17-year-old Olivia Seltzer founded The Cramm to get Gen Z reading the news: 'Traditional news doesn't really connect with my generation'
Olivia Seltzer is the 17-year-old founder of The Cramm, a daily current events newsletter and cheatsheet for Gen Z.
Seltzer has made it her goal to bridge the gap between news media and her generation and today, The Cramm is read in 113 countries around the world and has 2.5 million monthly readers across all platforms.
Enter here for a chance to win a $500 Winky Lux prize package.
“The Cramm is basically a Gen Z version of the news,” Seltzer told In The Know. “Traditional news doesn’t really connect with my generation and primarily that’s because of a context barrier, a language barrier and also a barrier in the kind of medium.”
In 2016, when Seltzer was 12, she attended a predominantly Latinx school. Suddenly all she and her peers could talk about was the news, especially with the spike in hateful rhetoric.
“All we could talk about was the election. But at the same time, I noticed none of us was actually reading or watching the news because it’s primarily written by and geared toward an older demographic. It, unfortunately, wasn’t really connecting with my age group,” she said.
Seltzer was certain she and her friends couldn’t change the world unless they knew about it. The Cramm was her solution. Now, the teenager wakes up at 5:00 a.m. every day to curate headlines and rewrite stories in a way that translates to Gen Z.
“I write it exactly how I talk to my friends, instead of using this more academic word, why can’t I say ‘BTW’ or ‘FYI’? But in a way that still feels very natural,” Seltzer said.
The Cramm has 500 ambassadors all over the world who help Seltzer tell stories on social media, spread the world and create content. Every The Cramm newsletter ends with a monthly call to action to get Gen Z involved in changing the world.
Seltzer plans on publishing Cramm This Book in 2022 and creating a 24-hour live news media platform.
“I absolutely believe in the power of young people,” Seltzer. “We’re in this position where we have the ability to be more powerful than any other generation before us. We actually have the tools and resources to make our dreams a reality.”
This lipstick reacts to your skin tone to become the perfect shade for you:
In The Know is now available on Apple News — follow us here!
If you enjoyed reading this article, check out In The Know’s other profiles on up-and-coming Gen Z changemakers here.
More from In The Know:
Teen founds initiative to make STEM more accessible to girls of color
These travel-size beauty kits at Ulta are all under $20
Supreme is launching its first lipstick with beauty mogul Pat McGrath
I tried Bread Beauty Supply — the newest Black-owned haircare brand to hit Sephora
The post 17-year-old Olivia Seltzer founded The Cramm to get Gen Z to read the news appeared first on In The Know.
