Early Noughties teen mag ridiculousness

I love this thread! I was a teenager until 1995 & used to read J-17, Mizz, More.
One of my friends won an Elite Model competition at 16 & was featured in J-17 modelling clothes.

Also read music publications like Melody Maker, Select & Mixmag...

I remember Jackie, my Guy, Mates, Blue Jeans and Fab 208. I used to share Smash Hits with my brother .

A little older Just 17 and Company.

Don't think I remember Diana.

I have rummaged around in my spare room and found my copy of Catch! Sadly I don’t have any of my other ‘90s magazines.

It’s from May 1994. I’d have been 15. I think I kept it as it has a feature on “men in uniform” and features two actors from The Bill who I liked. For a magazine which features a lot of older teenagers and young adults, there’s no mention of sex. It’s published by DC Thomson who I think are/were quite a conservative company.

The articles include: “My boyfriend’s in prison”; a feature about whether you should live together before marriage (seems dated for the mid ‘90s); “What your undies reveal” – a feature all about what your underwear says about you; an article about jealous boyfriends and one about a girl whose friend tried to kill herself. Cheerful stuff. That one also includes the method she attempted which wouldn’t be allowed now.

There are also a couple of makeover features (one where the two women are insurance clerks), some very odd fashion (lots of expensive leggings), I think one of the models is Keeley Hawes, and the ubiquitous smashed up make-up (I’d never noticed that before!). I was thinking that the clothes pictured are a similar price to what they are now. I suppose this reflects the fact that clothes these days are actually pretty cheap.

The clubbing feature is “Spotlight on Wakefield” at the Roof Top Gardens. There’s also a career feature on becoming a P.E teacher. The woman featured is 23 but looks at least 10-20 years older!

Really enjoying reading this thread. I used to love reading the problem pages.

I also remember a real life feature where 2 girls had fallen out as one was copying the other one, buying all the same clothes, and it came to a head when they turned up to a party dressed identically including jewellery Etc. They’d got both girls to write their side of the story, and had a photo of the 2 of them at the party dressed the same scowling at each other. I always wondered how they’d got both girls to write in if they were no longer talking, and how odd it was that the girls had posed like that. I now realise, of course, the photo was models, and most likely the story was entirely made up too 🤦‍♀️

@SmidgenofaPigeon yes, it was a lot of fun! Well, by 2010 the true life stories were definitely all made up. I had to brainstorm a load of different titles and then they picked a handful and asked me to write them. I remember getting the magazines when I was a child though and some of the true life stories had little photos and bios attached, so they might have been real. As a rule of thumb though, if it says ‘names have been changed to protect identity/ as told to...journalist’s name’ then I think they’re made up.

Writing the cringes was great, too - a lot of ‘bog roll caught on my kitten heel! CRINGE!’ stuff. Such a joy to write but also SO hugely dated. I definitely fulfilled a childhood dream by writing for them though.

I don’t think there’s really a space for being able to write for children in the same way at all now - it’s a shame, because it was great!

Really loving this thread - the memories are making me smile so much!

I remember free ‘nail transfers’ with mizz back in c.1999. Loved those. Also a neon pink ‘handkerchief top’ made out of a piece of nylon. So great! Fab way to snare your top crush...

Sneak! That was the other one!

I used to love Sneak. Every Tuesday morning I used to pick it up on the way to school when I went for my usual pop/sweets/crisps

@AlexaStop I couldn't remember what it was called yesterday! I LOVED Sneak. It was my favourite. Apparently it only ran for four years - I feel so lucky that it happened to be from when I was 13-18 and could enjoy it!

I remember the quizzes!
They were like a flowchart thing and you answered various questions to get to your final answer at the bottom. Probably to see if you were pretty or not

Sneak! That was the other one!

Oh, the memories this threat has recovered 💖 I Ioved Sugar and Bliss - anyone remember the quizzes?!

I used to get so excited when the new issues came out.

