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

Oh I just remembered an embarrassing moment from Shout which was a girl trying to make a cheese toastie in her dad's trouser press and it melting all over the place! And one where the girl lied and said she got cancer to meet her fave boyband (!!!)

There were so many different ones weren't there!!

I loved them - especially when there was a free gift. The more grown up ones never read then at home though.

In the summer I would be shipped off to my grandparents in the West of Ireland and the shop in there village used to sell bundles of them (back copies they didn't sell i presume) for not a lot. I can't for the life if me remember which magazine but I don't know why my grandparents didn't object because they weren't tame!

I recall wondering what the ads in the back pages where about (that were blacked out) now i imagine it was the ads for crisis pregnancy and abortion clinics but in my head they were far raunchier and some exotic sex stuff.😃

Yes to the holiday romance! I used to go to self catering cottage in Cornwall with my family for long cliff walks to deserted beaches, I read the ‘what to pack’ sort of features with feelings of inadequacy

Me too. Not much call for a white crochet bikini, sarong and coconut scented sunscreen in North Wales.

At least I was never tempted towards the classic holiday wardrobe staple of white trousers. Because I knew from the Cringe pages that wearing them would somehow inevitably result in me getting a surprise period or shitting myself Probably while in the company of my dreamy holiday crush.

That Kylie cover reminds me that whenever a band went out of fashion they were known as going 'down the dumper'! I had just about every Smash Hits from about 1988 - 1990 but got rid of them. WHY?!

I think I read about 3 copies of "girly" magazines then went back to reading my mums take a break etc.

I preferred reading and the shout etc mags didn't have much to actually read in them.

Does anyone remember Girl magazine from the late 80s/early 90s? I remember it was 50p a week and I was so sad when they stopped making it.

@PhylisNightsIsAwesome was Collette a bit alternative, at one point wore her mum's old waistcoat and some chunky silver rings? It's all sounding so familiar!

I’m pretty sure Vernon Kay got his break modelling for Mizz or More. I remember seeing his photos. Didn’t get the what the fuss was about then, either - I am almost certain he actually won his modelling break in a competition. I vaguely remember having a conversation with someone when he started being on tv, as I had voted for him

Those twins, Keith and Derek, I had that exact picture on my wall. I have identical twin sons now and it kind of grosses me out, that weird pose they're in! I had so many posters. Whenever husband watches some football news on tv I remind him I had a poster of Trevor Sinclair from his West Ham (? I think) days on my wall!

@HmmmmmmInteresting

Does anyone remember Girl magazine from the late 80s/early 90s? I remember it was 50p a week and I was so sad when they stopped making it.

I loved Girl Magazine! Then it merged with My Guy, turned into a photo story Mills and boon and faded away, such a shame!

I remember one of my old friends ditched us for the popular group, who then used that as an excuse to bully us. She wrote to the problem pages Just 17 about how terrible her life was. While her new friends were beating us up.

[quote MustardMitt]@PhylisNightsIsAwesome was Collette a bit alternative, at one point wore her mum's old waistcoat and some chunky silver rings? It's all sounding so familiar!

I’m pretty sure Vernon Kay got his break modelling for Mizz or More. I remember seeing his photos. Didn’t get the what the fuss was about then, either - I am almost certain he actually won his modelling break in a competition. I vaguely remember having a conversation with someone when he started being on tv, as I had voted for him

Those twins, Keith and Derek, I had that exact picture on my wall. I have identical twin sons now and it kind of grosses me out, that weird pose they're in! I had so many posters. Whenever husband watches some football news on tv I remind him I had a poster of Trevor Sinclair from his West Ham (? I think) days on my wall![/quote]
Yes, she did. Her aunty had given a bag of unwanted vintage clothes and she found some funky rings!

Girl magazine was great (for 10-12 year olds, as I was then). It had photo stories that were not all about love and boyfriends. Although some were, but they were very much ‘starter’ romance stories for pre-teens, e.g. girl goes on TV quiz, takes best mate to filming, they stay overnight in a hotel, best mate fancies TV quiz rival (a boy), cops off with him and tells him her friend’s weakest subjects!

