane's background, like
she again like really nicely bridges that gap of like
you know, coming she came from the world of you know,
fashion mags and things like that before her work at
teen Vogue. She was aye in two thousand and twelve.
She joined teen Vogue. Prior prior to that, she was
(25:45):
at Glamor Magazine as a senior beauty editor, and then
before that she worked as the beauty and style editor
of Ebony magazine. So how cool is that she she
really did focus on beauty style and now she's saying,
you know what we need in addition to beauty and
style in this beauty and style magazine is let's woke
it up. And that's awesome. I love that. I mean,
(26:05):
I think one of my favorite sayings that tweens will
save us all I think that she is. I think
that's true or now that's so true, and like I
think that like tweens will lead the way, Like if
you want to know what's hip, what's happening, like who's like,
tweens are at the forefront. If you have tween cousins,
tween kids, tween siblings, talk to the tweens, like I
know what the tweens are up to, um, And I
(26:25):
just think that, like someone who is young, fresh hip,
these are the voices that we need to be listening to.
And honestly, like I think that people like Elaine, people
who are young, freethinking people of color, they should be.
In my perfect world, they'd be on the mass heads
of every big publication in the United States. And I
think it would be better served that well take I
think they should take a page from teen Vogue. One
(26:48):
might say, because it's working. It's obviously working for them.
I think you know what's interesting about the teen Vogue
story is that when welter Off and her colleagues have
injected sort of that new activist energy into the content
strategy there, it's been noticed by other publications in this space,
(27:11):
and I've seen other publications what I imagine to be
taking a page from their magazine. As you said, like
um Paste magazine is a magazine that you might think
of as like a music magazine, but it's getting into
more like political stuff. And I think I saw someone
tweet once, like in the in twenties seventeen with Trump
in our White House and with like so many different
things popping off politically and socially. If you are a journalist,
(27:34):
you are always kind of a political journalist. And even
if you write about food, you're kind of also writing
about Pocasts are ending up being political, not really trying.
We're just like, oh my god, it all comes back
to Donald Trump. I think, um, I think that's it's
a hard thing to ignore today. And I think that's
a really fair point for everybody in the media escaped
to take into consideration because and I want to go
(27:57):
back to sort of wrappings up with this takeaway or
round women's publications, not having to silo women's voices into
a particular like this is all we care about category.
Like I think there's been a historical silencing of women,
like saying this is women's news, or this is not
women's news, this is women's issues, and these are not
(28:18):
women's issues. And I think this is a sign of
the times that those barriers are starting to really be
broken down. And we've acknowledged that it's been true all
along that women have varying interests and it's okay for
those seemingly incongruent interests to coexist peacefully in the same
magazine I love and like I as someone who was
either I'm like blogging about social change or like watching
(28:38):
Real Housewives, I have to defend this all the time,
and I always like to say, like I am vest
i contain multitudes, right, Like I can be you know,
on the dance floor, or I can be like yeah,
And so I think with that, I would love to
hear from our listeners in terms of what are the
seemingly incongruent interests that you hold that you're happy to
(29:01):
have peacefully coexist as the multitudes that are within you,
Like I'm really interested, like what do you love reading that?
Do you you know, are you able to find in
a single publication the kind of mix of media that
really speaks to you? And if so, what publications are those?
And also what are your guilty pleasures? Like what do
you or what do you want to see alongside those
guilty pleasures? Right? Like what do you think pairs nicely
(29:22):
together or make sense to pair today? Like pedicure and
a New York magazine or that sounds great, isn't it? Right?
That's like I think that's a very good encapsulation of
my average Saturday or Sunday. So we want to hear
from you on this. Send us a snap on Instagram
at stuff Mom Never told You, Shoot us a tweet
at mom Stuff podcast on Twitter, or we always love
(29:46):
to read your mail in our inbox. So shoot us
an email at mom stuff, at how stuff Works dot com.
O
Hey, this is Emily and this is Bridget and you
are listening to stuff Mom never told you. Today we
are tackling a fun topic that I'm excited to talk about,
and it really is a great story behind how teen
(00:28):
Vogue got what you might call woke. Emily, what is woke?
