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

Male model Steve for anyone who wants to remembers how gorgeous he looked. Now I look at that and think he looks like a meh teenage boy.

She probably looked utterly ridiculous...

Unfortunately not, she looked gorgeous and about 25.

Omg I remember Mizz and Shout, I used to get them every week until I was old enough for Sugar and Bliss 😂

@Laggartha I remember Zoe Finds Out! There was a while series of them. I remember the cover blurb was all, like, "Steve likes Amy who's got a crush on Dave who's angry at Lina for stealing from Sara who's sleeping with Danny who's going to be mad when... ZOE FINDS OUT"

Diary of a Crush was so dramatic and brilliant. I think Dylan had to come and rescue Edie from the fancy hotel because Carter tried to spike her drink or rape her or something? I genuinely almost named my daughter Edie after her, they were such a formative experience for me!

Snort at the article "Dad removed my naval [sic] stud with pliers." Was that a sailor boyfriend he disapproved of?

@BalloonSlayer 😂😂

I bought Smash Hits well into my University years. The writers were obviously way older than their audience so it had a double-bluff sense of humour running through it.

By that time I’d moved on to reading Cosmopolitan and DM read it once. She put it face-up at the sex advice page, sighed and spoke the immortal words: “Nothing new under the sun, my dear!”.

No idea where SHE got her sex advice in the 1950s....

Which magazine realised how much teen girls love a good flow chart or multiple choice quiz and had about 7 of them per issue?

I also remember a free set of tarot cards. What a time to be alive.

I remember Leslie Ash as a teenager used to do almost all of the fashion modelling in the teen mags of the late 70s/80s. I think she had a twin sister (Debbie Ash??) who also did modelling but only Leslie went into acting.

A girl in my class used to do modelling for the photostories etc. 40 years on she is still amazingly beautiful.

@peachgreen that was it!

And they had a summer edition book of DOAC where Edie and Dylan do a road trip across America. It was amazing. Edie nearly died and Dylan met his dad who lived on a ‘gator farm or something and they nearly got married in Vegas. It was superb

Haven't read all of the messages but I read Mizz, Shout, My Guy etc and progressed to More and Just17. I definitely feel that it influenced me very heavily to be sexually active before I was ready. The message I got was that as long as it was consensual and you used contraception, go for it! I had incredibly low self esteem and poor self worth as a teenager and had sex with the first boy who took any interest in me. I did it to get my virginity out of the way and felt very much that 'this is what you do'. I really feel that the magazines played a big part in it. In saying that, they were very informative in terms of the mechanics of sex and getting pregnant and clearly laid out how you couldn't get pregnant from a swimming pool. Those agony haunts must have been wetting themselves at some of the questions they got!

Absolutely brilliant idea for a thread OPoh gosh how I loved Just 17 and all the rest. Funnily enough I was talking to my 12 year old DD today about those mags and how her generation have no interest in them. She can't quite believe that the internet actually Did Not Exist when I was a child LAST CENTURY we had to make do with Smash Hits and co!

I did a beer rinse on my hair once after reading about how shiny it makes your hair look in I think (sugar) magazine?

Zoe Finds Out! I remember that! They lived on an island and she had an affair behind her blind boyfriend’s back. In fact, I think the guy she had an affair with (Lucas?) caused the accident which blinded the boyfriend??!

I remember Mizz magazine used to feature two twin make models who I thought were gorgeous. I’ve just looked them up and they’re called Keith and Derek Brewer. They don’t look like a Keith or Derek.

Male models not make

I remember there was one magazine (I think 'More' ?) that had 'Position of the week' I'm not sure I fully understood it! Even now I'm not sure I'd benefit

There used to be a pen pal section in My Guy. A friend of a bloke I worked with sent his photo in with a short message, for a joke. My co-worker got home from holiday and couldn't get his front door open because of 550 letters on his doormat.

He brought some of them in to work to show us. The vulnerability of young girls! Imagine what a predator could have done with the names and addresses of 550 young girls. (shudder). Luckily he was a good guy.

He still got the occasional letter a couple of years later.

No idea where SHE got her sex advice in the 1950s....

My mum who was a teenager in the 1950s once told me she learned about sex through her parents' 'Readers' Digest' magazines.

Yes! So many memories reading this thread. Bliss, Sugar, J17 for me in the 90s. I read them religiously. I thought they would teach me what I needed to know about being a girl. Sometimes More but that definitely felt more adult.

And get on Instagram, 90steenmagazineaechiveuk shares these!

@MidSummersNightmare

I was a teenager in the 90s. One particular article I remember was about how to look good when sunbathing on the beach. Their top tip was to dig a recess in the sand to put your bum and thighs in so the fat doesn’t get squashed out to the sides and therefore you look thinner.

Genius! I’m totally going to try this 😂

I used to work on some of these magazines in the 80s and 90s. It was such good fun and the stories weren’t made up! My first job was sorting the huge amount of mail we got in and eventually I ended up writing features and going on photo shoots. I’ve met so many of the male models. They seemed very immature to me as I was in my twenties by then. Used to get loads of free make up and records too!

Thankyou so much to whoever mentioned the Just 17 male models. I had completely forgotten about them. My favourite was Malcolm. I've just Googled him, it has taken me right back to the posters I had in my bedroom. If it hadn't been for this thread I would never have thought about Malcolm again.

It was More that had position of the fortnight because it was a fortnightly magazine.

I used to love all of them.
I used to get annoyed by the make up tips though.
‘Blonde hair, fair skin and blue eyes? These colours for you.’
‘Dark hair and dark eyes? You’ll want this’

But I’ve got very pale skin, very dark hair and blue eyes. No tips for me. (Or indeed any girls who weren’t white).

I have extremely straight hair too and no amount of defusers and mouse was going to change that.

Might have already been mentioned, apologies if so.
Jackie magazine had a free gift. An amazing belt. It was a paper tape measure to show off your 22" waist. First part in one issue was a clear, flat plastic tube that you fed the first half of the paper tape measure into, then the next week was the 2nd half of the paper tape measure. The buckle bit showed off the tiny inches of your waist. Voila! A boy enticing wrinkled wonky tape measure belt. Awesome!