I am surprised that it merged with My Guy which was full on “how to get your man at the disco and of course you will be married at age 21”. I was embarrassed to be seen with My Guy. The cover was always a teenage couple in acid washed denim, embracing. I used to sometimes get it with a bundle of mixed back issues from the market, 10p a bundle (late 80s). I can remember a couple of the photo stories:

• girl breaks up with faithful boyfriend after being romanced by flash Harry ‘office hunk’, agreed to marry hunk, boyfriend rescues her on his motorbike outside the church. Absolutely not inspired by The Graduate.

• girls are envious that a rival who does Jane Fonda’s workout gets all the cool boys but they don’t. They embark on a diet and exercise plan, in doing so breaking one of the girls’ collection of glass animals (??!), then emerge swan like in dreadful 1980s Richards Shops frocks before deciding that they should have stuck with the uncool boys.

I ruined my mate's kid sister's illusions when I told her the characters in the photo stories were models and showed her a picture of my cousin (who was in one of them) to prove it. That was in the 1980s. She was 15 and still reminds me of it!

I’ve just recalled another feature from the long-forgotten Catch magazine in 1989.

They took two young female members of the cast of Brookside - don’t know the actresses’ names but it was Sammy Rogers and Tracy Corkhill - shopping in Liverpool with £100 each to see what they bought.

Photographs showed them wandering down the main shopping street dressed to the nines in Dynasty-style tailored outfits. One of them wore a bright green trouser suit with wide legs and a short sleeved double breasted jacket.

I don’t know why this has stuck in my mind when I can barely remember what I ate for dinner on Thursday but anyway, Tracy Corkhill bought an ethnic waistcoat in Oasis for £60 (top dollar in 1989) but later in the day decided that “it looks like a rag, I’m not having it, it’s going back”. She got a frilly white satin blouse instead. They ended up with a random collection of stuff that wasn’t an outfit: rings and so on.

That will be why the magazine folded. Not enough barking mad features like that.

I ruined my mate's kid sister's illusions when I told her the characters in the photo stories were models and showed her a picture of my cousin (who was in one of them) to prove it. That was in the 1980s

Ha! That has reminded me! Girl magazine once ran a feature telling readers to stop writing in asking whether they could be a photo story model. It went a bit like, “sorry girls, the photographers decide who they use and they already know enough photo story models”.

Yay, glad two people remember Girl magazine! That's right, it was quite wholesome compared to other mags, because I remember when they stopped making it I didn't have an alternative because others seemed too old for me.

@Iamthewombat

Girl magazine was great (for 10-12 year olds, as I was then). It had photo stories that were not all about love and boyfriends. Although some were, but they were very much ‘starter’ romance stories for pre-teens, e.g. girl goes on TV quiz, takes best mate to filming, they stay overnight in a hotel, best mate fancies TV quiz rival (a boy), cops off with him and tells him her friend’s weakest subjects!

I am surprised that it merged with My Guy which was full on “how to get your man at the disco and of course you will be married at age 21”. I was embarrassed to be seen with My Guy. The cover was always a teenage couple in acid washed denim, embracing. I used to sometimes get it with a bundle of mixed back issues from the market, 10p a bundle (late 80s). I can remember a couple of the photo stories:

• girl breaks up with faithful boyfriend after being romanced by flash Harry ‘office hunk’, agreed to marry hunk, boyfriend rescues her on his motorbike outside the church. Absolutely not inspired by The Graduate.

• girls are envious that a rival who does Jane Fonda’s workout gets all the cool boys but they don’t. They embark on a diet and exercise plan, in doing so breaking one of the girls’ collection of glass animals (??!), then emerge swan like in dreadful 1980s Richards Shops frocks before deciding that they should have stuck with the uncool boys.

Wow, how do you remember all this?! I think I wrote into the mag once and had something published, just a short paragraph, but I can't for the life of me think what it was. I'm thinking it was towards the beginning of the magazine. Was there a bit where people wrote in, but not long pieces such as an agony aunt column?You'd think I'd keep hold of the issue. I wish I'd kept all my old copies now...would be fun to look back.

I used to love be the photo stories...I think they were my favourite bit!

I've found someone selling some copies!

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

Found a few front covers online from Sneak, hilarious

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.

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!