The Teen Journalist Who’s Over College Competition And Cringe Culture
Plus: The beauty products you’re obsessed with rn 💄
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Bloomer in the Spotlight 🌼
Meet Eve, a thoughtful student journalist from Connecticut who loves storytelling, throwing dinner parties with her friends, and ABBA.
Eve is currently a senior at the same high school I attended a million years ago and is the editor-in-chief of the student newspaper, The Viking Saga, of which I was also the editor-in-chief (shout-out room A225 🫶🏻). Below, we chat about the pressure of college applications, cringe culture, and the adorable way she met her boyfriend.
How do you like living in East Lyme?
It’s small. I’ve been here my whole life so I don’t really know much else, but I like to compare it to Gilmore Girls sometimes [laughs]. I love that everyone knows everybody somehow. I always find a connection and I just love that about a small town. It’s so cute. The other day I was at someone’s house and I was like, “You know this person?!” Even in bordering towns, there’s connections. I play the violin and met someone at a music festival and we became really good friends. And then I was learning about his friends and I know some of them. It’s so crazy how everything’s connected.
What are your post-high school plans right now?
I’m still waiting to hear back from colleges. I applied to about 12 schools. Half of them were Early Action and Early Decision.
My top school right now is the University of Richmond in Virginia. I love that school so much. It's a little liberal arts school; I feel like that really fits me. It's so pretty and just has this warm filter over it. Since it's liberal arts, you can explore different fields. I'm interested in journalism and business. And then even film. You have the ability to do whatever you want there. I love that. I'm also looking at Villanova and then Northwestern Medill. That's such a stretch, but you never know unless you try.
Totally. I had applied Early Decision to Sarah Lawrence and did not get in. I thought it was the worst thing ever. I put so much pressure on myself in high school when I was a senior––I can still feel the anxiety in my chest.
There’s so much pressure. I have a sister who’s six years older than me but the process even then versus now is so different. You went to East Lyme––it’s so competitive. Especially now with college apps, I can really see everyone’s competing against each other and it's so sad. Sometimes I just don't feel like there's a strong support system there. I'm in a group of friends that's super competitive. They all applied to Ivy Leagues. I didn't apply to any Ivy Leagues, but I still applied to pretty competitive schools. There's a lot of self-worth put on where you go to school.
I feel like it's stupid. But it’s like, someone gets into a school and immediately, people are looking up acceptance rates being like, “Oh, if it's not under 20 [percent]; it's not a good school.” It's just annoying because I've been a super hard worker my whole life. I had this reputation at my school and it was very unhealthy. Freshman and sophomore year I was crazy. But then junior and senior year, I was like, What is the point? I want to enjoy my high school years. So junior year I was super social. I had so much fun and still had good grades. I stopped putting so much stress on getting perfect grades.
I truly wish I had cared less. Like, trying so hard to be perfect––to be in every AP class, to get straight A’s––it doesn’t matter.
Yeah. It seems like since this is all I know, it’s like, “This is my life and this is extremely important.” But I was talking to my friend and I was like, “Next year, nothing I do now, I’m not gonna care.”
Wherever you are next year, you will not care. And when you graduate college and you’re hanging out with your coworkers at the bar after work, no one’s talking about “Oh, I went to Harvard” or “I went to Northwestern.” No one talks about that type of stuff. Everyone couldn’t care less. The smartest thing you can do, I think, is to have a really healthy perspective like you do now. I think it’s amazing that you have this sensibility and awareness.
Tell me about your Saga journey. Did you always want to be an editor?
No. It’s actually so interesting. My family’s super STEM. My mom's a doctor. My dad was a chemist. My sister is a biochemist. I kind of grew up thinking I had to be like that; that was my path. Like, I have to be [laughs] science-y. So I tried. I told my mom, “Oh, I wanna be a doctor” because my mom was a pediatrician. I was set on that for such a long time, even into high school.