Can you define one? Girl? Now? I think we need
a whole other episode over that. But I think what's
awesome is there have been headlines written about teen Vogues
sort of change in direction in recent months, one might
even say the last year to incorporating more politically socially conscious,
(00:54):
activisty type content for its young female readers. So I
think woke has to do with being aware and spreading
that awareness and turning your awareness and consciousness raising into
actual action taking. I like that definition because they also think.
One of the ways that teen Vogue is a very
woke is that they make this argument that, like, it's
(01:14):
okay if you care about lip gloss and also social justice,
it's cool to care about both, Yes, which, honestly, we're
gonna We're gonna unpack many layers of that this episode.
Because I'm a little late to the party, I had
I think baggage you thought it was uncool to be
into social justice. I thought it was unco Yeah, l
L you got me. Oh man, I'm so gulliable sometimes. Basically,
(01:38):
I used to have feelings about women who spent all
this time on beauty products and shopping for clothes, and
I used to make really unfair judgment calls about the
awareness or activism, and that's that's not cool. So let's
let's go back to the beginning here. Teen Vogue really
started to become a phenomenon around one specific article that
(02:00):
was published in teen Voge last year, and the title
of that article was Donald Trump is Gaslighting America. Yeah,
like hardcore as titles go, that title is going forward, right,
Like I remember seeing funny tweets that were like teen
Vogue table of contents, how to achieve the perfect liquid liner,
(02:20):
the best you know sandals for summer? Donald Trump is
gaslighting America? Yeah? It is so intense. And what's great, though,
is that they took a conversation around gas lighting, which
I know we might already know what that means, but
just to reiterate, it's when someone makes you feel crazy. Specifically,
this is something that happens often to women when you're
(02:44):
making your voice heard, or you're advocating for yourself for
complaining righteously and with good reason about being mistreated, and
they make you feel crazy for having that complaint. Yeah,
it's a tactic of making like you or whoever is
being the victim of this, making them not believe their
own perceptions. And so it's like, it's right, it's a
(03:07):
totally So I think Donald Trump's relationship with the truth
is sketchy at best. You think, um, and I think
they really unabashedly broke down how Donald Trump is using
that same tactic of gas lighting that happens in one
on one conversations in a very public narrative way with
the media and with his own Twitter feed, and with
(03:29):
all the ways that he communicates. So they write this
article and the reaction is insane. I'm someone who pays
attention to like articles that are written about politics, and
I have not seen anything blow up exactly. So, web
traffic apparently jumped to seven point seven million unique visitors
(03:50):
that month, according to calm Score, from three million a
year earlier. Okay, so enormous traffic. That traffic held and
expanded over the month, hitting a high of nine point
two million unique views, according to Conde Nast. So shout
out to the journalists behind that article. Laura Duca, Um,
(04:10):
she is amazing. She If you, if you are looking
for someone like hilarious to follow on Twitter, definitely give
her a follow. Um. But I also think she's someone
even before teen Vogue. She's someone who's been very vocal
um in writing and writing and tweeting and posting about Trump,
and you know, like like most women who do that,
like she has done so at like great personal risk,
(04:33):
Like she has like the trolls that she has, Like
one of her trolls is that who's that awful AIDS
drug Pharma bro Martin's He's like a very one of
her notable trolls to the point where like he I've
seen things that he's posted about her and it's scary.
It's like it's like she posted a picture of her
(04:54):
and her husband or her and her boyfriend on on
on Instagram and he put his face over her husband
in face and it was the weirdest thing I've ever seen.
So she's done this, like many women, at great personal
wet To do an episode on the kind of online
harassment of female journalists get should definitely do that. Definitely. Um, well,
that is an unfortunate byproduct of being well known for
(05:16):
an amazing kick ass article that she wrote. But what's
funnier is the response that she got from people who
were pleasantly but suspiciously surprised. I don't know funny is
the right word here, but let's take Dan Rather for example.
Dan Rather is a an outspoken, um freedom of the
press sort of person after his long tenure on air,
(05:40):
and he says in his Facebook post from December eleven,
he says, some might consider teen Vogue an unlikely source
for a detailed examination of gas lighting and Donald Trump
dot dot dot, but there you have it, dot dot dot.
