Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: steffone ever told you production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: And we are back with our unfortunate minute miniseries that
Speaker 2: I have created again. Damn it. I knew. I said
Speaker 2: I wouldn't do it, and it ended up doing it.
Speaker 2: It came from one single idea about southern living and
Speaker 2: then it just spiraled as per usual. But anyway, we
Speaker 2: are back, and this is our ode to teen magazines
Speaker 2: and its history and impact, because y'all it's pretty pretty big.
Speaker 2: The impact is big. Maybe it's because Annie, you and
Speaker 2: I were from the era of teen magazines. And I
Speaker 2: say this because we had a moment in between before
Speaker 2: social media, y'all, Oh my god, where we took a
Speaker 2: lot of advice. I had a lot of our education
Speaker 2: when it came to like sex and makeup and fashion
Speaker 2: and movies. Even that came from big publications that are
Speaker 2: now collectibles. Apparently I should have known this. Why didn't
Speaker 2: I do this?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, old school magazines. I have all the like centerfold outs.
Speaker 2: There are actually some of them are worth the money.
Speaker 2: I came upon an article which I don't really mention
Speaker 2: in here, young young women Today and when I say
Speaker 2: young in like early twenties who loved these and try
Speaker 2: to collect them and talk about how much they wish
Speaker 2: they existed today in its format. And of course I
Speaker 2: don't talk about we don't talk much about about the zines,
Speaker 2: but that was a part of that scene as well,
Speaker 2: when they could not get the content they that they wanted,
Speaker 2: so they created their own very niche content. And we've
Speaker 2: already talked about that. Go back to see that episode.
Speaker 2: But that is a part of that world as well,
Speaker 2: and why we were so heavily the zines came around
Speaker 2: because we were so heavily influenced by magazine send this
Speaker 2: complications and teen magazines are at the top, and I
Speaker 2: didn't I didn't personally get too mini magazines. They were expensive,
Speaker 2: expensive for me in that term. I think I would
Speaker 2: rather had books, but because I was nerdy nerdy, but
Speaker 2: I definitely have memories of sitting in my friend's bedrooms
Speaker 2: as sleepovers, which, by the way, I want to come
Speaker 2: back and talk about sleepovers and how that is not
Speaker 2: not so well anyway. But looking through different magazines which
Speaker 2: had all these amazing quizzes like who is your perfect match?
Speaker 2: And so many others what is your colors? As in fact,
Speaker 2: I went to seventeen magazine, which we are talking about
Speaker 2: pretty good deal in here because they were the first
Speaker 2: actual teen magazines, and we'll get into that, but I
Speaker 2: wanted to go see what their content looked like, because yes,
Speaker 2: they exist and they are thriving. Their medium has changed
Speaker 2: into being online only. I think I think I could
Speaker 2: be wrong. Tell me if there's actual hard copies, because
Speaker 2: there may be. Who knows. I said hard copy, Yeah
Speaker 2: I did. But they still have quizzes on here, and
Speaker 2: they have some from twenty eighteen, including the ultimate Justin
Speaker 2: Bieber Quiz, which I don't think us aged well. As
Speaker 2: a recent They have a quiz on how to become
Speaker 2: an Instagram influencer, how to be famous. They even have
Speaker 2: one about Hannah Montana, also at this point in time,
Speaker 2: has not aged well. And we'll come back to that
Speaker 2: later because not in this episode. That's a whole different
Speaker 2: episode and it's like a rah anyway, But that was
Speaker 2: from twenty eighteen. And there's other quizzes which I did
Speaker 2: pull one that if we have time, we'll do it
Speaker 2: one at the end because we did these before, where
Speaker 2: we you and I Annie did some quizzes, and I
Speaker 2: did link one earlier. We're gonna buy pass that one.
Speaker 2: But like I'm wondering, like if we can pass the
Speaker 2: best friend quiz, which they have. Oh no, I'm interested
Speaker 2: to see because I haven't even opened it. I was
Speaker 2: like trying to wait for the surprise. So if we
Speaker 2: have more time, we'll do it. If not, we'll put
Speaker 2: it as an extra like happy hour maybe maybe on
Speaker 2: the next Happy hour. Even but they still have these quizzes.
Speaker 2: And y'all when we say we love these quizzes, I
Speaker 2: don't know about you, but my age group loved these quizzes.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I feel because you know, Samantha alluded to
Speaker 1: this is what the fourth third episode judgment. Magazine not
Speaker 1: mini series, definitely mini series. So I talked about this before.
Speaker 1: I didn't really have magazines either, and especially not in
Speaker 1: this realm, but I had friends that did, and I
Speaker 1: have friends that still do. Like when we go on
Speaker 1: a trip, like to the beach or something, we'll bring
Speaker 1: these magazines and we'll still take the quizzes kind of jokingly,
Speaker 1: but like they were when we were younger. It was like, oh,
Speaker 1: what is it gonna say about who all ended up with?
Speaker 1: The real like it was very it was a fun
Speaker 1: kind of community activity amongst yes, so because we were
Speaker 1: all answering and kind of giggling about it and like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's so you or whatever.
Speaker 2: But I mean there's a quiz. Yeah, those a quiza
Speaker 2: says what kind of flirt are you? And I was
Speaker 2: tempted to send it to you, but I didn't. I
Speaker 2: didn't But yeah. So obviously with all of that, the
Speaker 2: content has so much uh to and beyond the hair
Speaker 2: and love advice, uh, there would be intriguing articles explaining
Speaker 2: how to get through a bad day, and I specifically
Speaker 2: remember one about a young girl talking about her experience
Speaker 2: in trauma from the years of abuse at the hands
Speaker 2: of her uncle. It was real personal, it was real
Speaker 2: in depth, and the amount of information that teens and
Speaker 2: young adults were able to get from these publications are vast.