I used to like:
Shout
Mizz
Bliss
Cosmo Girl
Smash hits
J-17
Sneak

I love your story OP No doubt I read the same “advice”!

Sats = days

Emma Willis was also a model in those SATs and who featured a lot in Mizz/J17. I think she was often photographed with Malcolm/Cassius. I was very jealous!

Absolutely love this thread! I did a week of work experience at mizz in 2010 during a university holiday.

I spent the whole week writing the true life stories (scandalous! Loved my ‘As told to SourWatermelonFizz bylines) and cringes, and also wrote some flowcharts, quizzes and features - one was called: ‘You’re dumped! What to do when your best mate gets a new boyf and dumps you as her bestie.’

It felt very dated even then, though - the magazine was still written using all the same language and references of a decade before, when I’d been reading them as a child. I think unfortunately they just weren’t really able to keep up with the pace that everything was changing at. It had a very small staff and the office was in a trade/retail magazine group building in Tonbridge Wells at that point - they’d moved out of London for cheaper rent. A lot of the writing was done for free by interns.

I felt really sad when the magazine folded a few years later, but I wasn’t surprised. There was just so much nostalgia attached to it!

I was reading these mags I'm the 89s and 90s and, like others, I remember them being purely about the importance of attracting boys. One 'top tip' I vividly remember (don't know whether it was in J17, Mizz or More!) was that, in order to sneakily have sex with your boyfriend in public, you should wear a long skirt and sit on his knee, them you'd be able to do it without anyone knowing Wrong on so many levels.

Found a few front covers online from Sneak, hilarious

Love this thread. Another mag I remember was called Sneak, haven't seen it mentioned yet. Crazy ridiculousness, I remember reading an article (can you really call it that?) about all the Christmas party sex you'll definitely be having and what to wear, and 14 year old me felt very sad not to have any xmas parties to go to.

This thread is amazing. It's reminded me of so many things and made me laugh out loud loads, my dh keeps laughing at me after I told him some of these, although is a bit horrified at some of it as he has daughters and the thought of them reading some of it 😂

I just looked up shout and I think it's still going! Looks different obviously

I used to love the problem page, true stories which were always really dramatic, the feature of stopping people in the street to ask where their clothes are from, they always looked really cool and I'd imagine it was me. I'd forgotten about mate, date or slate and the photo stories, and the crazy sex positions which I then thought was normal, love it!

Nobody has mentioned this but I always remember on the cringe pages there would ALWAYS be a story of a girl who had done a wee or had some period blood or something come out in the swimming pool and a huge red ring would form around her to let everyone in the pool know? Usually in front of a crush or something. I believed the thing about getting a red ring around you in a pool for years after reading so many of them in the cringe section.

Living the nostalgia in this thread! I remember one magazine, possibly j-17? Doing a series of summer beauty tips based on your horoscope - mine was to squirt a thick line of sun cream down your zig zag parting?! Luckily I never tried it, I think I would have had greasy hair for weeks 😆. Also remember sneakily reading 19 magazine when I was about 13, there was a lot of sex based articles! I remember thinking it would be so cool to be 19 that when I actually was 19 it was a bit of a letdown.

I read Girl and I think Jackie and then went on to Just Seventeen (before its J17 days). I have a vivid memory of a problem being published on the problem page by two girls complaining about their creepy music teacher, giving identifying details ('he's Belgian and he's a sex maniac' IIRC), and obviously getting the response to report him. Then a few weeks later an apology appearing on the problem page telling us that the letter had been sent in my 'two schoolgirls as a prank' and regretting the distress caused. I wonder how they got found out and what sort of trouble the two of them got into.

Yes to 'sex under 16 is illegal' across the bottom of the problem pages. Which is a bit of a misrepresentation of what the age of consent it - there'd have been girls imagining they could get into legal trouble.

Wish I'd kept my copies of Sugar, think I had pretty much every issue between 1999 and 2003. I read Biss sometimes too and Mizz before that.

I've found someone selling some copies!