That is the social-media experience many American girls are having online. I think half her book could have been devoted to YouTube or Twitter or Tumblr saving kids’ lives, literally or hyperbolically. “YouTube saved my life” is a powerful statement, and I wish Sales had explored it more. Where did she learn about feminism - school? the internet? YouTube? Twitter? Tumblr? We learn the name of Montana’s favorite YouTuber (I Am Jazz), and that Montana loves her for her “honesty and realness.” But how did she find Jazz’s videos? Who else did she follow? How often was she watching these videos? Did she leave comments? Make her own videos? Had she met trans girls online? It’s a really lovely scene - Robert and Montana are funny, their banter sweet - but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. Sitting in my makeup chair and railing against the Establishment”). They talk about feminism and Caitlyn Jenner while Robert does Montana’s makeup (at one point Robert says, “This girl is too much. Later in the book we meet an IRL friend of Montana’s, a mentor of sorts: Robert, a gay man in his 50s she met at theater camp. One of the sweetest and most powerful moments in Nancy Jo Sales’s new book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of American Teenagers comes during an interview with a trans girl named Montana, who tells Sales that YouTube saved her life: “Transgender kids on YouTube saved my life just knowing they were there, hearing them talk and seeing them be strong.”
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