First of all, journalist to eclipses Dan Come on, J
(06:02):
school peeps would be happy with um yeah, I mean
I I've seen this Dan Rather's take, even on my
own personal Facebook feed from very well meaning, might you say,
benevolent friends who are like who would have thought that,
like teen Vogue could be leading the resistance? And I
would have thought that, Like I think the surprise I
think is meant to be complimentary, like, oh, we're pleasantly
(06:24):
but actually it's it's it's illustrating a kind of underlying
assumption that like young women and young women's publications can't
tackle very same topic. I will be the first to
admit that I was surprised to hear that. I mean,
I think there were a lot of people who were
surprised by that, and I think it pulled upon our
unconscious bias and our unconscious assumptions there just sort of
(06:47):
check ourselves, because before I even had a chance to
repost it, I started seeing the counter narrative to that narrative. Right,
the initial narrative was like, oh my god, teen Vogue
is killing it. Check this out. How surprising is that?
Then immediately the counter narrative is, if you're surprised by this,
your sexist? So interesting? How different? Um? Two different arguments
(07:08):
really like bubbled up. They went very quickly quickly. I
mean there were like thirty thousand tweets. Um. I think
right after that that article went public a public um,
including from journalists on NPR, CBS News, Fox News host
Tucker Carlson Show, where he had Lauren on and then
(07:29):
braided her for covering both politics and fashion, saying, quote,
you should stick to those thigh high boots You're better
at that. But he's not a sexist. That wasn't benevolent women, right, Yeah,
he's like just trying to help, providing editorial support. And again,
I mean, this is something that is a personal and
I know it's something that you have feelings on too,
(07:50):
but it's a personal pet peeve of mine because I
feel like we live in a society where it's totally
fine for men to have dual interests like ever brates
or lectures a man. No one would be like stick
to football, sir, right, Like think about Playboy. They literally
have pornographers your hard hitting journalism, and everyone took that seriously.
And I've actually seen it like maybe this is me,
(08:12):
you know, seeing sexism in everything because it's everywhere so pervasive.
But like when something is happening, particularly around Beyonce or
the Kardashians, and everyone is talking about it, there's always
someone who's like, wouldn't it be great if people cared
this much about war or poverty? That's like, yeah, first
of all, shut up, but also it's like who's that?
(08:35):
Like who let us there about you know both? I know,
women with our complex identities, like can we not hold
space for the real housewives and reading The New York Times,
he certainly can. And no one says that about men.
No one says, you know, if you care about the
super Bowl, then you're not caring about you know, serious shallow.
So I think it's time for us to unpack a
(08:56):
little bit of the history behind how teen Vogue went
from a publication that primarily covered sort of lighter subject topics,
subject matter, lighter subject matter in general, um to getting
to this point of wokeness and allowing us women with
multiple passions and very different kinds of interest to feel
(09:17):
recognized and catered to when opening the pages of something
like teen Vogue, and specifically a very young readership that
they have. Um And there's there's an interesting story behind that, Bridget.
But before we go there, I think it's time for
us to take a quick break and we'll be right back.
