Two Brothers, Two Risk Takers
By: Arabella Kimpson
By: Arabella Kimpson
The Defiant Ones. That is exactly how one could describe brothers, Christian (Kindafye) Robinson and Dekori Robinson. The Defiant Ones is a magazine created by sixteen-year-old Christian Robinson and his older brother, 18-year-old Dekori Robinson, who are the CEOs and founders of the magazine. The magazine demographic is teens and young adults, focusing fitness tips, fashion trends, non-fictional stories, entrepreneur stories, and famous musicians. What sets this magazine apart from the others, is that it caters to teens from a teen’s perspective, “For Teens, By Teens.”
The word defiance or in this case defiant means to resist or bold disobedience, but for these brothers, defiant means, “ To be yourself, not have to grow up being what society expects you to be, for example, a doctor, lawyer, etc. It means to be yourself in all your uniqueness because being unique isn’t being indifferent. Being yourself is being defiant,” states C. Robinson.
The idea for the magazine came about one night in early May of this year when they were sitting at the dinner table with their parents. D. Robinson recalls, “ He like kind of said we should make a magazine as a joke but he was serious. And then we all like kind of took it from there and it became real.” That is usually how a great business is started. It is like throwing darts, everyone is throwing up ideas and one just so happens to stick. Now any parent would have questioned if their kid(s) would want to do something that requires a lot of work and sleepless nights, but the Robinsons are a different story. When asked about their response, C. Robinson replied, “...they thought it was a great idea and from then on they have been behind it and working super hard to help make our dream come true.” Their mother, Oleathia Robinson, otherwise known as Butta B-Rocka, is the editor-n-chief for the magazine.
There is a lot that goes into creating a magazine, but what happens after you create it? Advertising, the act of promoting a product or service to the public. To get the word out about the magazine, they hand out mini flyers that have some facts and contact information to any and everyone. Their publicist, Tom Cheeser also promotes them on more than 300 major media outlets/networks, such as NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, and the CW which reaches over 900,000 viewers. Another part is creating the magazine/issue, figuring out what they want the issue to focus on, finding people willing to be included in it, researching that person, contacting them or their representatives, working with their schedule, photoshoots, and so much more.
Now as anyone can see, a lot goes into being the CEO of a magazine, especially if they are in high school, while one plays varsity football and the other is on the drumline. If anyone does not know, they both take up a lot of time and do not forget wanting to have a social life makes it hard to schedule and/or write articles. Isaiah McCray, who has graced their latest issue thinks that they can pull it off, “...two great minds. I mean two great ideas, this is always going to work out as long as they just keep working on it.” Their main goal is to motivate, inspire, educate, and in some ways, entertain their readers. They are truly living up to the name Defiant Ones, they are going against what society dictates and telling them to kick rocks because they do not care.