Speaker 2: All of it is, ranging from the good, the bad,
Speaker 2: and the educational and not so educational. I will say
Speaker 2: I have heard stories and upon stories about girls learning
Speaker 2: about their periods or how to handle a period, or
Speaker 2: what to use when they start their period, like trying
Speaker 2: to figure out what is normal what is abnormal? Like
Speaker 2: Magazine's really taught us, and I say us as in
Speaker 2: yeahmi too, a lot that we did not learn at
Speaker 2: schools that we did not learn from our parents, much
Speaker 2: like podcasts now Hello that gave us so much information
Speaker 2: that we were missing as teenagers. And as good as
Speaker 2: it is, there's also the bad. But it had a
Speaker 2: huge impact. Teen magazines, to me, was one of the
Speaker 2: forefront of developing young minds in a way that was
Speaker 2: actually smart and very consumable. So we're going to jump
Speaker 2: into the historical context of teen magazines, and much like
Speaker 2: the beginning of women's magazines, teen magazines first started out
Speaker 2: as special forums or sections or columns within other magazines,
Speaker 2: such as the subdeb a page for girls, which was
Speaker 2: introduced in the Ladies Home Journal in the nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2: There were other specific publications but not necessarily available for everyone,
Speaker 2: such as magazines created by the Girl Scouts. They had
Speaker 2: like two or three publications that was specifically four Girl Scouts,
Speaker 2: and there were other magazines with sections for teens and
Speaker 2: women's magazines as well. They kind of had little pamphlets
Speaker 2: that could be taken out of those magazines, and the
Speaker 2: magazines started with general beauty and domestic advice and soon
Speaker 2: led to larger sections that would move to fashion trends
Speaker 2: for young girls, comics, advice columns. And it was in
Speaker 2: nineteen forty four that seventeen magazine debut in the US.
Speaker 2: And by the way, according to one source, the idea
Speaker 2: of teenagers was also starting around at the same time,
Speaker 2: meaning the concept of teenagers as a demographic right.
Speaker 1: So yeah, just a quick explainer on this concept of teenagers.
Speaker 1: Many do you point to the nineteen forties at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the use of the term teenagers with a
Speaker 1: hyphen in between soteen majors. The word is thought to
Speaker 1: have been first in print in a nineteen forty one
Speaker 1: ishue You Have Popular Science monthly, but was actually highlighted
Speaker 1: in the December nineteen forty four edition of Life with
Speaker 1: Photos by Nina Lene in an article titled teenage Girls
Speaker 1: they live in a wonderful world of their own. In it,
Speaker 1: they write, quote, there is a time in the life
Speaker 1: of every American girl when the most important thing in
Speaker 1: the world is to be one of a crowd of
Speaker 1: other girls and to act and speak in dress exactly
Speaker 1: as they do. This is the teen age. Some six
Speaker 1: million US teenage girls live in a world all their own,
Speaker 1: a lovely, gay, enthusiastic, funny, and blissful society almost untouched
Speaker 1: by the war. It is a world of sweaters and
Speaker 1: skirts and bobby socks and loafers, of hair warn long
Speaker 1: of eyeglasses, rooms painted red with nail polish, of high
Speaker 1: school boys not yet gone to war. It is a
Speaker 1: world still devoted to parents who are pals, even if
Speaker 1: they use the telephone too much. It is a world
Speaker 1: of virgils, aided second year French and plain geometry, of
Speaker 1: last place, peeled hockey, moron jokes and put on accents.
Speaker 1: It is a world of slumber parties in the hit
Speaker 1: parade of peanut butter and popcorn, and the endless collecting
Speaker 1: of menus and match covers and little stuffed animals.
Speaker 2: I love the descriptor, like I'm not gonna lie. I
Speaker 2: think it's such a great descriptor. Peanut butter and popcorn.
Speaker 2: Was that a thing? I guess? So, I guess this
Speaker 2: is like the late Depression era, like the I think
Speaker 2: in the middle of So they wanted something much like
Speaker 2: southern living, something idyllic, and for some reason, teenagers really
Speaker 2: hit that nail on the head and it's interesting to
Speaker 2: note when we're talking about this idyllic and interesting, awkward
Speaker 2: life of teenagers, they're typically talking specifically about young girls
Speaker 2: and whether or not they're representing the society appropriately because
Speaker 2: apparently there was the usage of this term teenagers in
Speaker 2: the nineteen twenties, which accompanied the idea of young rebellious
Speaker 2: girls who smoked specifically oh no, dear, oh dear. So
Speaker 2: there is an interesting context with that, right.
Speaker 1: But Yeah, with the birth of this new demographic, it's
Speaker 1: not surprising that publishers wanted to jump into the marketing
Speaker 1: towards young women slash teenagers at the time. With seventeen
Speaker 1: leading the way, the new market jumped straight in going
Speaker 1: after these new age groups, specifically targeting girls in the
Speaker 1: thirteen to nineteen years age range. And with the fact
Speaker 1: that seventeen still exist today, outrunning so many other publications,
Speaker 1: they are one of the longest and more successful teen
Speaker 1: magazines to date.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and here's a bit of history with seventeen magazines specifically,
Speaker 2: and we want to note that seventeen wasn't necessarily the
Speaker 2: first magazine for young women, but the age range for
Speaker 2: the other magazines like Mademoiselle, which was published in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty five, was still geared toward young women in college
Speaker 2: and not to those who were considered teenagers so prett
Speaker 2: much in high school or middle school. But it is
Speaker 2: something to remember that similar strategies were used to pull
Speaker 2: in subscribers and they realize the potential in consumership and
Speaker 2: capitalism with their teenage readers. So seventeen magazine, which is
Speaker 2: owned by Hurst Magazine, was originally suggested by editor Helen Valentine,
Speaker 2: who helped give young teen girls working women role models
Speaker 2: and gave helpful information to improve themselves personally, professionally and socially.