So sophomore year I was planning on doubling up in science, but I didn’t like it. I just knew that's what my parents wanted me to do. But my friend Kennedy, who's now the co-editor with me, knew she wanted to be a journalist since forever. We became really good friends freshman year and she wanted me to take journalism with her. And I'm like, “Well, I'm taking chem so I wasn't planning on it.” But then Mr. Beale, who I had freshman year, he just told me that my writing is amazing and the way I interact with people. He could tell that I would do really well in journalism and I would like it. So I decided to take journalism. I asked my counselor to take me out of chem [laughs]. It was actually the best decision of my life because I've made so many connections.
I got an article published in The Day. I wrote about the Pfizer vaccine when it came out. I’ve had so many great experiences and I owe it all to journalism. I was the news editor last year and then I'm now the opinion editor and editor-in-chief this year. It's such a rewarding opportunity to speak to people and learn how to communicate.
Then last year, two people from my school were asked to participate in this poetry project. I had never done poetry in my life. I actually hated poetry. But I had this “say yes” mentality, which I think is really important, especially with journalism. So I was like, Sure, I'll do this poetry project. Maybe I can just turn it into an article. It was with Mystic Geriatrics and they wanted me to connect with an elder in my community and to help them remember their past and have their story be written in poetry. I ended up meeting this lady. Her name was Hardeep and she was from Kenya, Africa. And I just met with her at her house. We had tea; it was so cute. She made cookies, sometimes. I would talk to her for like two hours each time and just learn about her life and her story. Then I was able to make poetry out of that. It was crazy to me because I never did anything with poetry. I mean, I was an AP Lit, so I was studying poetry, which probably helped a bit [laughs].
But I was able to capture her story in poetry and it was so beautiful. There were four other girls who did this and we had a poetry reading where we read our poems to our elders with anyone who wanted to come. It was an event. And it was insane. I had no idea I could create such powerful words to the point where my elder was crying at the end. It was insane to me how I could use words to do that. I think that was such a life-changing moment for me and for her. I think she didn't realize how special her story could be. I just kind of made her feel more significant in a way. She's a very humble woman, so she's just like, “I had no idea you could do that.” And I'm like, “I had no idea either.”
I love that.
Yeah. It was super special. I even wrote my college essay about it because it showed I love storytelling and I can do so much with words.
That’s so beautiful. We spoke about the pressures of getting into college, but I’m curious about what other kinds of conversations you and your friends are having right now.
Recently, we’ve been talking about cringe culture. It's so frustrating. I hate how people make fun of other people for doing things they love. I have a friend at my school who loves fashion. She dresses so uniquely but it’s beautiful. It's the way she expresses her art. She wants to go into fashion at FIT and she dresses in vintage clothing; very eccentric things. I think it's beautiful. But other people are so judgy.
She gets made fun of all the time for what she wears. I'm like, Who cares what she's wearing? It's not inappropriate or anything. It's different, but it's cool. I love how she has the confidence to do it. But she can't win. Some days it'll get to her because people keep making fun of her. So she'll just wear leggings and a sweatshirt. And then people make fun of her for that. They're like, “Why are you wearing that? Why are you being a basic bitch?” Stuff like that. She can't win because when she wears her fancy clothes, people are like, “Oh, you just want attention.”
That’s so frustrating.
Yeah. I can't imagine that every day. Well, I can because I see it, but it's so annoying. There's other examples too, like how people make fun of people for what they like. I have a friend who loves theater and there's so much stigma around theater kids, but it's such a talent and when they're really good at it, it's so impressive. I just don't understand why people just can't tolerate it if it's just not “cool.”
Right. Like, what does it even mean, anyway?
Right? I like music. I play the violin. That’s not really considered cool. But it’s funny because it’s the orchestra kids who make fun of the theater kids. I’m like, “We’re with them.” [laughs] I don’t get it.
It’s like this competitiveness. It makes me think back to when I was in AP English and whenever the teacher would hand back a graded paper, my friend would always look at her score super quickly and then slam the test down in case anyone saw it.
