Last night, 13-year-old blogger Tavi joined Susie Bubble, Bryanboy, Phil Oh of Street Peeper, and Britt Aboutaleb and Lauren Sherman of Fashionista.com for a panel discussion on “The Future of Fashion Blogging” at the Evolving Influence Fashion Blog Conference hosted by the Independent Fashion Bloggers. Tavi — clearly the blogger everyone was most excited to see — won coos and applause with almost every comment. And with good reason! Some highlights below.
On personal-style blogging:
“You can write about what you care about. There’s always someone who also really loves, like, Seinfeld as well as dead dolls, as well as Prada. I think the few times I’ve tried to do more news reporting, I can only go so far until I have to make a Freaks & Geeks reference. For me it’s easier to write as a personal-style blog.”
On technology changing the media landscape:
“Nick Knight started ShowStudio in 2000, like a decade ago, and the scary part is in five years, it’s going to be like the iPhone. I remember there was this old Lindsay Lohan Disney Channel movie and she was video chatting with her friends about what they were going to wear, and that was so technologically advanced to me, and now you don’t have to be like a spy on Disney Channel to do it.”
On people saying bloggers have no business sitting front row:
“Well, if you generalize it like that, then it’s like people with computers can’t be in the front row.”
On the blogger-versus-editor argument:
“A lot of it is kind of made up. I think it started to sort of come back and gain a little more momentum when a Grazia writer was sitting behind me and couldn’t see because of my hat. But like I saw what [she] Twittered, which was ‘Can’t see behind Tavi’s bow,’ and it’s like, I think [she was] just sort of like making a joke. But then it was like [transfers to ominous voice-over voice] ‘Bloggers and Editors at War — which side are you on?’” [Audience erupts into laughter and applause]
On reading her own press:
“I read my own comments because I rarely get a negative commenter on my blog. I don’t read comments on other sites when other people have written about me and I generally don’t read the article. I have to be with myself all the time, and I don’t really want to read about myself. If somebody doesn’t like me, it’s probably somebody I’m never going to meet. It’s just part of the game.”