Speaker 2: Before its first publication, they used the then popular comic
Speaker 2: strip titled Tina, which was created by cartoonist Hilda Terry.
Speaker 2: So the comic ran from nineteen forty four to nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty three and was a huge proponent on Sunday comic
Speaker 2: Strip and was successful for the almost twenty year run.
Speaker 2: Apparently she's done like actual TV shows, I think, so
Speaker 2: interesting fact out there and when I say Tina is
Speaker 2: tee Ina and yes it is a play on the
Speaker 2: word teens. So with the help of the comic, the
Speaker 2: company was able to promote the magazine to advertisers and
Speaker 2: was able to secure them for their publication, and they
Speaker 2: made sure to take the time to try to understand
Speaker 2: their audiences by surveying teen girls from nineteen forty five
Speaker 2: to nineteen forty six, and were able to use that
Speaker 2: information to make the magazine more successful for the audios
Speaker 2: and the advertisers.
Speaker 1: In an article written for Sammy's World dot com, they
Speaker 1: write seventeen was successful from the onset because it tapped
Speaker 1: into teenage anxieties and vulnerabilities while delivering its ideal reader
Speaker 1: to massive advertising companies. Through seventeen, Helen Valentine, its founder,
Speaker 1: hoped to create a magazine that would quote treat teenage
Speaker 1: girls seriously and respect their emotional and intellectual needs in
Speaker 1: addition to helping them choose their first lipstick. In its
Speaker 1: first issue, seventeen vowed to help teenagers make sense of
Speaker 1: their identity, but before doing so, they introduced businessmen and
Speaker 1: advertisers to American teenage girl consumers. As Masoni writes, seventeen
Speaker 1: also promoted the teen girl through its education of adults,
Speaker 1: particularly those in the advertising and retail industries. Because the
Speaker 1: magazine could not succeed without the financial support of advertisers.
Speaker 1: Selling businesses on the idea of the teen girl as
Speaker 1: a consumer was among the first task at hand. By
Speaker 1: appealing to funders prior to teenage audiences, seventeen positioned itself
Speaker 1: to meet the needs of the markets movers and shakers
Speaker 1: before establishing a relationship with its readers. The foundation of
Speaker 1: the magazine's success was built with full understanding of the
Speaker 1: growing needs of businesses to sell products coupled with the
Speaker 1: growing emotional needs of teenage girls. Seventeen methodically and expertly
Speaker 1: knew how to harness and hook the powerful consumers businessmen
Speaker 1: and teenage girls alike among its readership.
Speaker 2: Right, And I feel like this has been a secret
Speaker 2: that people keep forgetting and re relearning.
Speaker 1: You don't know, it's sook every time we do an
Speaker 1: episode about fangirls and suddenly people are like, wow, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they support stuff and make money.
Speaker 2: Oh they buy things. I forgot it, yes, because this
Speaker 2: was in nineteen forties, and you know, even before then,
Speaker 2: because we've had this common station when it comes to
Speaker 2: women in the magazine's and purchasing powered who has it,
Speaker 2: It's been young girls. So it's kind of like we
Speaker 2: have to relearn, reinvive the will here. So the launch
Speaker 2: of the magazine was seen as a success, and in
Speaker 2: its inaugural edition, they did what many of other publications didn't,
Speaker 2: which has introduced themselves and their intent in giving teen
Speaker 2: girls ownership of this magazine, so allowing for feelings of
Speaker 2: being seen and understood and given some credit to wanting
Speaker 2: to be a part of something. Teen girls were excited
Speaker 2: to see something that was tailored for them that Samy's
Speaker 2: World article rights. It takes reading only a few pages
Speaker 2: of the original September nineteen forty four issue of seventeen
Speaker 2: to see that, unlike Vogue are Harper's Bazaar, the magazine
Speaker 2: unabashedly tries to forge emotional connections to teenage girls and
Speaker 2: teenage girls exclusively, and.
Speaker 1: It continues in the accompanying letter of the first issue,
Speaker 1: entitled seventeen says Hello, Valentine makes her intent with seventeen
Speaker 1: very clear to readers. Quote, seventeen is your magazine, high
Speaker 1: school girls of America, all yours. It is interested only
Speaker 1: in you and everything that concerns, excites a noise, pleases
Speaker 1: or perplexes you. Valentine notes that while seventeen was interested
Speaker 1: in how you dress, how you feel and how you look,
Speaker 1: what you do, and what you think, all of which
Speaker 1: became different categories in seventeen's table of contents, they were
Speaker 1: most interested in what you are. Are you tense and
Speaker 1: ill at ease or comfortable and relaxed. Have you a
Speaker 1: chip on your shoulder or a smile on your lips?
Speaker 1: Are you interested only in yourself and your closest family
Speaker 1: and friends, or do you care what happens to people
Speaker 1: you'll never see. You're going to have to run this show,
Speaker 1: so the sooner you start thinking about it, the better.
Speaker 1: In a world that is changing as quickly and profoundly
Speaker 1: as ours is, we hope to provide a clearinghouse for
Speaker 1: your ideas.
Speaker 2: So that is a brilliant, brilliant scheme, especially in the
Speaker 2: nineteen forties when women in general are being listened to.
Speaker 2: But to have teenage girls who are even less important. Wow,
Speaker 2: this was screaming, come here, you're welcome, buy things from us,
Speaker 2: you can trust us.
Speaker 1: And also just a reminder, this was before the internet.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people sometimes we forget that,
Speaker 1: but at the time this was like, oh wow, other
Speaker 1: people like me. It was kind of like an early
Speaker 1: version of that connection we get through the internet.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I think it was important that we have
Speaker 3: focused on specific magazines in each of our episodes because
Speaker 3: they were kind of the marker of the beginning of
Speaker 3: something huge, obviously, and they were able to establish a concrete.
