Teen magazines. Once a young adult book couldn't be finished without a bored teen 'flipping through magazines', now today's teenager would raise their eyes from their iPad and exclaim sarcastically yet innocently 'they flipped through what now?' The very notion of turning pages increasingly alien to them.
As More! Magazine closes its doors/pages for the last time the papers are a-buzz with the head-shaking told you so lesson that people simply go online nowadays. Celebrity gossip, bitchery and opinion can all be got online. But that, as we recall, is not what the noble teen magazine was about. In the days of dial up it was still princess of guidance and affordable fashion. Today we share what we learned from teen magazines...
As More! Magazine closes its doors/pages for the last time the papers are a-buzz with the head-shaking told you so lesson that people simply go online nowadays. Celebrity gossip, bitchery and opinion can all be got online. But that, as we recall, is not what the noble teen magazine was about. In the days of dial up it was still princess of guidance and affordable fashion. Today we share what we learned from teen magazines...
1. I’m not much of a magazine reader. And yet, every so often I realise that a habit I've acquired is the result of something I read in a teen mag many years ago. Rinsing my hair in cold water after washing it to make it shiny (it closes the...shaft? I am a little unclear). Putting on moisturiser or concealer under my eyes using my ring finger as this is the weakest and won’t drag the skin, so I'll get fewer wrinkles. Leaving the very edges of my nails unpainted to make my fingernails look longer and thinner. Do any of them work? I honestly have no idea, but they are as ingrained now as washing my hands before a meal or taking out chewing gum before giving head, another teen mag Top Tip (not really). They're all pretty innocuous, but I do remember following another tip when I was quite young. I'm pale-skinned and freckly - traits I like now but didn't then. Luckily, I had a magazine, ostensibly aimed at teenagers but read by me at 10 and similarly-aged friends, to instruct me how to mix ingredients including lemon juice and vinegar and use them to bleach off my freckles. Hmm. Squeamish Louise
2. As an ex pat in the States, I grew up on a different selection of teen mags. I know I read piles of them, but the only two I can remember are YM and Seventeen, both of which taught me that high school would be the best years of my life, culminating in the night to end all nights - prom. Obviously, they were very, very wrong. The one phrase from my magazines that has stuck with me since adolescence? From an article on dressing for your shape: "A few pounds are what separates curvy from puffy." Honestly? The author was 100 percent right, cruel though the sentiment is. F1 Kate
3. I don't really recall any 90s teen magazines for boys - we went straight from The Beano to FHM (which was a far finer, better written beast back then). That said, I do remember my sister's copies of Just Seventeen (or was it J17?) and More!. They taught me that girls were far, far filthier than boys. FHM (which at that time was aimed at men in their 20s) had 1 sexual position of the month, which was always a humorous, impossible position - the one that sticks in my mind was the Mongolian Clusterfuck, which required 7 or 8 people with olympic level gymnastic skills to pull off. However, every other page of More!/Just Seventeen was a sexual position, story or tip or photo-story. Filthy, filthy ladies. Gareth
4.Teen magazines taught me EVERYTHING. I went to an all girls Catholic school. My best friend up to the age of 12 was a boy but as soon as I turned 13 I couldn't even speak to him without giggling after each sentence. All my new girl friends were as clueless about boys, sex and periods as I was (all late bloomers, what can you do?). So the Sugar problem pages were my only access to information about boys, contraception and my own body. I repeat we were are told NOTHING at my Catholic school. It was quite a bombshell when I found out penises got hard. Squeamish Nicola.
5. Teen magazines used to always have thrifty advice, such as saving an old toothbrush to rub lip balm on dry flaky lips or putting egg in your hair and avocado on your face. J17 agreed with me that bras were hideously uncomfortable and it was best to simply not wear them until necessary (although J17 might have added the caveat that a crop top might, then, be wise to save red faces in the PE changing room). Sugar showed me everyone had embarrassing moments (real people wrote into How Embarrassing, right?) and several features writers taught me that funny women are the best. Or at least spend their lives the most amused. I wanted to be just like Cath in B or Ad in Bliss. Squeamish Kate
2. As an ex pat in the States, I grew up on a different selection of teen mags. I know I read piles of them, but the only two I can remember are YM and Seventeen, both of which taught me that high school would be the best years of my life, culminating in the night to end all nights - prom. Obviously, they were very, very wrong. The one phrase from my magazines that has stuck with me since adolescence? From an article on dressing for your shape: "A few pounds are what separates curvy from puffy." Honestly? The author was 100 percent right, cruel though the sentiment is. F1 Kate
3. I don't really recall any 90s teen magazines for boys - we went straight from The Beano to FHM (which was a far finer, better written beast back then). That said, I do remember my sister's copies of Just Seventeen (or was it J17?) and More!. They taught me that girls were far, far filthier than boys. FHM (which at that time was aimed at men in their 20s) had 1 sexual position of the month, which was always a humorous, impossible position - the one that sticks in my mind was the Mongolian Clusterfuck, which required 7 or 8 people with olympic level gymnastic skills to pull off. However, every other page of More!/Just Seventeen was a sexual position, story or tip or photo-story. Filthy, filthy ladies. Gareth
4.Teen magazines taught me EVERYTHING. I went to an all girls Catholic school. My best friend up to the age of 12 was a boy but as soon as I turned 13 I couldn't even speak to him without giggling after each sentence. All my new girl friends were as clueless about boys, sex and periods as I was (all late bloomers, what can you do?). So the Sugar problem pages were my only access to information about boys, contraception and my own body. I repeat we were are told NOTHING at my Catholic school. It was quite a bombshell when I found out penises got hard. Squeamish Nicola.
5. Teen magazines used to always have thrifty advice, such as saving an old toothbrush to rub lip balm on dry flaky lips or putting egg in your hair and avocado on your face. J17 agreed with me that bras were hideously uncomfortable and it was best to simply not wear them until necessary (although J17 might have added the caveat that a crop top might, then, be wise to save red faces in the PE changing room). Sugar showed me everyone had embarrassing moments (real people wrote into How Embarrassing, right?) and several features writers taught me that funny women are the best. Or at least spend their lives the most amused. I wanted to be just like Cath in B or Ad in Bliss. Squeamish Kate
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