Early Noughties teen mag ridiculousness

[SmidgenofaPigeon]

Does anyone remember the little nuggets if totally ridiculous advice they’d give you in teen magazines?

I used to be an avid reader of Shout! magazine. The main goal of these magazines seemed to be being popular and having boys notice you obviously, and were filled with totally mad tips on how to achieve these things and not be a ‘geek’ who wasn’t interested. Which is totally inappropriate advice these days, happily.

I remember one was ‘if you are invited to a party, arrive late and leave early! You are a social butterfly who has had to squeeze the party in between other engagements’

Happily I HAD been invited to a party in my local pub function room that very weekend! I spent a long time applying glitter hair mascara to my fringe to make it clump together attractively (why) and I think I even had on one of those fetching skirt with trousers combos with a vest top from Tammy girl. I got my dad to drive round the block a bit so I could try to be late, but it didn’t take very long and I think I turned up at ten minutes after the start time. I had a few dances to All Saints and Steps and drank a couple of cans of Coke and an hour before it was due to finish, I did a big show of having to rush off.

Now, we lived in a very small town. There was NO WAY any other parties were happening on the same night. But desperately trying to stick to my social butterfly narrative I said goodbye and off I went.

I sat round the corner in the bus shelter until it was time to get picked up. While everyone else was having a nice time at the party

What a knob! When I got to school on the Monday everyone was saying it was rude to leave the party early and I felt like such an idiot.

Can anyone remember any more of the ridiculous things they used to spout in these magazines? I’d love to get my hands one now as I think it would be hilarious

Can anyone remember in one of the ‘90s or possibly early 2000s mags there was a serial of stories that carried on each week, and they published some full-length books to carry them on? I can’t remember what it was called but I remember the main character was Edie and her friends were Mya, Nat and Trent (I think Nat and Trent might have been a gay couple). I’d love to find it again but I can’t seem to find anything if I search.

God I loved those mags. When we were about 12, my friend and I used to make up problems for the problem pages and try and get them published - I remember one about getting a tampon stuck and all the ‘hilarious’ ways we’d tried to get it out. In reality, we’d probably never even seen a tampon at that age 🙄

I remembered one of them recently. One of those 'real story'
It was about a sister and brother falling in love and having sex, but all was okay in the end because they were adopted (parents hadn't told them)
How none of those adults stopped it makes me wonder how bad were the stories that didn't get published

This was in France, and incest have been really much in the media since the beginning of the year, they call it 'metooincest', so I hope today it wouldn't happen

Other that this particular story, the general vibe was the same: being slim, hairless and docile for those men

I remember the stories with Edie, it was in just 17. They went to Paris and something awful happened with the guy she liked. What was his name? They were all cool art students.

I remember one about a girl with a snotty nose who tried to put a tampon up her nose so her crush wouldnt be grossed out 🤣

@Baboutheocelot that’s Diary of a Crush isn’t it? Sarah Manning or something like that.

@Baboutheocelot yes! Was he called Dylan? I remember the Paris story, I think that was in one of the books.

Aw man, love this thread #nostalgia
I don't have any stories but yes, some of the advice was daft lol.
Although I mainly read Just Seventeen, Hi! and Blue Jeans

Yep Dylan. Then she had a thing with someone called Carter but he was horrible.

I used to read sugar magazine and also an Irish teen magazine called kiss. Kissing tips, walking in heels tips, first time sex advice. Really makes me cringe now.

One article I remember was 'how to pull a toff on your hols' and also 'how to get away with make up at school'

@SmidgenofaPigeon it was Diary of a Crush, I’ve just found it! Thank you

I remember one that had an agony aunt and an agony uncle. A boy wrote to the uncle because he had had a row with his girlfriend and pushed her over, and she had dumped him. He wanted to know how to get her back. The uncle, who was a young man, told him he deserved to lose her and ic he didn't learn to treat women with respect and without violence, and control himself, he would find himself a lonely old man. At the time I thought it was very harsh (with my own father's violence being normalised at home and blamed on me) but now I think how brilliant he was, and I wish I had taken it more to heart.

