It was hard to tell how many teens actually read Teen Vogue before its announced merger with Vogue in November 2025.

The media class certainly read it, or at least that’s what they claimed. Gen X writers from the Financial Times applauded their “kick-ass” news coverage. Even this publication praised the outlet, which includes such serious-minded reporting as “Teens Officially Read Way More Than Adults Do, So There” (well, yeah, they’re in school) and “Makeup Tips for Girls with Glasses and Freckles” (which is not, as I had hoped, the single sentence “Put the makeup on your face”). The latter article is replete with product placement, including a $700 pair of vintage Pierre Cardin spectacles, but this did not shake the faith of lefty writers that a decidedly woke shift in editorial direction represented a serious, or at least positive, trend in publishing for young readers — and, sure, maybe a few of their Zoomer-curious elders.

After Teen Vogue started pumping socially progressive and political soapboxing content to its roster, in 2018 conservative news outlet the Washington Examiner cited data from digital analytics company Comscore and concluded that “just 1.7 percent of their May 2018 audience was 17 or younger” and “only 2.6 percent were 18 to 24 years old.”