April 15, 2019
Alexis Tirado ’02: From Buddy to BuzzFeed
By Kirsten Fleming ’00
The first writing gig for Alexis Tirado ’02 was working under Providence’s most notorious boss: late Mayor Buddy Cianci.
“I interned with his speech-writing team, ghostwriting correspondence, and I would go to events with Buddy. I loved it,” said Tirado of her time with the sauce-selling pol. But it was a note from PC English professor Dr. Peter Johnson that ultimately pushed her into the frenetic media world.
“In my final, he put a note in that said, ‘I don’t write this to students, but you really have a chance to make it.’ My mom was a housekeeper and my dad was a chauffeur. I was one of the first people in my family to go to college. He was the first adult who had said something like that to me,” said the New Jersey native.
And it seems Johnson knew what he was talking about.
Since those humble City Hall days, Tirado’s storytelling ability has taken her from fist pumping with the Jersey Shore gang to flying first class with Alicia Keys and ultimately to sunny Los Angeles, where she is now the supervising producer at BuzzFeed’s Pero Like, the Latinx content platform.
“I just wanted to write something and have a byline,” said Tirado of her earliest aspirations. “I was open to anything.”
That included working as an editorial assistant at Quick and Simple, “a weekly mag no one had ever heard of,” according to Tirado, who parlayed that into an online editing job at Martha Stewart and columns at both Latina and Time Out. In 2010, friends nudged her to apply to be the head blogger at “I Am Super Woman,” a site Keys was launching. She beat out 8,500 applicants, flying first class to London with Keys as the final part of the audition.
“The universe prevailed, and I got the job. I was on Good Morning America and they announced me as their head blogger. Alicia is one of those really good people,” said Tirado, adding that the experience “changed the trajectory of my career.”
Soon MTV called with a role in their office of public affairs producing videos and blogs. Instead of interviewing celebs about the clothing they wore or who they were dating, Tirado asked about the issues they cared about and their nonprofit work.
“We always said public affairs was the vegetables on the cheese pizza — good for you,” Tirado said.
“I worked on those infamous (2013) Video Music Awards with Robin Thicke and Miley Cyrus, and I got to hang out with the Jersey Shore gang. I worked on the 2012 election and when Hurricane Sandy hit, we did a telethon.”
Another perk was her daily elevator ride: “I’ve shared an elevator with Yoko Ono.”
Univision then tapped Tirado, who is half Puerto Rican and half Salvadoran, to launch a Latino-centric site called Flama. The site was short-lived but laid the foundation for her next move.
“Those types of platforms just didn’t exist when I was a kid. The first time I saw someone like myself on TV was J.Lo as a Fly Girl” on the show In Living Color, she added.
After working at UpWorthy, a site about social change, Tirado swapped apartments with a friend in LA with the intention of finding a job. She gave herself two months. And two days before she was due to leave the West Coast, BuzzFeed called. She began working there in June 2017.
Nowadays, she is helming Pero Like’s programming, including its YouTube channels, and she recently helped produce panels at SXSW and Sundance.
“I love working behind the scenes and seeing things come to life. I believe everyone in the world has an interesting story to tell.”
Tirado has weathered layoffs and uncertainty, but she’s survived and thrived with her grit, sense of humor, and extreme optimism.
“You can get paid to be creative. If you want to do that, know there will be failures. It comes with a lot of holes that you’ll trip into,” she said, adding, “You can take the safer route, but the road less taken felt like the most comfortable to me.”
Kirsten Fleming ’00 is senior features reporter for the New York Post.
