'Teen Vogue' fortunately has proved you can have smart

Hear the voice of Elaine Welteroth, who declared with conviction and vision: “‘Teen Vogue’ fortunately has proved you can have smart, political, and fashionable content delivered in one place, and you don’t have to choose.” These words are more than a statement about a magazine—they are a proclamation about identity, about the power of the young, and about the breaking of false boundaries. For too long, the world has told us that intelligence and beauty, politics and style, seriousness and joy must dwell apart. Welteroth’s words strike through that illusion, declaring that they can live together as one, and that in this union lies new strength.

To call content smart is to affirm that the minds of young readers crave depth, complexity, and truth. To call it political is to recognize that they live not apart from the struggles of the world, but fully within them, and that their voices are needed in shaping justice. To call it fashionable is to honor their sense of creativity, expression, and joy. Welteroth saw that youth should not be forced to abandon one part of themselves to validate another. Instead, she created a place where all could coexist, where the fullness of identity could shine without compromise.

This truth has roots in the great traditions of history. Consider Athens in the age of Pericles, where art, philosophy, and politics flourished together. The same people who debated democracy in the assembly also adorned their bodies, celebrated theater, and delighted in beauty. They did not separate wisdom from adornment, nor civic duty from cultural life. Their greatness lay in the union of these worlds, and their legacy still echoes today. So too with Teen Vogue: its power lies in uniting the serious with the joyful, the intellectual with the aesthetic, the head with the heart.

Welteroth’s vision also challenges the scorn of society, which often mocks the interests of young women as shallow. Fashion, makeup, and beauty have long been dismissed, while politics and intellect were reserved for men or for the “serious.” Yet she overturned this false hierarchy. She proved that to care about fashion does not mean you are blind to justice, and that to speak of politics does not mean you must forsake self-expression. In her words lies defiance: you don’t have to choose. You can be both. You can be all.

Her declaration is heroic because it restores dignity to the lives of the young. By saying that they can embrace both the political and the fashionable, she invites them to see their lives as worthy of complexity. This mirrors the struggle of countless figures in history who refused to be boxed in. Think of Frederick Douglass, who fought for freedom with words of fire, yet also dressed in elegance, presenting himself with dignity that defied the image others tried to impose upon him. He, too, proved that intellect and style could live together, each strengthening the other.

The lesson for us is timeless: do not divide yourself to satisfy the false boundaries of others. You are not forced to choose between being wise or being joyful, between being serious or being beautiful, between civic duty and personal expression. The greatest power lies in embracing the fullness of who you are. Practically, this means rejecting the voices that belittle your passions, cultivating both your intellect and your creativity, and seeking spaces—like Welteroth’s Teen Vogue—that honor all dimensions of your identity.

So let these words be carried forward: true greatness is found not in choosing one path, but in uniting the many within you. Be both thinker and dreamer, citizen and artist, serious and playful. The world may tell you to divide yourself, but follow instead Welteroth’s wisdom: you don’t have to choose. And in living fully, in wholeness, you will become a force that is as smart as it is stylish, as political as it is beautiful, and as complete as the human spirit was always meant to be.