This morning at the Rodarte F/W 2012 show, we caught up with wunderkind blogger/editor Tavi Gevinson to discuss Sunday evening's Neil Young performance, "lazy-DIY" and her high school's bug infestation.Congratulations on your performance on Sunday night. How'd it go for you?
It went well, it was a lot of fun.
Were you nervous?
I was kind of nervous, but there was a lot of camera flashing and that made it all feel very distant, which ended up working with how the song is.
How did you prepare for it?
Well, I already knew the song, and I practiced a little. I took voice lessons for a few years. Not, like, in preparation for this, but I am a seasoned theater kid.
Have you thought of starting a girl band?
Well, my friends at school and I have a band...
Do you guys have a name? What do you play?
Our name? I am not going to tell you! We're still...uhhhhh you know.... trying to develop our sound (mockingly). It's just a mix of things that we like, it's strange. We need a drummer!
Maybe Meg White's available?
I am sure she would have fun coming to a high school to play the Awkward Music Festival.
I like your headband, where did you get it?
I made it. It's crap store flowers. I only like lazy DIY. I need a book that has DIYs for lazy people where you don't have to buy anything; it's just all stuff you already own. So like these flowers and the headband I already had. I was too lazy to even glue them! They are just connected with wires.
What's the most interesting thing you have learned being the editor of Rookie?
The most interesting thing to me is whenever I don't know what we should write about, I just think about whatever is plaguing me as a teenage girl, and then those always seem to be the posts that girls always relate to the most.
How do you feel about turtlenecks?
Turtlenecks. I like a turtleneck... well, I will just quote Neil from Freaks and Geeks, "Everyone looks good in turtlenecks. That's the point."
Have you ever had to wear one for a hickey?
No! I do have many hickeys from the bug infestation at our school though. So I am very popular with the termites and cockroaches.
An infestation? Gross!
Yeah, it's a problem. Now, you can't eat outside of the lunchroom now. You can't have lunch in a teacher's room or anything because they are, like, everywhere.
What do you like about growing up in the Midwest?
I like the Midwest because you can ask people, strangers, how their day was and everything. It is just friendlier. It's creepy. In New York people are more self-aware. Either they grew up in New York and are really tough or they come here and know what they want. I like that there is less consciousness about how things will be perceived in small towns in the Midwest. People don't try to be provocative, but will end up being really funny or having a weird secret.
Photo by Jesse Lirola/BFAnyc.com