AN HOUR WITH LITHIUM MAGAZINE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OLIVIA FERRUCCI

interview by Emily Blake

Fellow Columbia University student and editor-in-chief Olivia Ferrucci zoomed with me, also quarantined in her childhood bedroom, to talk about founding Lithium Magazine and everything else adjacent to being a hyper-cool young creative. After talking about the highs and lows of quar, our mutual friends at Pure Nowhere (check them out if you haven’t already), and yes, even our sorority, we got deep into her iconic podcast Come and Go and her future aspirations.

Olivia founded Lithium her freshman year of high school out of frustration that the Cosmo, Teen Vogue cohort of corporate publication included “no one who actually sounded like people my age.” She saw her friends online starting zines by the time she was 15, and though “if they can do it, why can’t I?” She explained to me how she started Lithium with the creation of an Instagram account. I shared a personally story about how Wednesday started with an article about a sexist dress code policy at my school when I was 14 years old. I posted that to an ugly wordpress page with no images and no design, yet it was wildly popular and widely circulated. When it comes to zines like Lithium and Wednesday, it is evident to both Olivia and I that girls our age genuinely want this type of publication. 

I asked her about her inspiration for founding Lithium, which she explained she didn’t have many because she wasn’t super immersed in zines, and definitely didn’t want to model her mag off big publications. Now, she cites The Cut, Playboy, the New Yorker, and the New York Times as her inspirations for delivering content. Referencing The Cut’s “Money Diaries” and “Sex Diaries” series, she gave me and idea of her vision around choosing the topics she publishes. She published “high school related content” when she was in high school, and now has a sex and relationships podcast; she publishes whatever she wants. We both cite the icons- Karley Sciortino (@karleyslutever) and Carrie Bradshaw- as sources of inspiration. Olivia is making these non-gen z, sex-positive, and authentic icons relevant and poignant for our generation- for young women navigating 2020. She emphasized how “the goal of Lithium has always been to share young peoples’ experiences without censoring them.” She is publishing a beginners guide to shrooms, which would “literally never fly in Teen Vogue, maybe Vice,” but the “zine community is a freer space.”

The topic at the forefront of my mind was Olivia’s podcast Come and Go, and specifically how it has been called “the less problematic Call Her Daddy” all over Instagram. Her promotional strategy is probably the most 2020 thing you could think of, sending the podcast to every single one of her Bumble matches, where approximately one out of every 5 guys would tell her “oh you’re trying to be the next call her daddy or whatever.” Come and Go is funny, intellectual, and most importantly not associated with Barstool. She wants to pose difficult and important questions, and she’s had the aforementioned Bumble guys tell her that the questions she poses are things him and his friends think about but are not comfortable discussing, even though in our minds there’s this whole stereotype of “locker room talk” for men. Overall, we both agreed we listened to CHD and appreciated it largely being the first of its kind, but Come and Go is starting where Call Her Daddy left off. 

Olivia’s future aspirations include, on a micro level, interviewing a dominatrix on the podcast. On a long-term and largely post-COVID-19 Pandemic basis, she wants Lithium to host more events, gain paid content partnerships so she can have her whole team paid, and include more multi-media content and print issues. Olivia is creative in every way and a serious innovator and contributor to the zine community, keep up with her @oliviaferrucci and lithiummagazine.com