(09:39):
And we're back, and we want to peel back the
layers of teen Vogues Awakening awoken that that sounds like
a horror movie about becoming like hip hit, Like, yeah,
somebody run with that. I think that that that would
be fun. I would watch that, Okay, So the awokening
of teen Vogue has some interesting history behind it. Well,
(10:01):
let's first acknowledge that it was actually created in two
thousand and three, so it's not that old old. And
at the time, Teen Vogues founding editor in chief described
its mission to New York Times as she said, We're
going to do what we do well, which is fashion,
beauty and style. And for many years they stuck to
that content. And there's something wrong with that, anohing wrong
(10:22):
with that they have. You have to find your niche, Okay,
like that was their niche. What I love here and
this is from the Brown Daily Herald, my own newspaper
that I used to work for, which I loved its
coverage here, so shout out to Emily Miller class of
nineteen nineteen for her great piece on the politics of
(10:46):
teen Vogue. She showed us that after a sixteen editorial
shake up that led to the promotion of Elane welter Off. Okay,
oh god, Elaine, I adore her, and I really hope
I didn't butcher her name there. But after the promotion
of Elaine, who by the way, is the youngest and
only the second African American Conde Nast editor for across
(11:09):
all of their publication, which pause that that is like
on the one hand, go her, but on the other
hand kind of a third Yeah, and you know, I
can speak to that a little bit, and that like
publishing is very very white, very male, but like specifically
very white, And so for me, not only is that
like sad, but also it makes her accomplishment that much,
you know, more significant exactly And who was it? It
(11:31):
was Shawnda Rhimes in her book Year of Yes, who
talked about being the first or only right first, or
only is the first or only There was one other
she it's good to be the first, but you want
to make sure you're not the only, yeah, saying something
about it's hard to sort of carry that mantle when
you're when you're busy trying to achieve what you're trying
to achieve. But Elaine rocked it. She gets up the
(11:54):
food chain at teen Vogue, and at that time, in
great part to her work, teen Vogue actually amended its
mission to include providing sophisticated yet readable commentary on a
broad range of social and political topics. Snaps Snaps snaps amazing.
(12:15):
I mean, and I think that it's a great case
study for like what happens when young people of color
are not just included, but like listen to and right,
and so something that kind of like burns my beans
a little bit in the is that an expression? I
don't know, something that burns my beans will go with it?
Is this idea that like diversity is just having people
(12:35):
of color and women in their room. And it's like, no,
like do they feel comfortable of wasting their opinions? Do
they feel comfortable making, you know, making decisions when they
make major decisions, are they listened to and valued and like,
you know, And I think this is a good case
study for what happens when those when young people of color,
young women of color are given the reins and given
leadership positions and really having that leadership respected. Yeah, I
(12:59):
mean versity. I think, like Shonda Rhymes says, to pull
from her again, it's not about promoting just to promote
more diverse voices. It's about normalizing because I'm sure that
teen vogues readership doesn't look as pale as teen vogues
leadership exactly. So like Shanda normalized TV with taking over
(13:21):
Thursday nights, right, like having people of color in positions
of power is about normalizing our media landscape. So it's
been kind of incredible to see the changes in coverage
that's happened have happened since Eline took took the Wasted.
It's so free because you see this, like I was
saying earlier, this mix of both fashion and hair and
(13:43):
clothing advice alongside really heavy hitting issues. And they have
they have, Like I remember seeing one article that's not
even necessarily political that I remember thinking, like, gee, that
I would have never found that in a magazine when
I was growing up, and that's the thing that people
need to like young women need to know about. It
was like what to do if your boy and asks
you to sex with him and like send you pictures
(14:03):
of yourself, you know, And it was like, that is
content that like I would never have thought that I
would have seen in like a magazine, for a magazine
for young women. But are today's young women actually meet
that kind of content, Like I'm sure that's a situation
that happened exactly. Just to jump on that too, because
I actually heard from Joanna Coles, the former editor in
chief over at Cosmopolitan Magazine, about how in today's day
(14:27):
and age, young girls need more information and need access
to information that's traditionally been left out of those kinds
of publications. So I think it was Cosmo back in
two thousand fifteen or two thousand and sixteen. I can't
quite recall that did a huge spread on planned parenthood,
on birth control in general. And this is like to
some very political content, but really it's the spreading of
(14:50):
real information that's backed by science about making sure that
young women, teens and girls understand their options and understand
what's available to them. And I think, just like anyone else,
young women are better served or they have more information,
not less, right, like more information about their bodies, about
the side, right, isn't it insane though, I mean, like
(15:13):
more more information. No, I want my kids to have
less information. People do feel that way, which is interesting. Yeah,
And so I mean, I just I applaud teen Vogue
for for making those choices, and I just love what
Essence Magazine said about it. So they said, for exploring
Native American girls thoughts on cultural appropriation to taking a
stand on resisting trump Donald Trump's America, teen Vogue has
(15:33):
been at the forefront of the most pertinent issues facing
young adults. And I just love that because it's true. Right,
like a yell, if you're like a fourteen year old
woman in this country. You need to understand what's happening
when people talk about Donald Trump on the news. You
also need to understand what's happening with your body or
what to do when your boyfriend asked for, you know,
a tompless picture. You also need to understand, like you
(15:54):
might need to understand how to get a good liquid
line on your eyes, or how to like, you know,
match your belt and your shoes or whatever. Yeah, I
think there's a I think it also reflects a broader
trend in infotainment, you know what I mean? Like I
think about how we're getting news these days. BuzzFeed is
covering hard hitting news like buzzfeeds exposing some political scandals,
(16:14):
and alongside like Whatton, Yeah, what Disney character? Are you right?