Speaker 2: Base for this. But it was interesting because see in
Speaker 2: that first article, they also had a picture and which
Speaker 2: if you ever get a chance to look it up,
Speaker 2: you should, and I believe it depicts two young girls
Speaker 2: with an older woman and it says happy Birthday, seventeen.
Speaker 2: And they did this on purpose again to show you,
Speaker 2: to actually give you a legit picture of what this
Speaker 2: looks like with her welcoming you into their family. So
Speaker 2: it's very, very, very fascinating. Valentine was able to show
Speaker 2: advertisers the freshew market of teens and how they were
Speaker 2: ready for something that was created just for them. So
Speaker 2: seventeen was only the beginning. Many others soon followed, but
Speaker 2: wasn't until really the fifties that the magazines boomed. Get
Speaker 2: it boomed, boomers, you get yeah, yeah, we're good. And
Speaker 2: though magazines like seventeen were successful with appealing to the
Speaker 2: young ladies and teenagers in their search for fashion and society.
Speaker 2: Other magazines soon appeared, which were the gossip and celebrity magazines,
Speaker 2: which hit the scenes quickly after.
Speaker 1: Here's a quote from Encyclopedia dot Com. Nineteen fifties gossip
Speaker 1: magazines such as teen, Parade and hebcats saw working class readers,
Speaker 1: while seventeen emphasized fashion, dating and early marriage. And for
Speaker 1: some more details about the birth of these magazines, here's
Speaker 1: what Mental Foss wrote about it in their article titled
Speaker 1: A Dreamy History of teen Idol Magazines Just for You quote.
Speaker 1: The idea of pandering to fans of clean cut performers
Speaker 1: with breathless magazine prose can be traced back to Elvis Presley.
Speaker 1: In the late nineteen fifties, magazines like sixteen went from
Speaker 1: printing song lyrics to relaying details of what it might
Speaker 1: be like to date the King Kruner, Pat Boone, or
Speaker 1: actor Tap Hunter. When the Beatles arrived stateside in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, the ensuing pandemonium flowed into what was quickly
Speaker 1: becoming a subgenre of publishing, teen idol worship.
Speaker 2: Right and they continue. Charles Laffer took notice, a journalism
Speaker 2: and English teacher at Beverly Hills High School. Laffer thought
Speaker 2: a magazine devoted to teen interest would be a success.
Speaker 2: He launched Coaster, a regional publication for Long Beach locals,
Speaker 2: in the nineteen fifties. It didn't succeed until he realized
Speaker 2: his mistake. Boys don't want to sit down and read
Speaker 2: about celebrity lifestyles. Girls do. Lawfer renamed the magazine teen
Speaker 2: and watched it grow into a hit before leaving to
Speaker 2: start Tiger Beat in nineteen sixty five. His timing was fortuitous.
Speaker 2: The Monkeys were just beginning to explode in popularity, and
Speaker 2: Tiger Beat saw its circulation rise when it profiled the
Speaker 2: fun loving group. Laffer sold Monkeys fan club memberships, posters,
Speaker 2: and books before he sold the Tiger Beat itself to
Speaker 2: the Harlequin Romance House in nineteen seventy eight for twelve
Speaker 2: million dollars. Yeah, I okay, So I am an old
Speaker 2: soul and I loved old, old movies. I probably watched
Speaker 2: way too many Elvis movies. This was before I was
Speaker 2: learned about him and realized how awful he was. Sorry
Speaker 2: to those who love Elvis as well as I watched
Speaker 2: all of like the Beach movies. I don't know, Frankie
Speaker 2: and Annette loved them, loved them, and this was like
Speaker 2: right after their Mouseketeer years. I don't know what what's
Speaker 2: with me? I barely really loved old school American culture
Speaker 2: during those times, which is hilarious because I would have
Speaker 2: never been welcomed in that era of time. But I
Speaker 2: loved loved those and my mother when I would ask
Speaker 2: her about the things that she loved, because she thought
Speaker 2: it was fascinating that I loved all these old movies
Speaker 2: and that I really got into them. Because she would
Speaker 2: give me a collection of old musicals, which still like
Speaker 2: looking back on, like these are really problematic movies, but
Speaker 2: I loved them. What's wrong with me? Anyway? But one
Speaker 2: of her favorites was the Monkeys, and for some reason,
Speaker 2: when she talked about them, I watched the shows which
Speaker 2: had the monkeys because they had their own show and
Speaker 2: it was actually pretty good, like to a kid, and
Speaker 2: that's what I thought. I was a kid. And she
Speaker 2: talked about how much she loved them, and she loved Ozma,
Speaker 2: Donnie Ozma. Who didn't I guess during that time and
Speaker 2: then like these magazines did pop into my head. I
Speaker 2: remembered them though I never owned them. I never saw them.
Speaker 2: I don't think my parents owned them. I don't know why,
Speaker 2: but I knew these magazines because it was so big, right.
Speaker 2: But with that, and yes, again my mother was a
Speaker 2: part of this fandom, a new era of fandom began.
Speaker 2: And Annie, I think it's about time that you really
Speaker 2: revealed to all of us Ryan Gosling story. Oh dear well.
Speaker 1: So, I had a huge crush on Ryan Gossling when
Speaker 1: I was nine. He was in the show Young Hercules.
Speaker 1: I would record it every day at three point thirty
Speaker 1: and then I would rewatch it. I still have all
Speaker 1: the VHS tapes because I didn't know what to do
Speaker 1: with them, bab though I recently got my hands on Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm on disc three, and I'm like, I can
Speaker 1: see why Young we liked this so much.
Speaker 2: I just saw Zena being advertised on a streaming network,
Speaker 2: I think at Amazon.
