OLIVIA SELTZER – THE CRAMM

Olivia Seltzer created The Cramm, a daily digital newsletter that summarizes the news for Gen Z since “you can’t change the world unless you know about it.” Committed to educating and activating her generation, she wakes up at 5:00 each morning to read the news and rewrite relevant stories in a way that speaks to teens and young adults. She then sends The Cramm via email, text, social media post, video, or podcast to readers and viewers in 113 countries, garnering 2.5 million monthly views across all its platforms. Olivia’s book, The Cramm, was released by Philomel in February, 2022.

Olivia’s inspiration began soon after the 2016 election, when fears of the President-elect’s stance on immigration swept through her group of middle school friends – most of them Latinx and many with undocumented parents. For the first time, she felt a personal connection to current events. She also realized that though she and her peers talked about the news nonstop, none of them were actually following it daily — and that without it, they couldn’t work to address problems. She immediately tried researching the news and rewriting it for her generation. Within a few weeks, she’d bought the domain name thecramm.com with money from her thirteenth birthday, had taught herself coding to build a website, and had sent out the first edition of The Cramm. Since then, she has overcome extreme shyness to speak about her work around the world.

Olivia was a 2021 Winner of the Barron Prize.

Discussion Questions

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IYH Behind the Scenes

A beach house in California was a beautiful setting for filming this video, especially in February! We had so much fun filming there and at her high school.