Musings on Early Internet Fame & What Not To Do

Part I: The Foundation Stones

Here’s the story of how I crashed out from early internet “success” & lost my identity then my marriage. EVERYTHING IS FINE. *sweats* I swear!

Something about this platform feels nostalgic and refreshing at the same time. I am mildly addicted to the quietude of Substack. In a crazy noisy digital landscape this feels like a balm, which makes it incredibly appealing. It feels nostalgic because it reminds me of blogging and that’s where the backstory of how we got here really begins…

To go in the wayback time machine I remember a course-defining conversation with my art history professor who was pleading with me not to follow the path of being a perpetual student and study art forever. She said something like “you always dress up for class and I think you should follow the arts into something more like fashion or photography”. So, I listened. (TBH studying in a library forever sounds like heaven but here we are)

I tore my ACL playing lacrosse which killed my athletic career and suddenly I had time to drive into New York City from my small Pennsylvania college and find an internship. I landed one at Seventeen Magazine, then one at Prada (nightmare) then I assisted fashion stylists on photoshoots where I got to dress Rosie Huntington Whiteley as she cried to me about her boyfriend breaking up with her (I think she made out quite well now!) then onto a full time job at Cosmopolitan magazine as the fashion assistant for the American market. It was a dream job honestly. It was pre-recession. Fashion week was still held at Bryant Park. We used to write fake seat numbers onto printed tickets to sneak in. It was so much fun.

When the 2008 recession hit I felt a really large shift in culture. A beautiful woman by the name of Elin Kling came into the magazine offices to pitch her “blog” to the editors. WHAT IS A BLOG? Girls were documenting in real time what the editors of magazines were slowly printing in magazines. It felt exciting and full of opportunity. So I quit my dream job. To start a fashion blog.