We're Very Afraid of 'Millennial Expert' Chelsea Krost

We couldn’t come up with a way to cover this New York Observer interview with self-described “millennial expert” Chelsea Krost, who is only 21 years old but already somewhat of an established spokesperson on all things teen and twenty-something, without being really, really mean. So we’ll let Krost speak for herself. Here are five choice excerpts, presented without comment:

On her skills:

“My expertise,” she told The Observer recently, “is that I’m a chameleon. I could talk to Tyra Banks, Anderson [Cooper], Hoda [Kotb] on the Today show, but then I could be relating to the people where, literally, their feet are in their own feces in Africa, in the slums.”

On her career goals:

She reported, perhaps predictably, that she’s after a large platform all her own, to be the next Oprah Winfrey, “but with a twist. As amazing as Oprah is, she was always untouchable, she’s like a god, and I want to be very touchable-and not in, like, a pedophile way.”

More about her multifaceted talent:

Once people meet me,” said Ms. Krost, “they realize that I can really be articulate in many facets of the world: entertainment, or philanthropy, or something practical, like cyberbullying or whatever. I really don’t think there’s anything I can’t do.”

On her decor:

A single book was displayed, cover-out: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. A framed photo depicted Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. A Life magazine with Marilyn Monroe on the cover sat on the coffee table. In the corner lay a stack of her memoirs, one of which she gave us.

On feminism:

We also asked Ms. Krost about the so-called War on Women, a wedge issue in the 2012 campaign. She declared that she is not a feminist, because she doesn’t think boys suck. (She’s known her current boyfriend since the eighth grade.) However, she has been inspired by the struggles of women in Saudi Arabia; she believes in Girl Power; and she suspects the state of the nation might have been better had Hillary Clinton been elected.

“Women can multitask better,” she explained. “I think multitasking equals success. You have to be able to balance multiple things in order to achieve your goals. You can’t focus on one thing forever. You can’t. So, learning how to multitask is probably the biggest life lesson.”

Voice of a Generation: Chelsea Krost Speaks for the Millennials, Gets Talk Show Bookings [NYO]