That happens all the time. I hate it when teachers pass back tests because everyone's like, What did you get? What did you get? It's the same. It's awful. And then one time I didn't wanna share and so like, I was just like, “Oh, I did well.” And they're like, “Why can't you just say what you got?” I didn't do as well as I wanted to, but I didn't want them to know that. So they took my paper to look at it and they started making fun of me. I was like, Why? Why does it matter so much?
That also reminds me of when I got rejected from Sarah Lawrence. I told people I got waitlisted because I didn't want to say that I got rejected because I felt so self-conscious about it. Clearly, I wouldn’t have felt the need to lie if I wasn’t worried about being judged!
Anyway! What do you and your friends like to do on the weekends?
It's been super busy with college apps, but we love getting together and making meals. It's so cute. We'll have movie nights. But I think our favorite thing to do is make dinner. We have dinner parties together. Each of us will take turns hosting and we'll make pasta or something. I like to decorate my house to make it look aesthetic with candles and stuff. It's so cute and it's so fun. But we haven't done that in a while. We'll have movie nights and just talk. We can talk for hours. One time we had a half day of school and we went ice skating. Well, we went to lunch and then we went ice skating and then we went to our friend's house and then we just hung out for like 12 hours. It was insane. But nice. We love just talking about anything and everything.
What’s something that’s bringing you joy right now?
Recently, I joined a band. Campbell is the guitar guy and his dad is a pro musician so he has such a nice setup in his basement. There’s records on the walls and it has such a great sound system. It's so official. There's so many string lights and it's so pretty. We just jam out. We haven't done too much music ‘cause we're all super busy, but it's so fun. We play this music––it's kinda like indie pop. We play TikTok music, too. I'm trying to learn guitar. It's kind of hard, but I'd also like to sing. I love singing. I don't know if I'm that good at it, but I sing in front of my school sometimes, so I guess I'm not terrible.
Who are some of your favorite musical artists?
ABBA. My mom is actually such an ABBA enthusiast. I think I got it from her. When she was younger, she had her own ABBA newsletter in her community. It was like a newspaper dedicated to ABBA.
I do like indie pop, like Wallows. I like ‘80s music, too. Billy Joel. Elton John's more like ‘70s… I like soft pop, too. Oh, Harry Styles. I don't wanna sound basic, but on my Spotify Wrapped, I think Harry Styles was number one. But ABBA was number two.
What are your favorite apps to use?
I find myself on TikTok a little too much. I don't use Snapchat that much. I'll only Snapchat my best friends. I know people who Snapchat random people and I hate how that's how people talk to others, especially when girls want to talk to guys. I hate how that's the way people interact with each other. I love authentic stuff. I don't like how people just add random people on Snapchat to start the talking phase.
Pinterest is a big one ‘cause I'm a big planner and I love to lay out my life and my goals. And then I like Instagram.
Is there anything we didn't talk about that you wanted to touch upon?
[Back to] the Snapchat thing, I despise what I was saying about how a lot of people only communicate that way now. It's weird to me. I know I was brought up in that kind of generation, but my family is very old fashioned. My dad hates texting, so he'll only call me or we have to talk face-to face. And then I met somebody like my boyfriend. He met me in-person and that's how we started talking. It just felt so much more authentic and you can really get that connection face-to-face. I hate how technology makes that seem rare now.
How did you meet your boyfriend?
At a violin music festival [laughs].
That's so cute.
Yeah, he plays the violin. It was actually only a month ago, so we're pretty new. I had never met him before but he sat in front of me in our orchestra and I tapped him on the shoulder and I asked him a question. We started texting a lot and quickly got super close. Now I’m obsessed.
He sings in his school’s choir, too. He had Valentine’s grams at his school, but I don't go to his school so he couldn't have his choir sing to me. So he made his choir sing to me that night during a three-hour dress rehearsal before the concert. During our dinner hour, his whole choir all got up at the same time and went over to me to sing ”Kiss the Girl” from The Little Mermaid. I was like, oh my God.
He's such a romantic. This is so cute.
He's such a hopeless romantic. It is adorable. He loves Taylor Swift and he's like, “My favorite album is Lover.” I've never met someone like that, but I love it.
