UNCOVERING
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WHO ARE YOU?

My name is Chloe Xiang. I am a writer, photographer, and the editor-in-chief of Keke Magazine, which is a youth feminist magazine. I just began a new role as the social media manager of The New Yorker. Prior to this, I was a reporter for Motherboard, which is VICE’s tech section.


HOW DID YOU GET INTO WRITING?

For me, I got into writing through reading. When I was young, I was obsessed with books more than any other form of media, more than I watched movies or shows or anything like that. I think I was always drawn to reading because of its storytelling abilities and then I realized that I could do the same and tell stories and use my voice, and there was a power to that. As I grew up, I also started reading more magazine articles and other interviews online and that showed me that writing comes in so many different forms besides novels and that's why I love writing.


HOW DID YOUR PARENTS FEEL ABOUT YOU WANTING TO GO INTO A CREATIVE FIELD?

I think it's still a struggle to this day. When I first started trying to pursue creative fields, it was a lot of wanting to please my parents to show and prove to them that I could do this successfully and make a living out of it and I think slowly I have realized that that is not a goal or that shouldn't be the goal. Maybe I will never get their approval, but this is a passion that fuels me. I feel like they have been getting more understanding. They see the ways I use my work and it's not a frivolous thing in my opinion. Art is something that's very impactful and hopefully as I keep creating it they'll understand more and more.



TALK ABOUT THE MEGA BABE

The Mega Babe, the fashion blog I once ran, goes all the way back to when I was in middle school and I was super into fashion. I would be inspired by people online who posted about fashion, so one of my first inspirations was a woman named Margaret Zhang and now she's the youngest editor-in-chief of any Vogue. She's the editor-in-chief at Vogue China and she's 28. She really inspired me to create my blog because she had this site dedicated to in-depth writing about her style and I wanted to do the same. So I started that in seventh grade, I would publish articles that featured both writing and creative photoshoots, and then I would also make videos for YouTube.

E: So would that later translate into what Keke is now for you?

Yeah, I think so. Making The Mega Babe taught me a lot about the technical aspects of what a publication looks like. So what it means to develop a consistent and cohesive brand voice and create compelling imagery and copy to go along with that. And then Keke is the more sophisticated but also more informed publication that I decided to create and that was following a feminist studies program I did at Barnard during middle to high school. I realized that I wanted to not only speak about fashion, but also how feminism intersects with things like politics and music and opinion pieces.


WHERE DID THE NAME KEKE COME FROM?

So Keke is my Chinese nickname. So in Chinese, it's “可可”. But also I decided to make it Keke because in English when you pronounce that, it's like the “key” to unlocking your true self, I guess. So that was kind of what I was going with. And then in Chinese “ke” also means can. So like I wanted readers to know you can do anything that you put your mind to.



WHAT LEAD TO THE CREATION OF KEKE IN 2017?

During the post-election era, I was very emotional, very angry with the state of politics, and with the way things were looking for women. I wanted a platform for younger people, especially one where they could speak out about issues they cared about. And then specifically with media, I never felt represented by media. Whether it was on the covers of magazines or in shows, there wasn’t a lot of Asian American female representation, as well as of other underrepresented people in those roles. So I wanted to make a change and at the time, it didn't matter who was going to read my magazine—I just wanted a place to share an outlet for my feelings.



KEKE IS YOUR BABY, YOUR CREATION. WAS IT DIFFICULT ADDING OTHERS TO THE TEAM?

As Keke evolves it becomes more of what I always envisioned it to be, which is a community. I've never felt that Keke Should just be about me and my voice. It's always been a place to uplift other people and it's been really cool because I've met people online who live in places like Nebraska, Washington, England, and have followed them in their own personal writing journeys as they've also grown up and gone to college. Working together with these people has been such a cool experience.

E: Did you have any roadblocks turning Keke into what it is today?

It is definitely hard to create a lot of traction towards your platform in the internet age where everything is supersaturated. So trying to promote that individuality, what makes us special, has been kind of a challenge to overcome. I would especially when content is more politically charged, there's been negative comments on Instagram that we've had to deal with as well.


HOW DOES KEKE STAND OUT FROM OTHER ONLINE PUBLICATIONS?

I really try to pursue freedom with Keke. So, for example, there's not really a restriction on what people say, especially since it's not a commercially driven platform. It's not here to sell you something, which a lot of major publications are doing unfortunately because of the world we live in. I think that is one way that makes us unique. I also think that our diversity of content is unique because a lot of publications either focus on just news or just fashion and beauty, etc. But Keke combines all of them and shows that everything intersects. A lot of people have realized young people really care about their values no matter where or what sector they're in. And I think that's reflected in Keke as well.



HOW HAS THE INTERNET PLAYED A ROLE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF KEKE?