What is what Disney Princess? Would you be? Definitely? Oh? Yes, girl.
I was such a super fan of The Little Mermaid.
I think I memorized every word to the songs when
I was like four. Okay, and I pretended did you
play Mermaid? Oh? Yeah, I played Mermaid in the pool. Yeah,
(16:37):
it was a good game. My dad also cried at
the end O Littlemaid love because she says goodbye to
her father Trayton, and then leaves for a whole of
the world. My dad's like, oh that's different, Aladdin, but
also great Jasmine shoot to Jasmin too, Okay, Um yeah,
I think this this does reflect a broader trend of
(16:59):
be be okay to get a mix of media in
one publication totally and then it's okay. Like just I mean,
I actually really like it when you know, outlets or
whatever go high low where it's like highbrow lowbrow, and honestly,
there's nothing I hate more than when, like, I just
feel so isolated from Mike, whether it's a media outlet
(17:20):
or a person who was like Taylor Swift never heard
of her. All I do is read books, Like what
that kind of vibe when people are like, oh, like,
how dare you be interested in like a lowbrow thing,
Like I'm too busy, like you know, reading proofs or whatever.
It's like purposeful ignorance. I hate that. I hate. It
(17:40):
has to be a name for that. There has it
must be. Like I was once at a dinner party
where someone I kid you not, was pretending he had
never heard of Beyonce, not saying he had not heard
a song. He was acting like he didn't know. He
was like, I'm not familiar he was, and he was like, oh,
I don't even own a TV. I was like, oh,
come on, it was excruciating. Now it's means chameed not
(18:00):
on a TV. Does he still rag about it? Probably
my own cable at least, probably Wowser's okay, liar, did
you call him out? No? I just smiled politely and
nurse to drink. I wish I were there to take
me back to them. Let's go there again so I
can call him that and we'll talk about reality TV
the whole time, and you can read a book. Yeah,
(18:22):
I mean I someone should write a book about reality
TV if that hasn't happened yet. Let's talk about meta
media anyway. So I think the moral of the story
here is that teen Vogue got woke and is serving
up the kind of information that young girls want to see,
with a healthy mix of the lighter topics, which are
not you know, liking makeup and liking fashion and beauty
(18:44):
does not make you dumb. And I think this was
hard for me, Like this idea of respecting your readership
at teen Vogue, Cosmo or wherever BuzzFeed and saying I
like a good cat gift and I like hard hitting
journalism out of city. What was what was your discomfort
around this idea that you weren't supposed to like makeup
(19:05):
or like I think it's the tomboy child that I
was saying, Like I want to rebel from a gendered
stereotype that I was expected to fill, and so instead
of liking frilly dresses and fashion, I still to this
day say like I don't know how to dress myself,
and in reality I really enjoy dressing myself, but like
(19:25):
there's something to sort of being demure about the lady
like hobbies and habits, Like I will be on Reddit
of all places, looking at streetwear inspiration for women, and
I'll be like, I'm really like spending forty five minutes
here looking at fashion stuff, Like I shouldn't be embarrassed
about this, There's nothing wrong with that. So I don't know,
(19:45):
I think there's I think I still especially in a
city like d C, which is almost inrogynous, it's fashion.
We were talking about New York versus DC recently, right,
or maybe it was with my friend Jesse actually who
she and I were talking about how she dresses very
boho and and very florally and very feminine, but she
(20:06):
works in a downtown Washington, d C. Political consulting firm
and is a hard hitting boss over there, and we
were talking about how in d C. I think there's
this feeling of shoulder pads and suits and the pants
suit phenomenon that that more and more of us are bucking.
