Taylor Lorenz joins The Washington Post as a columnist

Announcement from Features Editor Liz Seymour, Deputy Features Editor David Malitz and Deputy Features Editor Mitch Rubin:

We are thrilled to announce that Taylor Lorenz, whose dogged reporting, keen insights and boundless curiosity have made her the country’s premier chronicler of internet culture, will join The Washington Post as a columnist in March.

Taylor has a rare gift for being able to write about the internet in a way that appeals to digital natives and late adopters alike. She treats her subjects and readers with a respect that has earned her the trust and admiration of a younger generation of news consumers. Her columns will feature the illuminating reporting she is known for and will focus on how technology is reshaping culture, how we communicate and connect, and the ways online influencers are reorienting our world.

Currently a technology reporter at The New York Times, Taylor covers the world of content creators and emerging platforms, which has resulted in great scoops, accountability pieces and enterprise at the Times and The Atlantic, where she previously worked.

Most exciting to us, Taylor is always looking for what’s next and is enthusiastic about using different story forms and platforms to reach readers. Her reported columns will be at the forefront of The Post’s mission to deliver top quality journalism across all platforms as we continue to find readers — and listeners and viewers — where they are. She has more than 500,000 followers on TikTok, where she highlights her reporting process and shares advice for younger journalists. She also maintains a robust presence on Instagram, Twitter and Twitch. Fortune called her “a peerless authority” for her reporting on technology trends and youth culture in naming her to their “40 under 40” list in 2020.

Taylor is a trendsetter not just in what she covers but how she covers it. She has become the chief chronicler of TikTok’s march to social media dominance, was responsible for introducing the phrase “OK boomer” to the masses and was one of the first journalists to identify the influence of the conversation app Clubhouse.

She has the tenacity that has long defined great reporting and is committed to holding the powerful to account, particularly in areas where there has been traditionally less scrutiny than in government. Her deep reporting and investigative work in the influencer world has exposed a YouTuber's poor labor conditions, detailed sexual assault allegations against an Internet superstar, and illuminated the potential exploitative nature of content creator contracts.

Taylor grew up in Connecticut and lives in Los Angeles. She will be based in L.A. but will be making frequent trips to our Washington, D.C., newsroom. She attended the University of Colorado at Boulder and Hobart and William Smith Colleges, from which she graduated with a degree in political science. Her first book, “Extremely Online: Gen Z, the Rise of Online Creators and the Selling of a New American Dream,” will be published by Simon & Schuster in 2023.

Please join us in welcoming Taylor to The Post. She starts March 7.