The internet is honestly a great place for Keke because I think it made both the creation of the site and reading the site a lot more accessible. I was able to kind of create a website that stands out and looks good after watching some YouTube videos and learning how to work with WordPress and other CMS platforms. Also, being able to share on Instagram and Twitter and other social media platforms, reduced the barriers to entry. Our readers didn't have to pay for a subscription to get to know about us and also they could freely submit and connect with all these people across the world. I think the internet really helped with establishing community and making it a gateway into real-life meetups and in-person events and community organizing.


FAVORITE PART OF THE PROCESS?

I really like seeing everything come together. Our last print issue was about community, so we were able to interview a number of really big community organizations and individual organizers. There were also different art pieces about community, opinion pieces and personal stories. Seeing how everything came together was really cool, because on its own, each of those could be a different category on a website, but in a magazine, they all flowed together and told a complete story—which was that people value community and have it in so many aspects of their lives.




THE MOST RECENT DIGITAL ISSUE OF KEKE COST FIVE DOLLARS, HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE PRICE FOR IT?

In terms of those purchasing the digital magazine, purchasing it is receiving it in all of its glory: the full spread. I've been posting all of the big features onto the website slowly so people are still able to access the content for free. I think if you want to see it as this art piece, you're going to have to contribute to the cost that went into it. In terms of the print magazine, we don't make a profit from it. It's basically one-to-one with how much it costs to manufacture it. I personally have never been super business focused. I never made Keke to make money, but I decided to invest in creating a more expensive magazine because I wanted the images to be printed, I wanted to make it look better and higher quality. When people are paying for it, we're not profiting monetarily. It's to help support the cost and keep the magazine going.

C: Is Keke successful based on your own metrics?

I think I would say Keke is successful not by commercial terms or monetarily, but that it's successful in the articles we’ve been able to produce and in the creative minds that have been able to get together over it.


WOULD YOU RAISE THE PRICE IF IT MEANT A HIGHER QUALITY PRODUCT?

That’s a really great point that I've definitely thought about a lot because you know it's not easy to print this with no money and it makes it a lot less efficient, such as we can't make print issues as often. In terms of how I think I would want to get funding, I would want to ask for donations, crowdfund and ask for support from people who have the means to donate to the magazine. I think that is a good way to operate because once you factor in advertisers and other ways of promotion it becomes easy to go away from your true editorial voice and purpose. That's how most mainstream media companies are built off—their stream of revenue relies on ads. I still want to differ from that and remain more closely with a nonprofit structure.



HOW IS IT MANAGING KEKE AS THE CREATOR?

I like to talk to people when making most of my decisions because everything involves  collaborative processes. For example, when I was printing the magazine I had to talk to the art director, the manufacturer, writers, and illustrators. As we currently operate, I'm always fielding pitches and working on them with writers. I think I prefer when people come to me with pitches and ideas because that’s what allows our ideas to remain unique. I really try to preserve my writers’ voices while sharpening pitches and editing pieces. I enjoy being the person to fine-tune an idea or select from a number of ideas.

E: Has there ever been a time when you strongly disagreed with someone on the team?

I wouldn't say there was ever an instance where I strongly disagreed. I think we are able to work through our differences because the process itself is always evolving. We start with ideas and then work through those. So when we're all on the same page about an idea and always communicating, it doesn't really go awry.


HOW WAS WRITING FOR VICE, A PREDOMINANTLY WHITE COMPANY?

I definitely feel like I'm in the minority in the tech reporting sector and in the overarching tech industry. Compared to the people who read my articles, I'm definitely in the minority being a young Asian-American woman. So I'm proud of the unique perspective I bring to the table. Something that I really value in my writing is that I've been really focused on the humanistic aspects of AI. And I've also brought my artistic background and creative writing background to it.

I've been able to write articles about what writers think about AI or how amateur musicians are using AI to create their own music. For example, there's a big issue with copyright in AI, where artists are furious that their art has been used to train AI without consent. Being able to expose these issues has been something that is a priority for me, but I would say I'm very lucky that I had editors who believe in this and who trust me so that I was able to write these articles. Not a lot of big publications right now do cover this kind of angle with AI. A lot of them say things like “oh look at Google, look at Microsoft, look at all these big companies,” but I really like to make sure I'm still representing the underdog and those who are investigating important topics like AI ethics, especially when power is so concentrated in like those few big tech companies.



WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE THING TO WRITE ABOUT?

I really like writing features or stories that allow me to talk to a lot of people. For a piece about AI music, I talked to a bunch of moderators on this Discord channel for AI music creators and really got to know them and their process. In another story I did for Yahoo News, I wrote about how Indigenous people in the West are fighting wildfires and doing it better than the federal agencies around them. I was able to talk to a lot of the leaders in those communities and go through their days with them as they prepared fire rituals and other preventative measures. I really like writing about these kinds of features and I also really like writing about literature which is something that I haven't really done career-wise but I love writing book reviews and analysis.

C: But have you ever thought about doing like, instead of writing like a documentary type of thing? Because most people don't like to read. A lot of the population now will not read. They'll watch a video though.

