Early Noughties teen mag ridiculousness

My specific grievance was these mags was them always recommending clothes abs make up you could only buy in london etc which isn't realistic when you live in penzance....the internet has changed a few things mind 😂

I loved shout, sugar and mizz. Good times. I remember I kept a stack of old shout magazines in my room as I obviosuly thought they would come in handy for future reference.

I was 16 in 95. I bought more and shout and mizz over the years. Just 17 was the worst with all its naff language. Boyf and 'rents ffs. It was cringe

I was a teenager in the 90s, I can remember looking at More with friends on a school trip aged about 11 including position of the fortnight, I think I would be horrified now if my 12 year old son was doing that!

I used to love all the magazines - Just Seventeen, Mizz, Sugar. My Mum was never much of a fan of them. I read Smash Hits too for all the boy band type stuff!

I also remember the feature where they stopped people on the street and asked them where they bought their clothes. I always thought most of them looked incredibly cool and nothing like I ever looked, being someone who took a while to find my way style-wise.

I do remember though that the fashion pages in Just Seventeen were pretty strange. Every outfit seemed to be comprised of leggings (years before most people actually wore leggings) and a massive shirt, a bit like how Boy George used to dress back in the day, and nothing like how most girls I knew liked to dress at the time. Weird.

I remember one problem page letter where this girl wanted a cat, her whole family wanted a cat, except for the dad. The advice was that even most of the family wanted one, 'nevertheless your dad is boss'. Even back then there were a few angry letters about the sexism of that in the next issue.

I graduated to Cosmo when I was about 18 and was back to the whole business of being wowed by all the sex talk and thinking it was so sophisticated, not having had sex myself yet. (You can probably tell from these anecdotes that I was a bit of a late bloomer. )

I was a Jackie reader, so wish I had kept a few copies to read back on now.

Although I didn’t consciously recognise it at the time, what most strikes me now is the hypocrisy - the advice sections were all about loving yourself as you are, then the fashion and beauty pages were the same super-thin models month after month. When I come across body-positive Insta accounts etc now I always think how as a (chubby) teen I literally never saw photos of bigger women meant to look attractive or fashionable - maybe some dowdy ‘before’ photo but otherwise nothing...

On a lighter note, I remember J17 had a regular section about DIY/up-cycling clothes, where I learnt how to insert a triangle of extra material into all my jeans to turn them into super trendy (early ‘00s) flares

At the time it seemed very racy but now, compared to the easy availability of porn, it seems very wholesome that young girls had this female centred shared experience to explore their burgeoning womanhood.

The magazines did always encourage you to wait until you were 16 to have sex, and if your 13 year old friend had a 30 year old boyfriend then you were encouraged to tell a trusted adult. Is there anything similar now?

I remember all the 80s ones too - I remember Just 17 starting up and being really exciting. There was this great theory believed as total fact by us all that the letters to the problem pages were actually written by squaddies who spent their spare time making up letters with fictitious sex problems to teen magazines

I remember Cathy! I'm sure she started to straighten her hair if I remember correctly

@GreenandPinkFlowers yes do share! I'm going to see if I can find any too!

I actually still have a magazine from 2005! I think it's Shout. I kept it because a family member has something they wrote published in it. I can share a few pages from it if you like?

Wow this has brought back the time when my dad came home from working away with presents for us all. I was into heavy metal music and dressed accordingly... dyed purple hair, black lipstick and nail varnish, long sleeved band T-shirt’s, camos and army boots. He did alright with my younger brothers, cars and smash hits magazine. Me? I got a copy of mizz and a sylvanian family set 🤣

I loved all those mags, I had Hi when I was about 12/14, mizz, just 17, then More was always handed round the sixth form common room with position of the fortnight.

I have to say though, I learned a lot from those mags. My mum was rather old fashioned about sex, her only advice was 'say no, wait till you're married' so without those mag I would have known nothing about contraception or what was normal about puberty etc.

@BlowDryRat That really made me laugh If that was passed round our staffroom, it would cause great hilarity

70s and 80s in my case. 'Jackie', 'Oh Boy', 'My Guy',

There were Pink, Mates, Blue Jeans, Fab 208 too. And Diana - anyone remember that?

Sitting with my mates at lunch break, dissecting every article. Bliss.

NME was intimidatingly cool - I was more of a Smash Hits girl.

oh the magazines i loved them -i think More was my favourite i thought it was very grown up

never did try position of the week back then

Oh god I remember these.

For all their cringy stuff, they were refreshingly honest in a reasonably age appropriate way. So much easier to understand and relate to that the awkward sanitised version you git from embarrassed parents.

It was actually kinda nice to read about cringeworthy first time moments whee ethe couples ended up laughing and using 6 condoms due to disasters etc

So much more positive and appropriate ti read about than that ice cube trick and what you get now where u have to basically be a porn star in the bedroom.

Oh god yes - I was a teen in the 80's and bought every magazine going. It was always about how to get boys to notice you, how to get him to kiss you, you should practise kissing on a mirror etc 🤮.

And all the BO stuff, we were obsessed! I have a 15 year old teen now and she isn't obsessed with BO. I think it was all a ploy to get us to fork out for gallons of Charlie and Impulse

But I loved them all. I always turned to the problem pages first. Also loved Smash Hits and Look in. I'd love to sit and look at them now and show dd to get her reaction

Oooh does anyone remember cosmoGirl! That one was obsessed with sex, even more than More I think.

i remember more hahaha it was absolutely filthy
i remember being about 12 with my mates reading all the sex bits in the offie cos my mum would’ve had kittens if id have bought that 😂