Everyone used to accept that a single woman could represent a cultural moment. Not due to a vote by a committee. Not because a chosen population saw her article through an algorithm. Because the gatekeepers of the editorial world had collectively and authoritatively determined that she was it after seeing her on the cover of a magazine that was available on every coffee table and airport kiosk. There was no voting for the It Girl. She was proclaimed.
The infrastructure needed for that declaration is no longer available on a large scale. print publications with a nationwide readership and authentic cultural authority. Tens of millions of people watch talk shows on television at the same time. Journalists covering entertainment whose column placements have the power to instantly build or destroy a reputation. The It Girl was more than just a person; she was the result of a system that was able to focus cultural attention in a way that the media landscape of today is fundamentally unable to match. Celebrity culture was not the only thing broken apart by the internet. The pipelines that celebrities passed through were melted by it.
The most obvious cultural relic from the time when this was still the case is the rom-com journalists of the 1990s and early 2000s. Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle, Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed—the magazine journalist continued to be portrayed as the ultimate It Girl ideal because the character embodied precisely the attributes that the ecosystem valued: access to the world of taste-making without being above the audience, professional competence worn lightly, and proximity to glamour without being glamour itself. She was present in the room where it took place. The story was written by her. She won the man over. Additionally, the institutional mechanisms that provided her with a front cover, a byline, and an expense account were the source of her power.
At the time, everyone believed that mystique was a permanent ingredient, thus no one gave it a name. In part, the It Girl’s lack of familiarity made her appealing. She participated in events, posed in photos, and gave carefully chosen interviews, yet there was enough discrepancy between her real life and her public persona to encourage fantasizing. The gap is now closed. The platforms that have taken the place of magazines demand a different contract: constant access, direct communication, and the performance of authenticity rather than the performance of aspiration. This is not because today’s celebrities are naturally more forthcoming. The mystique that made the It Girl feasible cannot be sustained by an influencer who posts three times a day, replies to comments, shares her morning routine, her kitchen, and her disputes with her boyfriend.
What took her place is weaker and more numerous. These days, there are millions of micro-celebrities—women who are almost unknown outside of their specialized fan base of 50,000. There is more than simply geographic and demographic dispersion. It is classified. There are bookish It Girls, fashion It Girls, fitness It Girls, and mental health It Girls. It Girls and financial It Girls each have a fan base that experiences a parasocial intimacy that was unavailable to the audience of the former It Girl. This is superior in many respects: it is more accessible, diversified, and less subject to the aesthetic prejudices of a small number of generally homogeneous editorial teams. It’s just different in one particular way: nobody is universally accepted.
The story of Taylor Swift’s cultural dominance is essentially about someone who was everywhere on every platform at once, which is a different kind of universality than the passive broadcast reach of the magazine age. Taylor Swift is the closest thing the current era has produced to a monoculture figure. In contrast to Kate Moss in her prime, she worked hard for it. An institution found and promoted the old It Girl. The contemporary version must constantly construct and maintain her own infrastructure, which results in a new relationship to fame that, despite being more sincere, feels more draining and transactional.