Wait, he sounds like a keeper. That's adorable.
I know. He's so cute.
A few of Eve’s favorite things:
Enroute Jewelry: Herringbone Gold Chain and Simple Gold Hoops. You cannot go wrong with simple and iconic jewelry; a little accessorizing can elevate any outfit. My go-to look is jeans, a black top, and my gold jewelry (although I often get compared to Dwayne Johnson).
8065 Smooth Leather Mary Jane Shoes. Honestly. These are a bit out of my comfort zone, but when I first spotted them while scrolling on Pinterest, they called my name. I’ve always been super into Docs, but didn’t like the clunky boot look. Mary Janes are a vintage and adorable substitute to that edgy boot vibe. I like to pair them with ankle high frilly socks. They’re “supa” eye-catching…in a good way.
Clinique Almost Lipstick: Black Honey. Yes, TikTok made me do it. But, it is one of my favorite purchases. I love makeup. Everything from Tarte Shape Tape Concealer to Glossier Cloud Paint, makeup is an everyday necessity. This lipstick, if I will be honest, doesn’t last too long on my lips, but the color is to die for. It makes my whole look POP! I recommend this for a special event, everyday look, or for some colorful smooches.
Customizable High Top Converse. I wear my HOT PINK converse almost with every outfit (somehow I make it work). I customized them with my bestie, and we got matching shoes. They are hot magenta on the outside side of the shoe and light pink on the inside. Then, we got our initials embroidered on the heels. It became my iconic look. Customizing converse is so much more fun than the boring, “what-everyone-has” shoe.
Starbucks! I love coffee. It has become my personality trait as I carry in a warm cup of joe every morning. It got to the point where my journalism teacher buys me coffee every Friday morning if I pick him one up from our local shop, too. Super good deal. He buys, I fly. I also am besties with the barista and she gives me a special sticker every day…TOTALLY makes my day. I’m not into those “fancy-shmancy” drinks; I’m a simple “grande pike with extra cream and two Splenda” kinda gal. You can never go wrong with a morning comfort coffee.
tysm, Eve! 🌼 Follow her on Substack and Twitter.
Beyond the Algorithm 🔮
Inspired by Eve revealing that she loves Clinique Almost Lipstick, I asked a group of teen girls: What’s a makeup product you’re obsessed with right now?
Here’s what you said.
“I am currently loving Lancome's Concentrate Serum, and have been putting it under my morning and night-time skincare products!” ––Kaitlyn, 18
“I’m currently obsessed with the Makeup by Mario, SurrealSkin Liquid Foundation. It leaves the most natural glow and is very full coverage while still being lightweight! I also am loving any product by e.l.f. Cosmetics because they are such good quality and very affordable!” ––Alaina, 18
“The Kosas Revealer Concealer!” ––Raine, 16
“Jao Goe Oil or bejbiskin balm. I just ran out of the bejbe and had to buy a new one; it was so good.” ––Margot, 18
“Rare Beauty liquid blush! I have a couple of them, but my go-to would be in the color Encourage (soft neutral pink).” ––Natalie, 19
“I’ve recently been using the KP Bump Eraser Scrub from First Aid Beauty after shaving. I picked up a travel sized version on my last trip to Ulta, and it works wonders!” ––Sophia, 17
“I’d say my favorite beauty product is NYX’s mauve lip liner. I struggle with finding a lip liner that suits my lips perfectly because my lips kind of have two different tones, but NYX’s works amazing for me!” ––Fionna, 19
ICYMI 🗞
In the meantime…
I’m going to Washington, D.C. this weekend to see Jagged Little Pill! If you have 24 hours in D.C., what’s the best thing to do/eat/see?
And here’s a song to get ya through the week:
P.S. We wanna hear from you! 🐌
Want to nominate a friend (or yourself!) for “Bloomer in the Spotlight”? Got a brilliant recommendation for “Beyond the Algorithm” or just wanna say hey?
Get in touch at latebloomernewsletter@gmail.com 💘
Thank you so much Taylor! Such an amazing opportunity! Always excited to meet Saga besties ;)