12-year-old Tavi Gevinson posts fashion-inspired photos of herself on her blog "Style Rookie". She's part of a young generation of fashion bloggers who display pictures of their outfits for all the world to see."Lately I've been really interested in fashion, and I like to make binders and slide shows of `high-fashion' modelling and designs."
To many of us she's in a world where she doesn't belong. Privacy and predators are just two of the major reasons why we should be concerned, but also because the fashion industry's problems with anorexia, bulimia, drugs and self-abuse are well-documented and its not something children should be exposing themselves to at a young age.
The exposure concerns advocates like Parry Aftab, a lawyer who runs the online protection site WiredSafety.org. "Parents have no idea what their kids are doing online," Aftab says. "Most parents have no idea what a blog is."
Concerns about Internet safety for children have been fueled by such tragedies as the 2006 suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier in Missouri. She hanged herself after receiving nasty online comments from a MySpace friend that turned out to be the fake creation of two acquaintances and a neighbour.
Although the United States federal government requires extra protection for Internet users who are younger than 13, not every website follows the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. (And frankly why should they when book companies are publishing books by children on the same topics?)
Some young bloggers are taking their own steps to protect their privacy such as cropping their faces and keeping their identity a secret. Doing so is a safety necessity for the young bloggers because it's a chance to keep track of their obsession, with input from friends or other fashion fans.
Tavi's blog "Style Rookie" went from a non-issue to a problem when in late July, New York magazine's fashion blog questioned Tavi's age, dissecting her precocious fashion sense and sophisticated taste in music. The resulting comments ranged from suspicious to nasty, with one reader claiming, "Anyone who actually believes she is [really] 12 is an absolute idoit (sic)."
The Gevinsons were asleep at their vacation house in Michigan when Tavi checked her email and found the post.
The next night, "She woke up, and again woke us up, and said – and this is really heartbreaking – `I just woke up crying and I don't even know why I'm crying.'... She slept in the bed with us that night to get back to sleep," Gevinson says.
Such negative responses are another reason children should be hesitant about blogging. Children are very impressionable and the nasty responses they receive can be a major blow to their psyche.
But Gevinson thinks kids like Tavi are stronger than parents believe. "I have a lot of confidence in her and in most kids, if not all kids, that they can figure it out if they have good guidance and caring people working with them," he says.
Tavi, after taking a short break in the wake of the attention, has returned to blogging with her father's blessing.
"I'd much rather have her decide to stop if she's going to stop than to tell her to stop," Gevinson says. "She'll grow out of it – maybe, maybe not."
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