Speaker 1: I think. So I'm confused because someone told me that
Speaker 1: Young Hercules is on Hulu and it definitely isn't. But
Speaker 1: I believe Zena had Xena definitely had more power than
Speaker 1: Young Heracules did. They were in the same universe, but
Speaker 1: it was fifty episodes. I loved it. I had a
Speaker 1: huge crush on him. So I had this lunch box
Speaker 1: that said Reese on it because it was like a
Speaker 1: Reese candy box. And I put all of my magazine
Speaker 1: clippings from Ryan Gossling in this box. And this is
Speaker 1: the most embarrassing part. Had one of those talkback things.
Speaker 1: It's like what they'd had in Home Alone too, but
Speaker 1: it was way cheaper, like it could only record like
Speaker 1: ten seconds. Oh go okay, yeah yeah, And it was
Speaker 1: like the size of my hand. But I recorded him.
Speaker 1: There's a scene early on in this first season he
Speaker 1: says I love you to his mother and I recorded
Speaker 1: it and I would play it at night. But the
Speaker 1: worst part is that I would go to said sleep
Speaker 1: but everyone knew I loved drawing Gossling like it was
Speaker 1: everyone knew it. I just would talk about it all
Speaker 1: the time. So I would go to sleepover and I'd
Speaker 1: bring this box with me and I would play it.
Speaker 1: I went to bed around other people, Samantha, and I
Speaker 1: have my magazine clippings. I feel like, look at this.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering, like, outside of the friends you talked to today,
Speaker 2: because you do talk to several of yours whol friends.
Speaker 2: I wonder what those other girls or other people, if
Speaker 2: they have this memory of you.
Speaker 1: There is one party in particular. I'm like, I'm sure they.
Speaker 2: Remember that, but you know, I don't think it's that
Speaker 2: just shows a whole different level of it, like dedication,
Speaker 2: and if they weren't making fun of you, then they
Speaker 2: agreed with you and or they were doing something similar
Speaker 2: or this was absolutely yeah normal to them.
Speaker 1: One night I was at she was a slightly more
Speaker 1: popular girl than me. That sounds so mean. She was
Speaker 1: more popular than me. I was just shocked. I get
Speaker 1: invited to her party and her grandmother was there. Who
Speaker 1: needed me? This nice blanket that I still have.
Speaker 2: Her.
Speaker 1: Somehow it came up and we were sitting in a
Speaker 1: group and it felt like an intervention, and they're like,
Speaker 1: what is with this Ryan Gosling box and this whole thing?
Speaker 1: And I remember just like telling them all of these
Speaker 1: thoughts and I had my box.
Speaker 2: You know, you really haven't changed that much. It's just
Speaker 2: now about the last of us Star Wars and some video.
Speaker 1: Okay, so up to be honest, the Star Wars box
Speaker 1: at your place, Oh.
Speaker 2: And you come in with your robots, you come in
Speaker 2: all dressed in gear like you've been ready. I don't
Speaker 2: think it like you are you and this is just
Speaker 2: this is just about right for your personality and I
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad I appreciate that. But it was definitely
Speaker 1: like I would buy magazines if I knew he.
Speaker 2: Was in right. And I don't think you're the only one.
Speaker 1: No, I think a lot of us did. I think
Speaker 1: like because again they were expensive, like to get a
Speaker 1: subscription was expensive, but I could afford like one issue
Speaker 1: right of one thing, and then I would cut it out.
Speaker 2: And I think up until recently, like I remember seeing
Speaker 2: books that are dedicated our books, magazines that are dedicated
Speaker 2: specifically two fandoms that were to one fandom. We've bought
Speaker 2: I bought you, and you bought yourself, and several other
Speaker 2: people bought you. The Star Wars edition of Time. Was
Speaker 2: it time? Yeah, Time because of the anniversary. And then
Speaker 2: I saw when One Directions were big, they had their
Speaker 2: own magazines in sync. We kind of mentioned them later,
Speaker 2: like had their own magazines. They had very detailed magazines,
Speaker 2: including their you know the age old question, what is
Speaker 2: your ideal date? What is your ideal girl? All these things,
Speaker 2: which was bad lied all the way through that thing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: poor dude. He did his bus. He did what he
Speaker 2: had to do. But yeah, like people love these types
Speaker 2: of magazines and they are They're good that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah they are. It's funny because when I go
Speaker 1: I recently bought a Star Wars magazine, and it was
Speaker 1: kind of embarrassing because I have like my Star Wars
Speaker 1: shopping bag and I was wearing like my Star Wars
Speaker 1: shirt and then I bought by Star Wars magazine. It's like, well, sorry,
Speaker 1: I am so yes, So going back to the main
Speaker 1: timeline now that I've shared my story for my trying,
Speaker 1: thank you. Yes, there were, though there were so many
Speaker 1: of these magazines starting to saturate the market, the business
Speaker 1: was still six scessful. Here's a quote from Remind magazine
Speaker 1: from Eric Kohani's article, quote, teen magazines have fed youthful
Speaker 1: fan frenzy for decades. Teen magazines have always capitalized on
Speaker 1: phonetic fan frenzy, and their business models have always basically
Speaker 1: been the same, focus on what has long been a
Speaker 1: coveted demographic, young and primarily female consumers unafraid to swoon
Speaker 1: over their favorite music and TV idols. An eager to
Speaker 1: feast on celebrity gossip and pin up photos with such
Speaker 1: titles as teen World, Flip Fave and more. Teen zines
Speaker 1: ligne the shelves of bookstores and newsstands everywhere, attracting readers
Speaker 1: with colorful covers and attention grabbing headlines like Monkey Dating Secrets,
Speaker 1: Donnie's First State Are even Beatles Secret wild Picks. The
Speaker 1: publications always zoomed in on teen idols, TV and music
Speaker 1: stars like Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Annette Finicello, Sondrade, Bobby Darren,
Speaker 1: The Monkeys, Donnie Osmond, David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman. The list
Speaker 1: goes on and on, and as far as graphic design went,
Speaker 1: vivid colors were usually the order of the day. A
Speaker 1: wide variety of typefaces would litter virtually every inch of
Speaker 1: the magazine covers, and close cropped headshots mounted on cartoon
Speaker 1: bodies were a cheesy but common gimmick.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, all the things that I can remember
Speaker 2: they have, like the bubble lettering, Yeah, that infamous bubble
Speaker 2: lettering and you knew what it was, uh yeah, Oh
Speaker 2: my goodness. And of course we got different magazines based
Speaker 2: on quality, some of them were paper, but some of
Speaker 2: them were like glossy, so you had to pay for
Speaker 2: the glossy version of people. I guess you still do
Speaker 2: you technically. So with all these magazines finding success, there
Speaker 2: was fierce competition and getting the right celebrity on the
Speaker 2: cover of the magazines, and the level of starvedom could
Speaker 2: be measured to who was being featured. Stories of celebrities
Speaker 2: hanging around the offices at the beginning of their career,
Speaker 2: to celebrities trying to remain far away from the covers
Speaker 2: of the teeny Bob for publications to show that they
Speaker 2: were quote serious. Actors were a part of this industry.