But I'm like, where's the yoga pants phenomenon? Like, can
(20:28):
I be a smart, powerful person and where yoga pants?
Like nine nine out of ten days, I mean, the
answer is yes, but it's been it's taking me a
little bit. We're all learning and growing together. Yeah, I
mean I think that teen Vogue does a great job
of showing that, like that's okay, it's okay, Like we
are multifaceted individuals, but I think the patriarchy makes us
(20:52):
feel like we have to be one or the other.
That if we're going to be we have to either
like embrace you know, the feminine and be like the
early girl or reject the them like I'm you know,
and it doesn't allow for us to just be our authentic,
multifacet itself. And so snaps to places like teen Vogue,
who are really allowing young girls to expose to be
(21:14):
exposed to, you know, hard hitting journalism, political activist de
type stuff, and you know, not feel bad about having
that across the page, across the fold from Spring trends
or whatever, and that's okay. But there has been a
pushback on that because sometimes those political pieces are heavy, right,
So there was a critique that I came across in
(21:35):
the journalism on the journalism, on the meta journalism journalism,
but on teen Vogue sort of editorial choices, which was saying,
doesn't feel a little insensitive to have something about police
brutality across the page from you know, the best slip
glass for your Instagram selfies? Like, there are interesting conundrums
that you fall into there. I mean, I think I
(21:56):
definitely get that argument. But I think for me, like
I think, with your example police brutality, that's I mean,
I hate to say it, and this sounds awful, but
that is the reality of how we have to live
with police brutality. It's not it's easy to think that
it's the siloed off thing where like you deal with
it when you you know, want to have something summer, right,
like it's like you no, like you are dealing with
(22:17):
it alongside your everyday life, and like, um, there's a
great movie called Dope that I love and like one
of the points of the movie is that kids that
live in areas where they are plagued by violence, it's
not this like, it's they're they're living their lives, and
their lives are the same as anyone else, as like
a teenager's life where they listen to music and love,
have crushes. Their lives are just punctuated by extreme violence,
(22:40):
and that they are still living what what might seem
like ordinary you know, adolescent lives and ordinary adolescents concerns,
but like they are not able to then silo off,
you know, and so like why should we as readers
be able to be like, well, when I want something
bumming like a bummer magazine, when I want something that's
like light and fuffee, everach for this when that's not
(23:00):
how it happens, not how it happens. That it's a
really good point. Well, I think it's been a sign
of the bold leadership at teen Vogue that they are
willing to go there and push those limits and gain
get some flak in the process and deal with these
sexist reactions of saying, like, who the hell does teen
Vogue think they are? But I was really pleasantly surprised
(23:21):
to hear from Anna wint Or her quote um about
Elaine taking the helm. She said, Elaine is incredibly in
tune with the teen Vogue audience and has used that
unique insight to engage and connect with her readers on
a very personal level. Over the last year. She's demonstrated
a fearless leadership in her pursuit to make teen Vogue
(23:42):
the voice of a new generation, and we look forward
to all she will accomplish. So we have a bit
of like, I think we should take a break before
we provide the happy ending to this story, which is
even more exciting about Elaine's role at teen Vogue. Does
that sound good to you? Okay, So we'll be right
back after a quick break and a quick word for
our sponsors. So Bridget, we've got some exciting news to
(24:13):
share about where this story went next now that we're
back from the break. So in very exciting teen Vogue news,
Elayne was officially named as the editor in chief of
teen Vogue, which is a great for her. Like I
couldn't be more happy. And again, like, there are just
so few women of color, purely black women in the
media space. Having there be black editor in chief is huge,
(24:36):
I mean, just the mass head of any big, you
know publication, there's so few you know, non white faces
and so. And now she's not just in charge of
making editorial like decisions on single stories or in the
digital realm where she was really focused previously, along with Piccardi,
digital editor as well, who also played a big role,
(24:59):
by the way, we have to give he played a
big role alongside Elane and making this content of activism
and political awareness more of a priority in gateen Vogue.
