When Teen Vogue’s website folded into Vogue.com earlier this month, it did more than erode a brand. It reshaped what youth media could be: bold, political and unapologetically inclusive.
For many of us who grew up reading Teen Vogue, it was never just about fashion, beauty or pop culture. It was about voice. It was a publication that made room for equity and eyeliner, mascara and movement. It allowed both beauty and politics to coexist in the same room unapologetically.
I remember attending Teen Vogue University, an annual, weekend-long event for high school and college students interested in a career in the fashion industry and sitting in rooms filled with other young dreamers like me, students who believed that they too could make a difference in the worlds of fashion and journalism. Teen Vogue represented the bridge between youthful creativity and journalistic purpose. It taught me that just because the world views some of our interests as superficial doesn’t mean our voices lack substance. It also made space for those who are often left out, giving Black women and members of the LGBTQ+ community a platform to feel seen, heard and included.
That’s why this merger hits hard.
The loss also echoes a larger pattern beyond New York or Condé Nast. Across the Midwest and the country, youth-focused and community media are shrinking under the same pressures of consolidation, ad loss and institutional neglect.
The 2025 Medill State of Local News Report, produced by the Medill School of Journalism’s Local News Initiative, showed a continued decline in local newspapers, with 136 outlets disappearing in the past year, nine more than in 2024.
Student publications, independent outlets and local digital startups often fill the same role Teen Vogue once did nationally: giving emerging journalists, especially young women and journalists of color, a place to lead conversations about identity, justice and representation. When those spaces disappear, the pipeline of diverse newsroom voices narrows, and communities lose storytellers who understand them best.
The disappearance of Teen Vogue fits into that larger story. Once a glossy fashion magazine, it evolved into one of the most innovative youth outlets of its time, one that proved young readers wanted journalism with substance as much as style, even when it shifted from print to web in 2017.
In late 2016, Teen Vogue made headlines for publishing an op-ed that accused President Donald Trump during his first term of “gaslighting America.” That moment marked a turning point, broadening the outlet’s coverage to include politics, immigration and climate change while still celebrating fashion and beauty. It became proof that journalism for young people could be both stylish and socially conscious.
Now, Teen Vogue has laid off its last two Black writers and eliminated its political section, areas that former editor-in-chief Elaine Welteroth, a Black woman, helped build and elevate. For a brand that once redefined what youth media could look like, fearless, inclusive and socially aware, this feels like losing the very heartbeat that made it revolutionary.
As a journalism student, I can’t help but think about what this means for the future of storytelling. The journalism program at Columbia College, where I attend school, teaches us to merge creativity with conscience, to challenge systems and to make space for unheard voices. Losing spaces like this isn’t just a business decision; it’s a warning about what happens when corporate interests speak louder than community.
Teen Vogue showed us that youth journalism could be brave, stylish and deeply political. It was proof that young voices don’t just belong in the margins. As a student journalist, I feel more determined than ever to help create the spaces that no longer exist, ones that celebrate difference, curiosity and dissent.
Even in its absence, Teen Vogue leaves behind a blueprint: journalism that sees young people not as consumers, but as changemakers.
Reprinted with permission from The Columbia Chronicle.
Andria Childress is a journalism major at Columbia College. She lives in Chicago.
