Anne Helen Petersen

A native of Lewiston, Idaho,[4] Petersen first graduated from Whitman College in 2003 with a BA in Rhetoric and Film Studies.[5] She then completed an MA in English from the University of Oregon in 2007, and a PhD in media studies in 2011 from the University of Texas at Austin where she studied the history of the gossip industry.[6]

While a visiting professor at Whitman College, Petersen began writing about popular culture topics for online news and entertainment sites (including the Scandals of Classic Hollywood series at the Hairpin)[7][8] and found that she enjoyed non-academic writing.[9] In May 2014 she moved to New York to write for BuzzFeed News.[9]

In 2014, she published her first piece for BuzzFeed, "Jennifer Lawrence and the History of Cool Girls."[10] She also authored her first book, the non-fiction Scandals of Classic Hollywood, based on her Hairpin series. Informed by her scholarship, she continued to write about celebrities throughout her time at BuzzFeed and BuzzFeed News, including Adam Driver,[11] Keira Knightley,[12] Taylor Kitsch,[13] Charlize Theron,[14] Justin Timberlake,[15] Kate Hudson,[16] Margot Robbie,[17] Jennifer Aniston,[18] and Kim Kardashian.[19] In 2017, Petersen wrote a piece about actor Armie Hammer, "Ten Long Years of Trying to Make Armie Hammer Happen", analyzing Hammer's star image from 2007 to 2017.[20] The article became controversial and provoked criticism and backlash from Hammer, film industry figures, and other journalists.[21] Subsequently, Petersen received online harassment.[22]

Her work at BuzzFeed was not limited to celebrities. She reported on the COVID-19 pandemic,[23] student loans,[24] Native Americans voting in elections,[25] expanding Medicaid,[26] refugee resettlement,[27] religion,[28] the Harvey Weinstein sexual abuse cases,[29] and bachelorette parties.[30] Being a native of Lewiston, Idaho, she was credited with being able to bring a Western small town and rural perspective to a national audience,[4] on issues such as Antifa,[31] gun politics,[32] 2017 Montana's at-large congressional district special election's relation with national politics,[33] and the COVID-19 anti-lockdown protests in the United States.[34]

In 2019, Petersen wrote a piece on millennial burnout for BuzzFeed News that has had over 7 million views.[35] She then expanded that piece into a book that was published in 2020, Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation.

In August 2020, she quit her job at Buzzfeed News to pursue her Substack newsletter Culture Study as a full-time venture.[36] Along with her partner Charlie Warzel, she wrote the book Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home, published in December 2021.[37]

Petersen lives in Lummi Island, Washington[38] with her partner Charlie Warzel, a former New York Times Opinion writer who now writes the newsletter "Galaxy Brain" for The Atlantic.[39] The couple have two dogs named Steve and Peggy[40] and previously lived in Brooklyn[41] and Missoula, Montana.[1] As of September 2020, Petersen is 39 years old.[42] She is of Norwegian descent.[43]

• Petersen, Anne Helen (2014). Scandals of Classic Hollywood. New York: Plume.
• Petersen, Anne Helen (2017). Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman. New York: Plume.
• Petersen, Anne Helen (2020). Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Warzel, Charlie; Petersen, Anne Helen (2021). Out of Office: The Big Problem and Bigger Promise of Working from Home. New York: Knopf.