But it's it's great to have someone like her now
in charge of thinking about the future of teen Vogus
brand and really making sure that we're aligning media with
the new media landscape that teens are consuming. I think
(25:23):
it was a smart move on Conde Nast's part. I
think so too. And I think I mean when you
look at when you look at her Elane's background, like
she again like really nicely bridges that gap of like
you know, coming she came from the world of you know,
fashion mags and things like that before her work at
teen Vogue. She was aye in two thousand and twelve.
She joined teen Vogue. Prior prior to that, she was
(25:45):
at Glamor Magazine as a senior beauty editor, and then
before that she worked as the beauty and style editor
of Ebony magazine. So how cool is that she she
really did focus on beauty style and now she's saying,
you know what we need in addition to beauty and
style in this beauty and style magazine is let's woke
it up. And that's awesome. I love that. I mean,
(26:05):
I think one of my favorite sayings that tweens will
save us all I think that she is. I think
that's true or now that's so true, and like I
think that like tweens will lead the way, Like if
you want to know what's hip, what's happening, like who's like,
tweens are at the forefront. If you have tween cousins,
tween kids, tween siblings, talk to the tweens, like I
know what the tweens are up to, um, And I
(26:25):
just think that, like someone who is young, fresh hip,
these are the voices that we need to be listening to.
And honestly, like I think that people like Elaine, people
who are young, freethinking people of color, they should be.
In my perfect world, they'd be on the mass heads
of every big publication in the United States. And I
think it would be better served that well take I
think they should take a page from teen Vogue. One
(26:48):
might say, because it's working. It's obviously working for them.
I think you know what's interesting about the teen Vogue
story is that when welter Off and her colleagues have
injected sort of that new activist energy into the content
strategy there, it's been noticed by other publications in this space,
(27:11):
and I've seen other publications what I imagine to be
taking a page from their magazine. As you said, like
um Paste magazine is a magazine that you might think
of as like a music magazine, but it's getting into
more like political stuff. And I think I saw someone
tweet once, like in the in twenties seventeen with Trump
in our White House and with like so many different
things popping off politically and socially. If you are a journalist,
(27:34):
you are always kind of a political journalist. And even
if you write about food, you're kind of also writing
about Pocasts are ending up being political, not really trying.
We're just like, oh my god, it all comes back
to Donald Trump. I think, um, I think that's it's
a hard thing to ignore today. And I think that's
a really fair point for everybody in the media escaped
to take into consideration because and I want to go
(27:57):
back to sort of wrappings up with this takeaway or
round women's publications, not having to silo women's voices into
a particular like this is all we care about category.
Like I think there's been a historical silencing of women,
like saying this is women's news, or this is not
women's news, this is women's issues, and these are not
(28:18):
women's issues. And I think this is a sign of
the times that those barriers are starting to really be
broken down. And we've acknowledged that it's been true all
along that women have varying interests and it's okay for
those seemingly incongruent interests to coexist peacefully in the same
magazine I love and like I as someone who was
either I'm like blogging about social change or like watching
(28:38):
Real Housewives, I have to defend this all the time,
and I always like to say, like I am vest
i contain multitudes, right, Like I can be you know,
on the dance floor, or I can be like yeah,
And so I think with that, I would love to
hear from our listeners in terms of what are the
seemingly incongruent interests that you hold that you're happy to
(29:01):
have peacefully coexist as the multitudes that are within you,
Like I'm really interested, like what do you love reading that?
Do you you know, are you able to find in
a single publication the kind of mix of media that
really speaks to you? And if so, what publications are those?
And also what are your guilty pleasures? Like what do
you or what do you want to see alongside those
guilty pleasures? Right? Like what do you think pairs nicely
(29:22):
together or make sense to pair today? Like pedicure and
a New York magazine or that sounds great, isn't it? Right?
That's like I think that's a very good encapsulation of
my average Saturday or Sunday. So we want to hear
from you on this. Send us a snap on Instagram
at stuff Mom Never told You, Shoot us a tweet
at mom Stuff podcast on Twitter, or we always love
(29:46):
to read your mail in our inbox. So shoot us
an email at mom stuff, at how stuff Works dot com.
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Samantha McVey
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