Michelle Trachtenberg Was a True Millennial Pop Culture Icon

Michelle Trachtenberg passed away on Wednesday, Feb. 26 at the age of 39. If you grew up in the ’90s, you probably saw her in something and she was probably very charming in that something. From Nona to Harriet to Dawn to Georgina, she was a true pop culture icon for millennials. 

As a gay millennial of a certain age, I first saw Trachtenberg in The Adventures of Pete & Pete — a favorite show of mine as a kid. She played Nona Mecklenberg, an overly verbose child who became a staple of the series in the show’s second season.

She quickly became a favorite of mine, holding her own amongst the boys. IMDb lists Nona as her fourth acting credit, but it was her first big role and lead directly to her starring role as the titular character in Harriet the Spy.

As Harriet, she was once again a sassy young girl who suffered no fools and spoke at a vocabulary level higher than the average American voter. She was adorable and whip smart with a face so endearing that she looked like she stepped out of a Disney cartoon. She also decimated her enemies in public, slapped her bully, and talked back to her parents. So, what I’m saying is — she was very fucking cool to kid me.

In 2000, Trachtenberg joined Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a main cast member. She played the role of Dawn Summers, our beloved Slayer’s little sister. She popped up in in one of the show’s best seasons, Season 5, and was the star of one of the show’s most clever plot points. To viewers, it was meant to look like the show had retconned itself with the sudden addition of a second Summers daughter, one that Buffy and the rest of the cast remembered as having always been around. In the timeline of the show, however, she was actually only recently created by monks to protect her — really a magical “key” — from a fabulous hellgod who wanted to unlock the door to a hell dimension.

Dawn was created to be the annoying, bratty kid sister — a thankless role. And while she did often yell and scream (and sometimes steal), Trachtenberg brought a type of energy and sweetness to the role that made you care about her. 

But Dawn often got unfairly maligned by fans who seemed to have forgotten what it was like to be a teen. The year I went to San Diego Comic-Con, there was a Rocky Horror type sing-a-long for the Buffy musical episode “Once More with Feeling.” During any of the Dawn parts, half the crowd would yell “shut up, Dawn” at the screen. My friend and I would yell back at everyone else for them to shut up. I once even wrote a piece called “In Defense of Dawn Summers” for a site that no longer exists after a BuzzFeed poll had Dawn ranked last among the least favorite Buffy characters (beating out Xander Harris, Riley Finn, Principal Snyder, and Parker freakin’ Abrams).

The thing about Dawn Summers (and most characters Trachtenberg played), is that she felt more accurate to what a younger teen would be like than most younger teens we see on TV, let alone on Buffy. Buffy Summers stayed out late fighting literal demons — she never felt like an actual kid. Buffy had a friend group, a mother, and a demonic dating life while Dawn was a teen girl with a journal, no consistent friend group, and both her mother and sister died in the same year. I react poorly when a selfie I post gets only 20 likes. Dawn had plenty of reason to be acting out — more so than most teenagers! And that realness was all Trachtenberg and she brought it to all her roles.

She went from iconic role to iconic role spanning literally the entirety of her life. Post-Buffy, she’d go on to star in movies like Zac Efron’s 17 Again, the comedy Eurotrip, the feel-good ice skating movie Ice Princess, the horror remake Black Christmas, Gregg Araki’s Mysterious Skin, and the romantic comedy Take Me Home Tonight. But her next big, iconic role — and the role a lot of younger folks know her from most — was as the chaos queen of Gossip Girl, Georgina Sparks, a role she even revisited for the short lived Gossip Girl sequel series on HBO.

Trachtenberg had a lot of the same kind of charisma as her Buffy older sister costar Sarah Michelle Gellar. She could do it all and do it all well — the scream queen, the innocent kid, the HBIC, the cool alt girl, and the sidekick. That’s range! There were even rumors she was at the top of the list of characters to return for the recently announced Buffy revival. And while that may have just been a rumor, I loved the idea of seeing an adult Dawn fighting monsters alongside her slayer sister. To have been able to see Dawn get the justice she deserved would’ve been epic. Now, I know however the revival addresses Dawn and her absence, it will make me weep all over again.

While Trachtenberg never quite reached full leading lady stardom as some of her fellow child star peers, she was always working. She also seemed to be one of the few child stars to have avoided controversy later on in life — a feat in itself. Most actors have their one big role that everyone associates them with — Trachtenberg had at least three (Dawn, Harriet, and Georgina) that spanned across her lifetime as well as a plethora of guest starring roles in other well-known properties like Weeds, Six feet Under, House, and Law & Order. Hell, she even got to be in a Fall Out Boy video. She was absolutely a pop-culture staple throughout my lifetime, where she will always remain in my head. 

The outpouring of love and sadness over the loss of Michelle Trachtenberg is very telling. Costars from decades ago like Rose O’Donnell, Kim Catrrall, and Sarah Michelle Gellar to her slightly more recent Gossip Girl costars all have honored her in really lovely ways online. The fans of her as the Slayer’s little sister, the adorable child spy, and more have all be mourning this tremendous loss. She leaves behind a really impressive lengthy filmography and a lot of love.