same no more: rookie

There is a lot of sameness out there.
Same heap-loads of magazines promising beautiful hair In Only Ten Minutes! or lengthy articles on real issues (When Your Crush Isn't So Crushworthy: How To Drop Him in Five Steps). And flipping through them, the same fashion trends (short skirt, high socks & converse or Vans), the same thoughts, the same opinions, the same bands and music etc.

Yes, there are people out there who are labeled as 'different' and 'original', but a couple of weeks back I found myself doubting their authenticity. What proportion of that feminist, with a hip blog book full of quotes from her favourite movies, was real and what was made up? Was she just a facade that a tired-out twenty-something year old slipped into every evening, once she came home from work?

It had been a while that these thoughts were turning around in my head. What if originality did not exist. What if the things I saw around me, and that I regarded as unique, were just an illusion, and copied from some other artist? Was life just a circle of copying and being copied from? Where was the core of ideas and originality and how did it take form?

Then, my mother showed me something that she knew I'd be interested in, it was this talk by Tavi Gevinson.

OK, I'd just like to take a minute here to acknowledge this girl. When I heard her speak, and later looked through her online magazine called Rookie, I was literally blown away. All the thoughts on originality being skin-deep were replaced with an idea. Then another, and another. With this girl, I was brought to places I didn't even knew existed.

Go check her out, because for me, she was a breath of fresh air.

Tavi, by Petra Collins