Speaker 1: However, with its popularity really hitting in the seventies, the
Speaker 1: overall business eventually did die down. Here's another quote from
Speaker 1: the mental Flass article. At its peak in the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: Tiger Beat and its sister publications reached roughly two million
Speaker 1: readers a month. Others got by on as little as
Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty five thousand paid copies sold. The
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties diversified with titles like teen People on Sassy
Speaker 1: publications that brought a stronger editorial voice to readers and
Speaker 1: eased up on the kind of copy that didn't exactly
Speaker 1: enable feminism sail away with Ralph Macchio. In the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 1: The popularity of the Backstreet Boys and n Sync helped
Speaker 1: keep Tiger Beat and the others afloat, but not for long.
Speaker 1: The Internet and social media excised the middleman, allowing stars
Speaker 1: to control their exposure and deliver calculated glimpses into their
Speaker 1: lives without teen Beat interfering.
Speaker 2: Right, But even with this popularity waning during its heyday,
Speaker 2: they thrived. In the seventies, they were popular, and soon
Speaker 2: the industry realized its success and started to widen the grounds.
Speaker 2: In the sixties and seventies, publishers started releasing team magazines
Speaker 2: for people of color, specifically like the black community. Some
Speaker 2: of them included Write on Black, Bead and Word Up.
Speaker 2: Here's a bit about the growth and history of black
Speaker 2: team magazines from the University of Missouri. Black magazines for
Speaker 2: children and teenagers started out with the focus on black heritage,
Speaker 2: arising out of the politically charged atmosphere of the nineteen
Speaker 2: sixties and seventies. At issue was the need for magazines
Speaker 2: that praised, rather than condemning, black history, and that offered
Speaker 2: children role models in the black community. Like the discourse
Speaker 2: around black hair, these magazines often gradually drifted away from
Speaker 2: their original purpose and gained broader audiences, particularly if and
Speaker 2: when they focused on products of black culture like music
Speaker 2: or art, rather than specific Black individuals. Included in the
Speaker 2: gallery are magazines from nineteen seventy three to nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 2: starting with the educational Ebony Junior and continuing to more
Speaker 2: teen centric magazines that did not exclusively target a black audience.
Speaker 2: Perhaps telling, none of the magazines included in this gallery
Speaker 2: had particularly long run times.
Speaker 1: Magazine for Boys were also published and still are, but
Speaker 1: the numbers are not too high. In fact, trying to
Speaker 1: find specific publications and articles about the history of that
Speaker 1: is not really readily available. Publications like Dirt, which was
Speaker 1: released in nineteen ninety one with the emphasis on sports, music, movies,
Speaker 1: and others, but it did not last too long.
Speaker 2: There are a few, and we found a few, but
Speaker 2: they didn't people don't talk about it. Essentially. One of
Speaker 2: the first things that I did read when small publications
Speaker 2: were coming out or specific columns were coming out, they
Speaker 2: would just imply that the regular Life magazine were for
Speaker 2: boys or the regular National geographics were for boys, so
Speaker 2: it was interesting and very telling about what they saw
Speaker 2: and much like what we talked about with Lafer Boys
Speaker 2: and pay Well. So there's that The overall success of
Speaker 2: these magazines were huge, and when that comes controversies. Studies
Speaker 2: have come out showing that overall effects of these magazines
Speaker 2: for young girls and women. Many argued that these types
Speaker 2: of content was not only damaging to the self esteem
Speaker 2: of young developing girls and teens, but also very dangerous
Speaker 2: for them, including being overly sexualized from a young age
Speaker 2: or being told to be sexual. I have also we
Speaker 2: have also ran into many articles condemning all of these magazines.
Speaker 2: Saw one specifically about seventeen recently like a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago, and how damaging it was and she would
Speaker 2: never allow for her teenage girls to look at them,
Speaker 2: which is fine again, I get that, and a lot
Speaker 2: of conversations about how they felt like those magazines ruined
Speaker 2: them as adults now and agoers. Many have accused them
Speaker 2: of teaching unhealthy gender stereotypes and causing damage for many generations.
Speaker 2: And like many magazines and similar publications, they often focus
Speaker 2: on stereotypical ideas, so when it comes to women, and
Speaker 2: young girls and beyond that, criticizing them into buying their
Speaker 2: way into perfection, and unfortunately, many teen magazines followed suit.
Speaker 1: In a research article within the published book titled Body Image,
Speaker 1: they write specifically about the effects of such magazines titled
Speaker 1: Grooming ten year Old's Gender Stereotypes. A content analysis of
Speaker 1: preteen and teen girl magazines and here's a quote. Mainstream magazines,
Speaker 1: defined as those published by major media conglomerates in containing
Speaker 1: commercial advertising, primarily feature women in stereotypically feminine roles or
Speaker 1: as sexual objects. Content analyzes have found that these magazines
Speaker 1: depict predominantly young Caucasian women with increasingly thin body types,
Speaker 1: frequently displayed partially clothed and in sexual or submissive positions.