That's definitely something I've been really thinking about because I’ve noticed that as well. People don't have a lot of time to read a thousand plus word articles anymore but I want to be as impactful as possible and bring awareness to important issues, so I think videos are a great medium between that. As someone who also has a photography background, I feel like I could maybe venture there. Social media is a big place to start. I've worked on starting the TikTok pages both at Yahoo and at VICE, and now am a full-time social media manager at The New Yorker. Social media is a great place to reach more people and create more conversational news.


FAVORITE BOOK?

That's a good question. Beloved by Toni Morrison.



HOW HAVE YOU EVOLVED WITH KEKE?

When I first started Keke, I obviously didn't have any journalism training. I was just a product of the internet learning era, so seeing other people's articles, seeing how they wrote them and then writing about what I found interesting. Since then, I've gotten a lot more formal experience. I think I've gotten better at interviewing people. I think I've gotten better at framing stories, so making sure I have the lead, which is the core of the story presented at the beginning, and then bringing readers in through that. I've learned a lot about the importance of headlines because you know a lot of people don't actually read the whole article, people just look at the headline for the news. I learned how to be more responsible with writing especially on the internet because things can travel fast and you never want to misinform someone. So just making sure everything is honest, fact-checked, but also interesting and engaging and authentic. At college, I got a creative writing minor and that really taught me about writing in the sense of how language can be used as an experiment and as a protest. That's why I've been super interested in poetry. I just wrote this review for a Taiwanese American poet who wrote poetry using English which is her second language. In the review, I talk about how creative writing, especially poetry is this space of resisting Western language and grammar structures. I've definitely grown a lot in my relationship to English and to language and writing.


DOES RECEPTION ENCOURAGE YOU TO WRITE MORE?

Definitely. An article I wrote that got a lot of traction recently was about the National Eating Disorder Association, which is a nonprofit dedicated to helping people with eating disorders. There were these helpline associates that would pick up the phone and help people in crisis and after they unionized, the CEO decided to say ‘We're actually firing all of you. We're just gonna have this chatbot named Tessa that speaks to people instead.’ First of all, that was a very harmful decision because you can't rely on a chatbot for people in crisis, that's very dangerous. And then when people actually tested out the chatbot, it would tell them to lose weight and go on a calorie deficit, which is how a lot of people developed eating disorders to begin with. So, it was extremely harmful and they had to take it down to be like, "What's going on?" This article and the follow-up one that I explained in my summary, both of these headlines were screenshotted and circulated around Twitter and Instagram.

That reminded me of why I do journalism and writing because I definitely want to create important discussions around these issues, especially for an issue like this, which is so multi-dimensional. It's a labor issue. It's an issue of mental health. It's an issue of AI and how we incorporate AI into our lives. I'm so glad that it was picked up and took people by shock and people really wanted to do something about it. A lot of people were reaching out to the hotline saying this is wrong. So I'm glad that the article spawned that action.



MEDIA HAS BEEN DOING A LOT OF LAYOFFS. DO YOU FEEL SECURE IN YOUR POSITION?

It's definitely interesting being an early career journalist and being at VICE for a year and then them going bankrupt. Even when I was at Yahoo, right after I left, it was sold to another company. So these experiences have really shown me kind of how tumultuous the media can be. It makes me kind of worried about, as you said, people's perspectives and perceptions of the media, like maybe people aren't reading articles. Because why aren't companies willing to invest in that?  Those are questions I've been having about news in general recently. I would say although I'm constantly worried about the stability of the media job market, I'm also confident in my abilities. I know that no matter where I'll be, I'll always have the same kind of passion and ethos towards my writing and reporting. And I guess one thing good about journalism is that wherever you go, your sources follow you. Your writing, articles, and stories follow you. That's always going to be there.


WHAT IS UPCOMING FOR CHLOE XIANG?

I am now officially The New Yorker’s social media manager, so follow us on all socials! I will also be doing more book reviews and photography, and am moving to Brooklyn.


ONE WORD YOU WOULD USE TO DESCRIBE YOUR WORK?

What are some words people usually use?

C: Intentional.

Wait, can I use my phone to look up synonyms for this word?

E: NO!

C: No that’s fine, but people are going to be like, she’s a writer and she doesn't even know any words.

E: But it's real. We're trying to present this like super real storytelling.

C: I was watching an interview. I mean a video they said like if you're an interviewer you should never stump your interviewee so you shouldn't have questions that stump them.

E: Oh really? Are we... bad at this? I feel like we're good interviewers.

Can I say “purposeful”?




BIG THANK YOU CHLOE FOR TALKING TO US! MAKE SURE TO FOLLOW HER ON INSTAGRAM TO KEEP UP WITH ALL HER CREATIVE ENDEAVORS.

IN ADDITION, GO SHOW YOUR SUPPORT FOR KEKE! 

KEKEMAGAZINE

CREDITS

SUBJECT/BRAND : KEKE MAGAZINE @kekemagazine

PHOTOGRAPHER : LAURA SONG @gh0stpimp 

MODEL : CHLOE XIANG @chloexiang

EDITOR: FELICE DONG @felice.112

TEXT : E&C* @acediastudios