I'm not sure how I missed Tavi. She's a thirteen year old geek from Chicago and she's obsessed with fashion - not in the celebrity, Le Chateau rip-off wanna be way but in this really earnest, creative, not-afraid-to-be-weird way.

It's hard not to fixate on the fact that she's thirteen, because she is so far removed from how I was at that age - how most people were/are. The most marked difference is how brave she is. Yes, the fashionistas love her and have christened her this season's mascot, but from some of her posts, I get the sense that her classmates don't appreciate her unique spirit in the same way. Their reaction when she dyed her hair blue:

Why'd you dye your hair? BECAUSE I HATE BLUE HAIR.
Did you know your hair is blue? WHAT?! IT IS??! NOBODY INFORMED ME OF THIS!
Well aren't you a little badass/rebel! FIND A BETTER LOCATION THAN THE LIBRARY TO TELL ME THIS.
Sadly no funny analogies today! Come ON kids, put your brains to work and deliver the goods next time! Luckily this stuff will be in for a couple months so get your brains to work.

Not that Tavi needs advice from me, but if she did, or if I could talk to myself at the tender age of thirteen: I would like to tell you it gets easier and people get nicer as you get older, but it's really not true. Some people get a life and stop worrying about what everyone else is doing and whether they are conforming, and others never do. If you're lucky they'll be honest enough to be bitchy to your face and if you're not, they'll do shit behind your back (usually not very subtly). There are always going to be mean girls and boys. An unfortunate truth. Most of them are insecure and unhappy, but some of them are just mean and bored or stuck in a pond they don't like. The good news is that as an adult, you generally have a greater ability to avoid the bitches - unlike in school which pretty much has you stuck with the same kids five days a week. Hopefully, with age the filter gets a little better and you stop letting the scum get right up close to you. The water is a little clearer.

Tavi dies her hair silver and blue and wears odd things that don't look conventionally beautiful and writes her blog and does her thing. I'm sure the meanies get to her (including the lurkers who post mean shit anonymously on the internets) but she strikes me as stubbornly and uniquely herself, which occasionally means being a bit of a freak.

I am turning 32 this week (32!!) and I could learn a lot from her. Fuck the haters. I'm flying my Tavi flag.


Both images from the Tavi website.