Speaker 1: Similar have been found in mainstream magazines aimed at teenage viewers.
Speaker 1: Content analyses of these magazines, eg. Seventeen, demonstrate that general
Speaker 1: appearance and body problems are primary topics. For example, a
Speaker 1: study of seventeen magazine found that girls' bodies are depicted
Speaker 1: and described as problems that require maintenance to fix. Acne,
Speaker 1: hair odour, and hip slash. Thy fat are targeted as
Speaker 1: undesirable and unattractive features that require extensive body maintenance routines
Speaker 1: to eliminate this Emphasis on appearance has been a dominant
Speaker 1: focus in seventeen since at least the early nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: constituting approximately half of the magazine's content in nineteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, and nineteen eighty five. In addition, the
Speaker 1: presence of dieting and exercise information has significantly increased in
Speaker 1: mainstream teen girl magazines over the last fifty years, suggesting
Speaker 1: that these magazines increasingly focus on solutions to appearance based problems.
Speaker 2: Of course, with this in mind, we have to acknowledge
Speaker 2: the way young people and girls specifically internalize these types
Speaker 2: of ideas. Here's another quote from that research article. Several
Speaker 2: studies have found that adolescent girls internalize media body ideals
Speaker 2: to a greater degree and higher rates of body dissatisfaction
Speaker 2: compared to adolescent boys. Experimental research has also shown that
Speaker 2: exposure to magazine images of models predicts lower body satisfaction
Speaker 2: and self esteem in adolescent girls. Even girls as young
Speaker 2: as five show these patterns. These findings suggest that girls,
Speaker 2: unlike boys, may begin to internalize cultural beauty standards portrayed
Speaker 2: in media at a young age. And continue to do
Speaker 2: so throughout development. So with the amount of meat content
Speaker 2: young people consume, it isn't surprising to see how big
Speaker 2: of an effect these kind of images can leave. And yeah,
Speaker 2: again we are examples of this. We came from an
Speaker 2: era of seeing tiny, tiny, tiny women and being told
Speaker 2: if we're not this, then we're not worth their toime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then being solved those products to make yourself
Speaker 1: look that way when probably you never will. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of as genetics, and it's also expensive.
Speaker 2: And for some reason we believe the people who would
Speaker 2: help them. I just remember the Suzanne Summers already, who
Speaker 2: was tiny, tiny, tiny tiny, and she, because of her
Speaker 2: body image, was able to sell thy masters like nobody's business,
Speaker 2: and I believed it. I was really wanted one. Thank
Speaker 2: god I didn't have the money, but I really did
Speaker 2: want one anyway. So, but as a new era of
Speaker 2: publication arose, so did the quality of content, and teen
Speaker 2: magazines and many more in depth articles were starting to
Speaker 2: be published. To be honest, seventeen started in an era
Speaker 2: when young girls started to dream beyond a family and home.
Speaker 2: Valentine's original image as the working woman's role model was
Speaker 2: beyond the gender no norm at the time. Sure it
Speaker 2: was clouded with capitalism and money making schemes, but it
Speaker 2: was an idea that young girls wanted more and would
Speaker 2: develop to be the decision makers when it comes to
Speaker 2: consumership within the home and a little bigger fashion industry.
Speaker 1: This is making me think of a joke that people
Speaker 1: will say about Playboy. I like they read it for
Speaker 1: the articles, so we you know, we didn't even talk
Speaker 1: about that, and the boy.
Speaker 2: We were not talked about. We have not talked about Playboy.
Speaker 2: Dam you Eddie yours? I'm not doing that, all right,
Speaker 2: all right?
Speaker 1: As the teen celeb magazines grew in popularity, other teen
Speaker 1: magazines came out as well. In nineteen eighty eight, we
Speaker 1: had the first counter magazine to seventeen, Sassy Magazine. Here's
Speaker 1: the quote from NPR. Sasse was the antithesis of the
Speaker 1: homecoming Queen, Please Your Boyfriend culture. It published articles about
Speaker 1: suicide and STD while seventeen was still teaching girls how
Speaker 1: to get a void to notice you.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The magazine didn't last too long. It did stop publishing
Speaker 2: in like the nineteen ninety four through nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: There was two different dates, so there it is the
Speaker 2: impact was long lasting. The founder, Sandra Yates, was an
Speaker 2: Australian feminist who sought to bring men meaningful conversation to
Speaker 2: teen magazines that took a bit of a dark look
Speaker 2: at the culture at the time. The magazine was controversial
Speaker 2: enough for groups like Women a Globe, which was an
Speaker 2: evangelical group, to actually call for boycott. And then there's
Speaker 2: Jane Pratt, who was the founding editor of SASE, and
Speaker 2: she would go on to other publications with similar feels,
Speaker 2: including Jane Magazine, which I know the magazine at the
Speaker 2: time really wanted to change the look of teen girls magazines.
Speaker 2: Here's a quote from a Washington Post article written by
Speaker 2: Julia Carpenter which says, devoted readers remember Sassy, Jane and
Speaker 2: other titles that published reporting on politics, feminism, identity and
Speaker 2: more alongside fashion spreads through the nineteen nineties and early
Speaker 2: two thousands. And in the late nineteen nineties we have
Speaker 2: seen more publications talking about the deeper issues at hand
Speaker 2: and even daring to call themselves feminist and asking their
Speaker 2: teen readers are they feminists.
