Tobi Vail
This celebrity goo was created by Scott Hardie.
publication date: Tuesday, March 10, 2026 (part of March 2026)
category: 
Music
clue: Her deodorant inspired Kurt Cobain's biggest hit, her zine about angry grrls could have started a riot, and she's been killing it on stage in her feminist band since 1990.
explanation: Vail was a key figure in the music scene of Washington circa 1990, and continues to perform with Bikini Kill today. Her article about "Angry Grrls" in a zine led to her deliberately misspelled word being incorporated into "Riot Grrl" as a term in feminist punk rock. When she briefly dated Cobain, one of her bandmates left a taunting message about him smelling like her deodorant, inspiring him to write the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit." more…
intended difficulty: medium
solved by: no one!
trivia: Most players guessed Vail's Bikini Kill bandmate, who is the one that wrote "Kurt smells like Teen Spirit" on a mirror to mock Cobain, and who is also associated with the riot grrl movement. While Scott did not set out to mislead any players (hence the intended difficulty rating), he did notice while creating the goo that searching online for the clue typically returned Vail's bandmate as the first result, especially when using AI-based search tools. He wondered how many players would trust that first result, and how many would pick up on its incompatibility with the wording of the clue and dig deeper.
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