Scanning my timeline. Ordering food and clothes with the wave of a finger. Looking at photos of someone else’s meticulously curated life. There’s an emptiness on my internet lately that I’m constantly trying to fill. I miss voices. Chatter. Playful disagreement. Irreverence. Lack of fear at misspeaking, being wrong, fucking up. I miss the internet of conversation. I can find it offline, and it seems like the only thing that brings me joy anymore is talking to other women. About the internet. About hatred and how to be its opposite. About where to get the best iced coffee. About my broken heart and what to do now that it’s healing. About sex and bodies and me time and food and drink and candles. And skincare. And plants! Definitely skincare and plants. But for whatever reason, I can’t find a place like that feels like that on the internet anymore. Women talking to women, skincare and plants. A safety net.
So I decided to make that place. This is that place. This is Cinnamon: Women talking to women about the people, places, and things that mean something to us, whether it’s in a cursory, daily “here, try this” way, or on a deeply spiritual, cosmic, world-altering level.
This doesn’t mean Cinnamon is just for women and trans/non-binary folks — but our focus is feminine energy, feminine topics, feminine feelings. It’s about creating space for experiences and subjects that haven’t traditionally been centered, or are still written off as superficial and superfluous. The more I explore gender, the more I see its two primary expressions as fields of energy, rather than physical manifestations. Consider Cinnamon a field of feminine energy, then. All genders and expressions of energy are welcome, but we live here: With a historical representation of woman that makes room for how that word and role will function and flow as we move forward in pursuit of a truly intersectional future. Men often come alongside as supportive allies, friends, and reporters of their own struggles with toxic masculinity and the patriarchy; those dudes are welcome here.
The phrase I kept returning to when it came to what I felt was lacking online is edification for thirty-somethings. Our culture’s sick focus on youth began to eat at me in my mid-twenties, but by 31, I’m hard-pressed to find a cultural artifact that’s even pretending to cater to people my age — unless it’s about children and parenting or marriage and houses. None of those things are bad, but none of those things preoccupy me in any meaningful way at the moment. And many other meaningful things do! Cinnamon will be a space to have conversations about those other things.
Throughout my career I’ve cultivated a portfolio of emotional reporting, subjective, first-person storytelling, and tender, empathetic content. I will continue to cultivate those themes here, with plenty of room to grow and include the interests and directions of new contributors. Culture will be a pillar of what we cover, given my own background in music and entertainment. I believe music, TV, and movies are more than just diversions, they are vehicles for how we share myths and values, and relate to one another across generation and creed. I can’t wait to bring in even more voices to discuss those things — along with care, as it relates to healing and strengthening the mind, body, and spirit, and career, with an emphasis on helping women close the pay gap, establish their own businesses, and follow their dreams in a world that is still mostly male-dominated.
We’ll publish once a day every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday beginning in May 2019, and hopefully continuing well past that. We’ll be announcing podcasts, events, and more in the near future, but for now, it’s about establishing Cinnamon Magazine. On the internet. Links to articles will be posted on publish days on Twitter, and more in-depth creative work, commentary, and partnerships will live on our Instagram.
I put this out there knowing all of it is subject to change. I refuse to be precious or fearful about the beginnings of this. I’ve made too many mistakes and changed my mind too many times to hold even my deepest gut feeling as correct and non-negotiable. But I’ve also learned there’s power in expressing things in the moment, even if they shift over time. Of all the hopes I have for Cinnamon — to be a brand that celebrates people our culture would rather forget, to evolve into a marketplace for both words and wares bursting with feminine energy — it’s this: Cinnamon is a place where it’s okay to be candid, to change our minds, and to challenge what we’ve inherited. This project has been on my mind for almost a year now, and I’m so excited to begin.
If any of the above resonates with you, or you’d like to learn more about how to be involved, feel free to get in touch: caitlin@cinnamonmag.com. So far, all the startup and founding costs of Cinnamon have been covered by me, and that will continue to be the case throughout 2019. We won’t be doing any formal fundraising until 2020, but if you have any desire to contribute dollars to help support our new venture, you can donate here.
Thank you for reading,
Caitlin White
Founder/Editor-in-Chief, Cinnamon Magazine