Speaker 1: Here's a quote from the same Washington Post article. Editor
Speaker 1: and writer Brandon Hawley led the charge at Elle Girl
Speaker 1: when herst was first dipping its toes into the teen
Speaker 1: mag business in two thousand and one. She recalls the
Speaker 1: reaction when l Girl ran a cover story titled the
Speaker 1: F Word? Are you a feminist? People were like, oh, feminism,
Speaker 1: she says, adding that she finds it weird that seventeen
Speaker 1: years later, we're still having this conversation. From those early
Speaker 1: days of F word covers, Holly saw the teen magazine
Speaker 1: landscape evolve and push the boundaries of what was considered
Speaker 1: acceptable for teen readers. At Jane, where she worked from
Speaker 1: two thousand and five to two thousand and seven, she
Speaker 1: published reports on gay conversion therapy, SA, on work and money,
Speaker 1: and even a multi page spread of readers submitted nudes
Speaker 1: dubbed the Jane Guide to Breast.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yes, and we still have to ask that question. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's really annoying because I think this article is liked
Speaker 2: from like twenty seventeen. Well, anyway, and when the magazine's
Speaker 2: coming out strong, many others have followed this down the
Speaker 2: same path.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I believe there's been a past episode about
Speaker 1: teen Vogue In's particular when it comes to this. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it wasn't too long ago that we saw changes within
Speaker 1: teen Vogue, countering conservative narratives and defending their rights to
Speaker 1: our autonomy. Here's a quote from that same Washington Post article.
Speaker 1: In December, an online opinion piece headlined Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: gaslighting America appeared in teen Vogue magazine. Within hours, the
Speaker 1: harsh indictment of the then president elect exploded on the Internet,
Speaker 1: comment sections erupted in debate, and egglevators trolled the writer
Speaker 1: teen Vogue Weekend editor Lauren Duka on Twitter. But it
Speaker 1: wasn't just the subject of the article that caused the uproar.
Speaker 1: It was the nature of the publication that it ran in.
Speaker 1: What was the political piece doing in a teen magazine?
Speaker 2: Right? And many magazines have understood the importance of teaching
Speaker 2: young girls and women about topics like these. Even in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight, they began to openly talk about the
Speaker 2: issues at hand. Here's a quote in nineteen ninety eight,
Speaker 2: when she was at Cosmo, girl A. Tusa Rubinstein had
Speaker 2: launched a political series called Cosmo twenty twenty four, named
Speaker 2: for the year when one of the magazine's oldest reader
Speaker 2: could theoretically be elected the first female president which is
Speaker 2: this year. I kind of want to go say we
Speaker 2: have come back to that. Obviously, no, but I'm just saying.
Speaker 2: Rubinstein and Feature seventeen editor and choquette interviewed leaders like
Speaker 2: Madeline Albright, Barbara Walters, and yeah, Donald Trump about the
Speaker 2: paths to professional success. The final Package, a collection of
Speaker 2: advice and essays on success and career building, fit the
Speaker 2: promise in Cosmo Girls tagline Born to Lead, and then
Speaker 2: Rubenstein would go on to lead major similar changes to
Speaker 2: seventeen magazine, again the original a tea magazine.
Speaker 1: The growth of this type of change in these magazines
Speaker 1: has impacted the industry as a whole. Here's a quote
Speaker 1: to end with about the radical but not so radical changes.
Speaker 1: So when Holly thinks about her time at teen magazine
Speaker 1: and their history from El Girl to Jane and now
Speaker 1: to teen Vogue, she thinks about her eight year old
Speaker 1: son's friend, Fiona. Fiona loves lipgoss, but she can also
Speaker 1: ride backward on a surfboard. At the Women's March on
Speaker 1: Washington in January twenty seventeen, she held her own protest sign.
Speaker 1: Girls like Fiona don't need just any magazine, Holly says,
Speaker 1: they need a guide to womanhood that doesn't preach or condescend,
Speaker 1: but instead educates and uplifts and most important reflects the
Speaker 1: girls who are reading it. Teen magazines today are introducing
Speaker 1: girls to feminism that isn't broad burning, which is also cool,
Speaker 1: she said, But you can be feminine and a feminist.
Speaker 2: Right And I think that's really important for looking at publications.
Speaker 2: And yes, we're looking at more online publications more than anything.
Speaker 2: But yes, there are obvious magazines still out and about
Speaker 2: collectibles even if you want and enable to get a
Speaker 2: hold up. But we know that today that kind of
Speaker 2: written medium is getting less and less and less, and
Speaker 2: a lot of magazines have folded throughout the years. We've
Speaker 2: we've seen major histories, things that I the hope we're
Speaker 2: still existing does not exist well, like that's that's one
Speaker 2: of the things I've discovered in this research. But the
Speaker 2: magazines like teen Vogue obviously have played a really important role,
Speaker 2: especially in the last two elections as well as seventeen,
Speaker 2: as well as Jane Magazine. We haven't talked about Miss
Speaker 2: magazine at all. We haven't talked about magazine, which I
Speaker 2: realized that we're gonna have to come back to, but
Speaker 2: I don't. I'm not I'm not going to promise when anyway.
Speaker 2: But all of those things are important. But teen magazines
Speaker 2: have really really changed an atmosphere and the environment in
Speaker 2: general when it comes to young girls and what we've become.
Speaker 2: And it may be things like the nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 2: article which talks about encouraging girls to think about being
Speaker 2: the first female president. Like, all of these things are
Speaker 2: pretty significant in our culture and it shows today why
Speaker 2: we need to pay attention to the historical context and
Speaker 2: what has changed throughout the years.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, absolutely, well listeners, If you have any memories
Speaker 1: with teen magazines, any thoughts, if you had a shrine
Speaker 1: of your own perhaps, or any collectible issues, let us know.
Speaker 1: You can email us at Stephaniamomsteph at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom step Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or on TikTok and Instagram at steff when ever told
Speaker 1: you we have a tea public store and we have
Speaker 1: a book you can get wherever you get your books.
Speaker 1: Thanks is always too, super producer Christina, executive producer and
Speaker 1: our contributor Joey.
Speaker 2: Thank you and thanks to you for listening.
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