Yes, diary of a crush where she got a new boyfriend who was horrible, who had an also horrible stepsister and they were clearly based on the SMG and RP characters in Cruel Intentions! The boy did something horrible but it was all ok as Edie ended up back together with dreamy Dylan we a result.

@ExhaustedGrinch
I also enjoyed More but I was too nervous to buy it because I was quite young, so after leaving the shop one day I asked my older friend who I was with to go back in and get me More ... she came back out with more crisps, I should have been more specific!

Brilliant

Ooh i remember diary of a crush!
all boys were ‘lads’
clear mascara was the answer to everything makeup dilemma
i got a pair of free silver sandals (actual sandals!) with j17 once, that was my summer look from about 2001-2002

Author Mike Gayle used to be an agony uncle for Bliss magazine.

Loving this thread! Loved shout, mizz was a bit shit! Loved more and sugar!

Still read company, bliss, Cosmo until I was about 23 I think

I remember getting a book of scary true stories from shout and one was about a girl who's friend ended up locked in a room and she screaming but the door wouldn't open and her friend refused to even talk about what happened in the room! And other about a girl who's Walkman (remember them?) started playing a demonic sounding voice randomly whilst she was listening to her tapes. I didn't wear headphones for years after that!

Slightly off topic but all this 90s nostalgia made me think of this... heaven for me at about 14 would have been a copy of sugar magazine, a bag full of sweets from the corner shop and watching this... good times... (not sure if this link will work, apologies if not!)

I remember the agony aunts from Jackie mag they were called Cathy and Claire. In the early seventies my friend chucked her bag at me from the loo in a disco to hold it for her. A letter from Cathy and Claire fell out and I read it. The reply said something like “Well, she is obviously not your best friend if she is chatting up your boyfriend”. OMG I had just chatted up her boyfriend and realised she had written about me!!!

I’ve just thought of something else! I remember in Cathy’s problem page once a teenage girl and her boyfriend had been caught by her little sister, he was taking her bra off. The problem was the boyfriend was due to go on holiday with the girlfriend’s family and didn’t want to tell his parents why he was no longer allowed to go. Cathy’s sage advice? Lie and say he was just tightening the straps for you!

Mammy- that story about the locked room scared me for years! I would carry my baby sister upstairs with me if I thought no one was up there so I wouldn’t be on my own!

One ‘true’ story I remember (I think it was in shout) was about a girl who was mean to her sister and then her sister had a car accident and died and the girl felt guilty about the last things she had said to her. I remember feeling devastated for the girl. to this day, I hope it was made up!

I was a teenager in the 80s. I just used to read Smash Hits, then NME. I wasn't in the slightest bit interested in silly articles about make-up and boys.

However: Just 17 etc might have been a pile of poo, but I'd still rather have that than the pressure on teenage girls now. My youngest DC is 16, and I don't envy her growing up with social media, 'small waist/pretty face/big ass' messages, etc, etc, etc.

Compared to that, tips for how to apply your pink and brown eyeshadow seem pretty harmless.

Diary of a Crush! Wasn't there one where they all went to a music festival and she ended up in a fancy hotel at the end - I think she'd made the rich boyfriend pay for it.

80s teen here.
I was a goth and should have been sitting reading MNE for light reading after an afternoon studying Marxism. (like my gothy mates)

However - alongside my Sisters of Mercy, Cult and Bauhaus i loved a bit of Kylie Minogue and a copy of Jackie every now and again. All on the quiet of course

For some reason i vividly remember reading about Kissing A Boy And How to Handle It When It Happens.

How to look into his eyes and tilt your head - yeah ok .... gently let you lips touch his, then when it's over lay your head on his shoulder and close your eyes ...

really? Even if you're in the middle of West Ken high st?

And - pay close attention - wear a fluffy jumper. Boys like to touch and stroke soft things ....

Sigh. Once again, a clash with my goth vibe

The best freebies were the lip glosses and the hair springs that cost more than my pocket money in Claire's Accessories.